Beginning Programming All-in-One For Dummies

Wallace Wang specializes in making complex topics understandable. His assorted For Dummies tech books have sold nearly half a million copies. He has a master’s degree in computer science along with side hustles in stand-up comedy and screenwriting because life is too short to focus on just one thing.

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