#cs101

herro, volrt. 

hey, my name’s dale. but no one’s listening, and no one cares. but if you’re reading this, then you’re reading this. 

i think i’m just gonna use this tumblr to talk about some random stuff whenever. i don’t really know yet. maybe some human some where will be able to relate. and maybe not. probably not. but maybe. did i already say that?

Goal: Draw general lessons about how to solve problems.

How do you get started? What’s the first step?

Make sure you understand the problem. What does it mean to understand computational problems? All computational problems have inputs and a desired output in common.

All computational problems have these things in common:

A possible set of inputs

A desired output

The solution is to find a procedure that takes any input from the possible set and correctly produces the desired output.

So, the first step in understanding the problem is to know what the possible inputs are.

The “zeroth” rule is: DON’T PANIC. (Too late! Coding kicks my butt!)

The first rule is: WHAT ARE THE INPUTS? What is the set of valid inputs? Also, to be a “defensive programmer”, your procedure should check to make sure the inputs are valid. How are the inputs represented?

The second rule is: WHAT ARE THE OUTPUTS?

The third rule is: SOLVE THE PROBLEM! (Easy, right?) Understand the rules. Work out some examples by hand. Write some pseudocode. How would a human solve this?

The fourth rule is: FIND A SIMPLE MECHANICAL SOLUTION. Try to find a simple mechanical solution, but don’t worry about optimizing right away. How would a machine solve this? (You can use “brute force” methods, initially, before optimizing.)

Hint: Break a complex problem into many smaller problems and write helper procedures to “eat the elephant” one bite at a time.

The fifth rule is: DEVELOP INCREMENTALLY AND SOLVE AS YOU GO. Use code stubs that you know are wrong, test, then change a bit and re-test.

This isn't web development related, however it falls in line with my current MOOC theme.  Hands down the best primer on programming that I've received so far was the same one as is given to every Harvard student that passes through the school's CS101 course.  

C might not be the current programming language of choice, however out of ever single course that I've taken thus far on Java, C, Python, Ruby, etc...this is the one that's actually taught me the most.  While I don't ever intend to become a full-fledged programmer (I prefer web development) I firmly believe that if you have any interest in programming, web development, or web design at all...this is a course you should take.  Best of all, it's free (and when I took it came with a few gb of free dropbox space halfway through the course).

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How Computers Store Data - CS101 - Udacity