Department of

Electrical and Electronic Engineering (EEE)

Course Code : CSE 2125/ EEE 170

Course Title : Computer Programing
Lecture No. : 4
Semester : Spring-2024

Course Teacher : Niaz Mostakim

Designation : Assistant Professor, EEE

Atish Dipankar University of

Science and Technology (ADUST)
Fundamentals of Python:
First Programs

Chapter 1: Introduction
 Objectives

After completing this chapter, you will be able to:

•Describe the basic features of an algorithm
•Explain how hardware and software collaborate in a
computer’s architecture
•Give a brief history of computing
•Compose and run a simple Python program

Fundamentals of Python: First Programs 3

 Fundamentals of Computer Science:
Algorithms and Information Processing

• Computer science focuses on a broad set of interrelated ideas

• Two of the most basic ones are:
• Algorithms
• Information processing

Fundamentals of Python: First Programs 4

 Algorithms
•Steps for subtracting two numbers:
•Step 1: Write down the numbers, with larger number
above smaller one, digits column-aligned from right
•Step 2: Start with rightmost column of digits and work
your way left through the various columns
•Step 3: Write down difference between the digits in
the current column of digits, borrowing a 1 from the
top number’s next column to the left if necessary
•Step 4: If there is no next column to the left, stop
•Otherwise, move to column to the left; go to Step 3
•The computing agent is a human being

Fundamentals of Python: First Programs 5

 Algorithms (continued)

•Sequence of steps that describes each of these

computational processes is called an algorithm
•Features of an algorithm:
•Consists of a finite number of instructions
•Each individual instruction is well defined
•Describes a process that eventually halts after
arriving at a solution to a problem
•Solves a general class of problems

Fundamentals of Python: First Programs 6

 Information Processing

•Information is also commonly referred to as data

•In carrying out the instructions of an algorithm,
computing agent manipulates information
•Starts with input produces output
•The algorithms that describe information processing
can also be represented as information

Fundamentals of Python: First Programs 7

 The Structure of a Modern Computer
System
•A modern computer system consists of hardware and
software
•Hardware: physical devices required to execute
algorithms
•Software: set of these algorithms, represented as
programs in particular programming languages

Fundamentals of Python: First Programs 8

 Computer Hardware

•Computers can also communicate with the external

world through various ports that connect them to
networks and to other devices

Fundamentals of Python: First Programs 9

Computer Hardware (continued)

•Random access memory (RAM) is also called internal or

primary
•External or secondary memory can be magnetic,
semiconductor, or optical

Fundamentals of Python: First Programs 10

 Computer Software
•A program stored in computer memory must be
represented in binary digits, or machine code
•A loader takes a set of machine language instructions
as input and loads them into the appropriate memory
locations
•The most important example of system software is a
computer’s operating system
•Some important parts: file system, user interfaces
(terminal-based or GUIs)
•Applications include Web browsers, games, etc.

Fundamentals of Python: First Programs 11

Computer Software (continued)

Fundamentals of Python: First Programs 12

A Not-So-Brief History of
Computing Systems

Fundamentals of Python: First Programs 13

 A Not-So-Brief History of
Computing Systems (continued)

Fundamentals of Python: First Programs 14

 Before Electronic Digital Computers

•“Algorithm” comes from Muhammad ibn Musa

Al-Khawarizmi, a Persian mathematician
•Euclid developed an algorithm for computing the greatest
common divisor of two numbers
•The abacus also appeared in ancient times
•Blaise Pascal (1623–1662): built one of the first
mechanical devices to automate addition
•Joseph Jacquard (1752–1834): designed and constructed
a machine that automated weaving
•Charles Babbage (1792–1871): conceived Analytical
Engine

Fundamentals of Python: First Programs 15

 Before Electronic Digital Computers
(continued)
•Herman Hollerith (1860–1929): developed a
machine that automated data processing for the
U.S. Census
•One of the founders of company that became
IBM
•George Boole (1815–1864): developed Boolean
logic
•Alan Turing (1912–1954): explored the
theoretical foundations and limits of algorithms
and computation

Fundamentals of Python: First Programs 16

 The First Electronic Digital Computers
(1940–1950)
• Late 1930s: Claude Shannon wrote paper titled “A Symbolic
Analysis of Relay and Switching Circuits”
• 1940s:
• Mark I (electromechanical)
• ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator)
• ABC (Atanasoff-Berry Computer)
• Colossus by a group working under Alan Turing
• John von Neumann: first memory-stored programs
• Mainframe computers consisted of vacuum tubes, wires, and
plugs, and filled entire rooms

Fundamentals of Python: First Programs 17

 The First Programming Languages
(1950–1965)
•The first assembly languages had operations like
ADD and OUTPUT
•Programmers entered mnemonic codes for operations at
keypunch machine
•Card reader—translated holes in cards to patterns in
computer’s memory
•Assembler—translated application programs in memory
to machine code
•High-level programming languages: FORTRAN, LISP,
COBOL
•common feature: abstraction

