Beginning Programming All-in-One For Dummies

Introduction 1 About This Book 1 Foolish Assumptions 2 Icons Used in This Book 2 Beyond the Book 3 Where to Go from Here 3 Book 1: Getting Started with Programming 5 Chapter 1: Getting Started Programming a Computer 7 How Computer Programming Works 8 Identifying the problem 8 Defining the steps 9 The History of Computer Programming 10 Talking to a processor in machine language 11 Using assembly language as a shortcut to machine language 12 Hiding the details of a computer with a high-level language 15 Combining the best of both worlds with the C programming language 15 Weighing the pros and cons of programming languages 16 Figuring Out Programming 18 Desire beats technical training every time 19 Picking a computer and an operating system 19 Writing programs with an editor 21 Converting source code with an assembler or compiler 23 Translating source code with an interpreter 25 Combining a compiler with an interpreter to create p-code 25 Taking the time to understand 26 Chapter 2: Different Methods for Writing Programs 29 Spaghetti Programming 31 Structured Programming 34 The three parts of structured programming 34 Top-down programming 36 Event-Driven Programming 38 Designing a user interface 41 Writing event handlers 42 Writing your program 44 Object-Oriented Programming 44 Isolating data 46 Simplifying modifications 47 Using Protocol-Oriented Programming 49 Design Patterns 50 Chapter 3: Types of Programming Languages 53 Your First Language 54 BASICally disrespected 55 Visual programming with Scratch 56 Programming robots with LEGO Mindstorms 57 Learning object-oriented programming with Alice 57 Programming a killer robot 58 Curly-Bracket Languages 60 Learning programming with C 60 Adding object-oriented programming with C++ 62 Gaining true portability with Java 63 Programming more safely with C# 64 Choosing a curly-bracket language 66 Artificial Intelligence Languages 67 Scripting Languages 71 Automating a program 72 Customizing a program 73 Transferring data among multiple programs 74 Creating stand-alone programs 74 Database Programming Languages 75 Comparing Programming Languages 76 Chapter 4: Programming Tools 77 Choosing a Compiler 78 Defining your needs for a compiler 79 Evaluating the technical features of a compiler 80 Finding an Interpreter 84 Compiling to a Virtual Machine 86 Writing a Program with an Editor 88 Stand-alone editors 88 Integrated development environments 90 Fixing a Program with a Debugger 91 Stepping line-by-line 92 Watching variables 95 Saving Time with Third-Party Components 96 Optimizing a Program with a Profiler 97 Managing Source Code 97 Creating a Help File 99 Installing a Program 99 Dissecting Programs with a Disassembler 99 Book 2: Programming Basics 101 Chapter 1: How Programs Work 103 Using Keywords as Building Blocks 105 Organizing a Program 108 Dividing a Program into Subprograms 109 Dividing a Program into Objects 113 Creating a User Interface 115 Chapter 2: Variables, Data Types, and Constants 119 Declaring Variables 120 Variable naming conventions 121 Creating variables in a command 122 Declaring the data type of a variable 124 Using Different Data Types 126 Storing Data in a Variable 130 Retrieving Data from a Variable 132 Using Constant Values 133 Defining the Scope of a Variable 135 Handling global variables with care 136 Restricting scope to a module 137 Isolating variables in a subprogram 138 Passing data among subprograms 139 Chapter 3: Manipulating Data 141 Storing Data with the Assignment Operator 142 Using Math to Manipulate Numbers 143 Organizing equations with operator precedence 144 Using built-in math functions 146 Manipulating Strings 147 Finding Strings with Regular Expressions 148 Pattern-matching with the single character (.) wildcard 149 Pattern-matching for specific characters 149 Pattern-matching with the multiple-character (*) and plus (+) wildcards 150 Pattern-matching with ranges 151 Using Comparison Operators 153 Using Boolean Operators 156 Using the Not operator 156 Using the And operator 157 Using the Or operator 158 Using the Xor operator 159 Converting Data Types 160 Chapter 4: Making Decisions by Branching 163 Picking One Choice with the IF-THEN Statement 164 Picking Two Choices with the IF-THEN-ELSE Statement 166 Picking Three or More Choices with the IF-THEN-ELSEIF Statement 168 Checking a condition for each set of commands 168 Offering three or more