Introduction to Computer Science

CS-UH 1001, Fall 2022

Alex Delis
NYU-Abu Dhabi
September 2022
 Instructors

 Alex Delis, Professor,

URL: [Link],
email: [Link]@[Link]

 Dena Ahmed, Teaching Fellow,

URL: [Link]/en/academics/divisions/science/instructors/
[Link],
email: daa4@[Link]

ª Slides are based on material/notes kindly made available by Thomas Pötsch, Yasir Zaki
and Jerome White.
1
 Computing Machinery: Hardware, Software and Networks

 Computers are collections of electronics that can run instructions often writen by
people (a.k.a. code) and communicate with each other through networks.

– These codes or programs help automate computational tasks and make life easier for
people.
– The electorics make up what is known as hardware while the programs are the
software.
– Software is what drives computing machinery.
– Today, nearly all pieces of technology are empowered by computers.
– Clearly knowing how to create programs is immensly useful if one wants to work
and/or contribute to our digital age.

2
 The Many Areas and Aspects of Computer Science
Transporation
Biology Pharma Products

Algorithms
 Computer Science is the Medicine Graphics
Statistics
study, design, realization Programming languages Operating Systems

and evaluation of: Engineering

(all disciplines) Databases & Dig Libraries
Software Engineering
Design
– computing machines, Information Retrieval Computer Architecture

– interaction of the Computer and Embedded Systems

Parallel Systems

machines’ internal Physics

Artificial Intelligence VR Numerical Computations Mathematics

components, and Distributed Systems Data Networks GIS

Human Computer Interaction AVs/UAVs

– collective-work of
Comp. Linguistics
networks of such Web-Computing Robotics
Games
Architecture NLP
computing elements. Bid Data

Supercomputing
Logistics

Operations Research
Chemistry

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 Computers (& Computer Science) are all around us!

 Computers are not smart and they need humans to “guide” them through software.

 Programming a computer is not only a challenging task but also it is in practice, an

enormous responsibility for the program designer/developer.

 Systems and Applications include:

– Databases and archives of the human activity.
– Smart phones and contemporary data-network-based communications.
– Applications for the management of the moving (and still) images.
– Authoring suites and program development environments (IDEs).
– Automotive computer systems for (autonomous) movement.
– Geographic and navigational applications.
– Airplane, vehicle, ship and their traffic control systems
– Satellite and space application systems.
– Medical scanning and operating equipment.
4 – etc. etc. etc.
 Computer Science: an Exact Science
Mathematics Engineering
Design
Representation Assembly
Notation
Testing &
Logic Evaluation

Computer
Science

Observation
Hypothesis
Modeling
Synthesis
Science

 A key skill for a computer scientist is problem solving using algorithms & structures of
data.
 Programming is the key tool to realize automated solutions to computational problems.

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 Computer Science

 Formalize the Human Thinking

 Computational Thinking

– Solve problems through abstraction and a divide & conquer approach.

– Design recipes for solutions (a.k.a. implementations).

– Use computers to have these solutions run automatically.

 The above is all we routinely do in the many facets of our lives!

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 CS-UH1001: Course Objectives

 Provide an Introduction to CS and Programming with Python3.

 Learn how to approach and tackle CS problems:

– Develop the ability to translate problems to coded solutions/recipes.

 Get familiar with fundamental concepts of programming and develop skills to “read”
through existing code.

 Learn how to write new programs:

– Accumulate sufficient amount of knowledge to write code.

– Develop computational solutions to problems and build arcade-type games (Pacman,

Tetris, Mario&Friends, etc.)

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 Course Material

 All material used ultimately will be placed at [Link]

– Syllabus, Announements, Slides, Homework Assignments, Programming Projects, etc.

 Textbooks for the class are:

1. Tony Gaddis, Starting out with Python, Pearson; 4th edition, ISBN: 97892225852,
available from Bookstore.

2. Peter Wentworth, Jeffrey Elkner, Allen B. Downey and Chris Meyers, How to Think
Like a Computer Scientist: Learning with Python 3, freely available on the Web.

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 Course: Presence - Grading

 Presence in class: a healthy University habbit.

 Grading:
Type Description Percentage
Class Participation Interaction, exercises, etc. 3%
Quizzes Based on all previous material 6%
3 Individual Progr. Assignments Apprx. for 10 days each 27%
1 Group Progr. Assignment Apprx. for 2-3 weeks 14%
Mid-term exam Written Examination 20%
Final exam Written Examination 30%

9
 Academic Integrity

 The work you present must be exclusively your own!

 Cheating and plagiarism are serious academic offences.

– Any such suspected plagiarism incident will warrant zero for the assignment to all
parties involved—no question asked.

