Learning Plan 1 : Introduction to Programming and Software Development

We will be focusing on two major themes during the semester, designing a program and then getting it to work in a real programming language.

1. Define the problem
   • input variable list
   • processing checklist
   • output variable list
2. Develop a testing strategy
3. Code the program in JavaScript
4. Run the program on the computer
   • Use a browser to run your JavaScript program

We'll do this full process later in the course.

1. Define the problem
   • input variable list
   • processing checklist
   • output variable list
2. Outline the solution
   • the major processing steps
   • the major subtasks
   • the user interface
   • the major control structures
   • the major variables and record structures
   • the mainline logic
3. Develop the outline into an algorithm
   • Expand the outlined solution into an algorithm
4. Test the algorithm for correctness
   • Develop a testing strategy and test the algorithm
5. Code the algorithm into a specific programming language
   • Code the program in JavaScript
6. Run the program on the computer
   • Use a browser to run your JavaScript program
7. Document and maintain the program
   • We'll be documenting our code all along, not just at the end.

Procedural programming is an older style of software development that has mostly been replaced by Object-oriented programming (OOP). All the major web development environments, including PHP, .NET, Java, and JavaScript use the OOP way of thinking and working. Most of our curricula here at NTC teach OOP. In this course we are concentrating on learning the fundamentals and will be getting an introduction to OOP throughout the course.