Fundamentals of Python: First Programs 18

 Integrated Circuits, Interaction, and
Timesharing (1965–1975)
• Late 1950s: vacuum tube gave way to transistor
• Transistor is solid-state device
• Early 1960s: integrated circuit enabled smaller, faster, less
expensive hardware components
• Moore’s Law: processing speed and storage capacity of HW will increase
and cost will decrease by approximately a factor of 2 every 18 months
• Minicomputers appeared
• Processing evolved from batch processing time-sharing
concurrent

Fundamentals of Python: First Programs 19

 Personal Computing and Networks
(1975–1990)
•Late 1960s: Douglas Engelbart
•First pointing device (mouse) and software to represent
windows, icons, and pull-down menus on a bit-mapped
display screen
•Member of team that developed Alto (Xerox PARC)
•1975: Altair, first mass-produced personal computer
•With Intel’s 8080 processor, first microcomputer chip
•Early 1980s: Gates and Allen build MS-DOS
•Bob Metcalfe created Ethernet, used in LANs
•ARPANET grew into what we call Internet

Fundamentals of Python: First Programs 20

 Consultation, Communication, and
Ubiquitous Computing (1990–Present)
• Optical storage media developed for mass storage
• Virtual reality: capacity to create lifelike 3-D animations of
whole-environments
• Computing is becoming ubiquitous, yet less visible
• Berners-Lee at CERN created WWW
• Based on concepts of hypermedia
• HTTP: Hypertext Transfer Protocol
• HTML: Hypertext Markup Language

Fundamentals of Python: First Programs 21

 Getting Started with Python
Programming
• Early 1990s: Guido van Rossum
• invented the Python programming language
• Python is a high-level, general-purpose programming language
for solving problems on modern computer systems
• Useful resources at www.python.org

Fundamentals of Python: First Programs 22

 Running Code in the Interactive Shell

•Python is an interpreted language

•Simple Python expressions and statements can be run
in the shell
•Easiest way to open a Python shell is to launch the
IDLE
•To quit, select the window’s close box or press
Control+D
•Shell is useful for:
•Experimenting with short expressions or
statements
•Consulting the documentation

Fundamentals of Python: First Programs 23

Running Code in the Interactive Shell
(continued)

Fundamentals of Python: First Programs 24

 Input, Processing, and Output
•Programs usually accept inputs from a source, process
them, and output results to a destination
•In terminal-based interactive programs, these are the
keyboard and terminal display

Fundamentals of Python: First Programs 25

Input, Processing, and Output (cont’d)

Fundamentals of Python: First Programs 26

Editing, Saving, and Running a Script

• Select New Window from the File Menu

• Type your Python Source Code.
• Use the File Menu, then Save using the .py extension
• We can then run Python program files or scripts within IDLE
• Run Menu, then Run Module or press F5 (Windows)
• Running a script from IDLE allows you to construct some
complex programs, test them, and save them in program
libraries to reuse or share with others

Fundamentals of Python: First Programs 27

Editing, Saving, and Running a Script
(continued)

Fundamentals of Python: First Programs 28

Editing, Saving, and Running a Script
(continued)

myprogram.py

Fundamentals of Python: First Programs 29

 Behind the Scenes:
How Python Works

Fundamentals of Python: First Programs 30

 Detecting and Correcting Syntax Errors

•Programmers inevitably make typographical errors when

editing programs, called syntax errors
•The Python interpreter will usually detect these
•Syntax: rules for forming sentences in a language
•When Python encounters a syntax error in a program, it
halts execution with an error message

Fundamentals of Python: First Programs 31

 Program Comments and Doc strings

• Docstring example:

• End-of-line comment example:

Fundamentals of Python: First Programs 32

Detecting and Correcting Syntax Errors
(continued)

Fundamentals of Python: First Programs 33

Summary

• Fundamental ideas of computer science

• The algorithm
• Information processing
• Real computing agents can be constructed out of hardware
devices
• CPU, memory, and input and output devices
• Some real computers are specialized for a small set of tasks,
whereas a desktop or laptop computer is a general-purpose
problem-solving machine

Fundamentals of Python: First Programs 34

Summary (continued)

• Software provides the means whereby different algorithms can

be run on a general-purpose hardware device
• Written in programming languages
• Languages such as Python are high-level
• Interpreter translates a Python program to a lower-level form
that can be executed on a real computer
• Python shell provides a command prompt for evaluating and
viewing the results of Python expressions and statements

Fundamentals of Python: First Programs 35

Summary (continued)

•IDLE is an integrated development environment that

allows the programmer to save programs in files and
load them into a shell for testing
•Python scripts are programs that are saved in files and
run from a terminal command prompt
•When a Python program is executed, it is translated into
byte code
•Sent to PVM for further interpretation and execution
•Syntax: set of rules for forming correct expressions and
statements in a programming language

Fundamentals of Python: First Programs 36