choices 170 Playing with Multiple Boolean Operators 171 Making Multiple Choices with the SELECT CASE Statement 174 Matching multiple values in a SELECT CASE statement 177 Checking a range of values 178 Comparing values 179 Chapter 5: Repeating Commands by Looping 181 Looping a Fixed Number of Times with the FOR-NEXT Loop 182 Using a FOR-NEXT loop variable 183 Counting by a different range 185 Counting by different increments 186 Counting backward 187 Counting over arrays and other items 188 Looping Zero or More Times with the WHILE Loop 189 Looping at Least Once with the DO Loop 192 Playing with Nested Loops 193 Prematurely Exiting from a Loop 195 Checking Your Loops 195 Chapter 6: Breaking a Large Program into Subprograms 197 Creating and Using Subprograms 199 Creating a subprogram 200 “Calling” a subprogram 201 Passing Parameters 203 Passing parameters by reference 206 Storing values in a subprogram name 210 Repeating a Subprogram with Recursion 212 Chapter 7: Breaking a Large Program into Objects 215 How Object-Oriented Programming Works 216 Encapsulation Isolates Data and Subprograms 219 Shielding data inside an object 221 Grouping methods inside of an object 221 Protecting code from other programmers 222 Sharing Code with Inheritance 223 Polymorphism: Modifying Code without Changing Its Name 226 Design Patterns 228 Object-Oriented Languages 230 Hybrid languages 231 Pure languages 231 Disadvantages of object-oriented programming 232 Real-Life Programming Examples 233 Defining an object with a class 233 Creating an object from a class 236 Running methods stored in an object 236 Inheriting an object 238 Using method overloading to rewrite an inherited subprogram 239 Chapter 8: Reading and Saving Files 243 Storing Data in Text Files 243 Creating a text file 246 Reading a text file 247 Storing Fixed-Size Data in Random-Access Files 250 Writing data 251 Reading data 252 Storing Varying-Size Data in Untyped Files 253 Writing data 254 Reading data 255 Using Database Files 257 Looking at the structure of a database 257 Connecting to a database 259 Chapter 9: Documenting Your Program 263 Adding Comments to Source Code 264 Identifying the two types of comments 265 Describing code and algorithms 268 Documentation 270 Debugging 271 Writing Software Documentation 272 Documentation types 272 Documentation tools 274 Help files 275 Chapter 10: Principles of User Interface Design 277 The Evolution of User Interfaces 278 Command-line interface 278 Menus 278 Graphical user interface 280 Elements of a User Interface 281 Displaying commands to a user interface 281 Giving data to the user interface 284 Showing information back to the user 288 Organizing a user interface 290 Designing a User Interface 291 Know the user 291 Hide/disable unusable options 292 Tolerate mistakes 293 Be consistent 294 Give the user freedom to customize the user interface 295 Make navigation easy 295 Chapter 11: Debugging and Testing 297 Common Types of Programming Errors 297 Debugging with Comments and Print Statements 300 Breakpoints, Stepping, and Watching 302 Stepping through code 304 Watching variables 305 Testing Code 306 Unit tests 307 Integration tests 308 User interface testing 309 Book 3: Data Structures 311 Chapter 1: Structures and Arrays 313 Using Structures 314 Storing data 315 Retrieving data 315 Using an Array 316 Defining the size 317 Storing data 320 Retrieving data 321 Working with Resizable Arrays 321 BASIC 322 C# 323 Swift 323 Working with Multidimensional Arrays 323 Creating a multidimensional array 324 Storing and retrieving data 325 Using Structures with Arrays 325 Drawbacks of Arrays 327 Data types 328 Searching and sorting 328 Adding and deleting 329 Identifying the location of data in an array 330 Chapter 2: Sets and Linked Lists 333 Using Sets 334 Adding and deleting data in a set 335 Checking for membership 336 Avoiding duplicate data 337 Manipulating two sets 337 Using Linked Lists 342 Creating a linked list 343 Modifying a linked list 344 Creating a double linked list 345 Drawbacks of Sets and Linked Lists 346 Problems with pointers 347 Problems with accessing data 347 Chapter 3: Collections and Dictionaries 351 Using a Collection 352 Adding data to a collection 352 Deleting data from a collection 354 Identifying data with keys 355 Searching and retrieving data 356 Using Dictionaries 358 Adding data to a dictionary 358 Searching and retrieving data from a dictionary 359 Understanding Hash Tables 360 Converting keys with a hash function 360 Hash function collisions 362 Chapter 4: Stacks, Queues, and Deques 367 Using Stacks 368 Adding data to a stack 369 Removing data from a stack 370 Counting and searching a stack 371 Using Queues 372 Adding data to a queue 373 Removing data from a queue 374 Counting and searching a queue 375 Using Deques 376 Chapter 5: Graphs and Trees 381 Understanding Graphs 383 Types of graphs 384 Uses for graphs 385 Creating Trees 386 Ordered trees 387 Binary trees 388 B-trees 389 Taking Action on Trees 390 Traversing a tree to search for data 390 Adding new data 392 Deleting data 393 Pruning and grafting sub-trees 394 Book 4: Algorithms 397 Chapter 1: Sorting Algorithms 399 Using Bubble Sort 400 Using Selection Sort 402 Using Insertion Sort 403 Using Shell Sort 405 Using Heap Sort 406 Using Merge Sort 410 Using Quick Sort 411 Comparing Sorting Algorithms 412 Chapter 2: Searching Algorithms 415 Sequential Search 416 Backward or forward searching 417 Block searching 418 Binary searching 419 Interpolation searching 420 Using Indexes 422 Creating an index 422 Clustered and unclustered indexes 423 Problems with indexes 424 Adversarial Search 424 Depth versus time 426 Alpha-beta pruning 426 Looking up a library of good moves 427 Chapter 3: String Searching 429 Sequential Text Search 430 The Boyer-Moore algorithm 431 The Rabin–Karp algorithm 431 The Shift Or algorithm 433 The finite automaton algorithm 435 Searching with Regular Expressions 436 Searching for single character patterns 436 Searching for multiple character patterns 437 Searching for alternate patterns 438 Searching Phonetically 438 Chapter 4: Data Compression Algorithms 441 Lossless Data Compression Algorithms 442 Run-length encoding 442 The Burrows–Wheeler transform algorithm 442 Dictionary encoding 445 Lossy Data Compression 449 Chapter 5: Encryption Algorithms 451 How Encryption Works 451 The Basics of Encryption 453 Stream ciphers 456 Block ciphers 457 Symmetric/Asymmetric Encryption Algorithms 459 Cracking Encryption 463 Brute-force attacks 463 Dictionary attacks 464 Plaintext and ciphertext attacks 466 Book 5: Web Programming 469 Chapter 1: HyperText Markup Language 471 The Structure of an HTML Document 472 Creating a title 472 Creating the body text 472 Aligning text 474 Emphasizing text 475 Adding color 476 Changing the font size 477 Adding comments 478 Adding Graphics 478 Defining the Background 479 Creating Hyperlinks 480 Defining an anchor point 480 Linking to an anchor point 480 Making Tables 481 Defining a table 481 Defining a table heading 482 Creating table rows and data 483 Displaying a table caption, header, and footer 484 Chapter 2: CSS 487 The Structure of a Stylesheet 488 Creating Style Classes 489 Separating Styles in Files 491 Cascading Stylesheets 493 Chapter 3: JavaScript 495 The Structure of a JavaScript Program 496 Creating Comments 497 Declaring Variables 498 Using Operators 498 Increment and decrement operators 500 Assignment operators 501 Branching Statements 501 Looping Statements 503 Creating Functions 504 Using Arrays 505 Designing User Interfaces 505 Creating dialog boxes 505 Creating windows 507 Chapter 4: PHP 509 Examining the Structure of a PHP Program 510 Creating Comments 510 Declaring Variables 511 Using Operators 512 Increment and decrement operators 513 Assignment operators 515 Branching Statements 515 Looping Statements 517 Creating Functions 518 Using Arrays 519 Creating Objects 520 Chapter 5: Ruby 523 The Structure of a Ruby Program 524 Creating Comments 524 Declaring Variables 525 Using Operators 526 Branching Statements 528 Looping Statements 530 Creating Functions 531 Using Data Structures 532 Creating Objects 534 Book 6: Programming Language Syntax 537 Chapter 1: C and C++ 539 Looking at the Structure of a C/C++ Program 540 Creating Comments 541 Declaring Variables 542 Declaring string data types 542 Declaring integer data types 543 Declaring floating-point data types 544 Declaring Boolean values 545 Using Operators 545 Increment and decrement operators 546 Assignment operators 548 Branching Statements 548 Looping Statements 550 Creating Functions 551 Data Structures 553 Creating a structure 553 Creating enumerations 554 Creating an array 554 Using Objects 555 Chapter 2: Java and C# 557 Looking at the Structure of a Java/C# Program 558 Creating Comments 559 Declaring Variables 559 Declaring string data types 560 Declaring integer data types 560 Declaring floating-point data types 561 Declaring Boolean variables 562 Using Operators 562 Increment and decrement operators 564 Assignment operators 564 Branching Statements 565 Looping Statements 568 Creating Functions 569 Data Structures 571 Creating a C# structure 571 Creating an array 572 Creating a Java linked list 573 Creating C# data structures 574 Using Objects 574 Chapter 3: Perl and Python 577 Reviewing the Structure of a Perl or Python Program 578 Creating Comments 579 Defining Variables 580 Using Operators 580 Increment and decrement operators 582 Assignment operators 583 Branching Statements 584 Looping Statements 586 Creating Functions 588 Making Data Structures 588 Perl data structures 589 Python data structures 590 Using Objects 592 Chapter 4: Kotlin 595 Looking at the Structure of a Kotlin Program 596 Creating Comments 596 Declaring Variables 597 Declaring string data types 597 Declaring integer data types 598 Declaring floating-point data types 599 Declaring Boolean values 599 Declaring Constants 600 Using Operators 600 Branching Statements 601 Looping Statements 605 Creating Functions 606 Creating Data Structures 608 Creating a list 609 Creating an array 610 Creating a set 610 Creating Objects 611 Chapter 5: Swift and SwiftUI 613 Considering the Structure of a Swift Program 614 Understanding SwiftUI 614 Creating a SwiftUI user interface 616 Understanding SwiftUI state variables 616 Creating Comments 618 Declaring Variables 618 Declaring string data types 619 Declaring integer data types 620 Declaring decimal data types 620 Declaring Boolean values 621 Declaring Constants 621 Using Operators 622 Branching Statements 623 Looping Statements 627 Creating Functions 628 Data Structures 630 Creating an array 630 Creating a dictionary 632 Creating a set 633 Creating Objects 634 Chapter 6: Flutter and Dart 637 Working with Flutter 638 Understanding the structure of a Flutter program 638 Working with widgets in Flutter 639 Aligning widgets in rows and columns 642 Understanding the Dart Language 645 Creating comments 645 Declaring variables 646 Using operators 646 Using branching statements 649 Using looping statements 650 Creating functions 652 Creating data structures 653 Using objects 656 Book 7: Applications 657 Chapter 1: Database Management 659 Understanding the Basics of Databases 659 Free-form databases 660 Flat-file databases 661 Relational databases 663 Manipulating Data 667 Writing database commands 669 The SQL language 670 Data integrity 671 Data mining 672 Database Programming 672 Chapter 2: Bioinformatics 675 The Basics of Bioinformatics 676 Representing molecules 676 Manipulating molecules in a computer 677 Database Searches 679 Bioinformatics Programming 681 Chapter 3: Computer Security 685 Stopping Malware 686 Viruses 687 Worms 687 Trojan horses 688 Spyware 689 Distributed denial-of-service attacks 690 Stopping Hackers 691 Intrusion detection systems 692 Rootkit detectors 693 Forensics 694 Secure Computing 695 Patching as an afterthought 695 Security in coding 696 Security by design 697 Chapter 4: Artificial Intelligence 699 Problem Solving 700 Game-playing 701 Natural language processing 702 Speech recognition 704 Image recognition 705 Machine Learning 706 Bayesian probability 707 Neural networks 707 Applications of Artificial Intelligence 710 Chapter 5: Mobile and Wearable Computing 711 Understanding the Different Generations of Computing 712 Giving Data to the User 714 Getting Data from the User 716 Tracking Motion and Location 717 Tracking Real-Time Health Data 718 Looking to the Future of Augmented Reality and Wearable Computers 718 Chapter 6: Game Engines 721 Understanding Game Engines 722 Picking a Game Engine 723 Programming a Game Engine 724 Exploring the Future Uses of Game Engines 726 Filmmaking 726 Architecture and engineering simulations 727 Marketing and advertising 728 Chapter 7: The Future of Computer Programming 731 Picking a Programming Language 732 Picking an Operating System 733 Doing Cross-Platform Programming 735 The portability of C 735 Cross-platform languages 736 Virtual machines 737 Software as a service 738 Data science 739 Website programming 740 Macro programming 740 Robotics programming 741 Blockchain programming 742 Defining Your Future in Programming 743 Teaching yourself other languages 743 Combining other interests besides programming 744 Getting experience and knowledge 744 Index 747