– Incidents will be reported to the University for disciplinary action.

– Discussion of potential solutions to a problem with colleugues is not an issue at all!

– Sharing of code and presenting code written by others as your own is not permitted
under any circumstances and certainly is a major offence.

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 Examples of Plagiarism

 Copying from Internet or other people is an offence.

– Changing names of variables and manipulating code written by others is not allowed.

– Code extracted from repositories (such as GitHub) cannot be presented as your own
even if you provide a citation for it!

– Code offered by more senior colleuges and presented as your own is an offence.

– Asking/paying others to write code for your is a major offence.

 Education requires both honesty and integrity.

 This course could be a very rewarding class, if you try.

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 A Computer System
> _
tty

 Computer consists of:

– Input/Output (I/O)
Devices,
Operating System
– CPU (Central
Processing Unit) Central
Magnetic
Processing Memory
Monitor tty Solid State Disk(s)
Unit (CPU) (Banks)
– Main-Memory and Disk

Disks > _

(Magnetic/SSDs)
– Interfaces & NICs
Data and
 Operating System: offers Control Bus

all services USB Stick

Memory
CD/DVD Printer NIC Wi-Fi Card

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 CPUs Execute Instructions

 With the help of the OS, the CPU executes sequences of instructions to accomplish
computational tasks.

– These sequences of instructions are called programs.

– A sequence of instructions has to reach the CPU so that the computer carries out its
intended actions (or computation).

– Programs are written in Programming Languages (low- and high-level).

– A language is a basic tool for users to interact with computers.

13
 Programming Languages

 All Programming Language offer:

– Instructions expressing specific actions using keywords.

– A set of man-provided symbols along with keywords collectively helps express the
intension of the programmer.

– Instructions that have to do with Input and Output.

– Instructions can be meshed together following the specific Syntax of the language.

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 Types of Programming Languages

 There are 2 types: Low- and High-level Programming Languages.

 Low-level: Assembly and Machine Languages

– Use of mnemonics that are architecture–dependent.
– For every assembly instruction there is an equivalent binary-represention at Machine
Language.
– Such programs are not portable; a piece of code is portable when is not tightly
coupled to a specific hardware platform (i.e., CPU they run on).

 High-level: Python3, C, C++, Java, Go, Rust.

– Use English-like commands and along with Syntax rules and keywords offer the
building blocks for creating programs.
– Specific machine architecture independent.
– Portability is feasible through re-compilation (when different machines are used).
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 Going from a High to Low Level Language

 A sample program in C - easily understood by people:

#include <stdio.h> 1
2
void main(){ 3
printf("Hola Amigos!\n"); 4
} 5

The 1st program in C++ that generates a string

– String is a sequence of characters (or words/lexemes).

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 Going from a High to Low Level Language
 The program gets transformed to x86 Assembly: sequence of instructions (excerpt).
.file "main.c" 1
.text 2
.section .rodata.str1.1,"aMS",@progbits,1 3
.LC0: 4
.string "Hola Amigos!" 5
.text 6
.globl main 7
.type main, @function 8
main: 9
.LFB23: 10
.cfi_startproc 11
endbr64 12
subq $8, %rsp 13
.cfi_def_cfa_offset 16 14
leaq .LC0(%rip), %rdi 15
call puts@PLT 16
addq $8, %rsp 17
.cfi_def_cfa_offset 8 18
ret 19
.cfi_endproc 20
.LFE23: 21
.size main, .-main 22
.ident "GCC: (Ubuntu 9.3.0-17ubuntu1~20.04) 9.3.0" 23
.section .[Link]-stack,"",@progbits 24
.section .[Link],"a" 25
.align 8 26
.long 1f - 0f 27
.long 4f - 1f 28
.long 5 29
30
.... 31
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 From Assembly to Machine Instructions..

 Ultimately, the Assembly code is interpreted to Machine Level hexadecimal type of

instructions “understood” by the CPU:
– Portion of the code pertinent to the main functionality of the program gets transformed (by
the compiler) to:

.... 1
0000000000001149 <main>: 2
1149: f3 0f 1e fa endbr64 3
114d: 48 83 ec 08 sub $0x8,%rsp 4
1151: 48 8d 3d ac 0e 00 00 lea 0xeac(%rip),%rdi 5
1158: e8 f3 fe ff ff callq 1050 <puts@plt> 6
115d: 48 83 c4 08 add $0x8,%rsp 7
1161: c3 retq 8
1162: 66 2e 0f 1f 84 00 00 nopw %cs:0x0(%rax,%rax,1) 9
1169: 00 00 00 10
116c: 0f 1f 40 00 nopl 0x0(%rax) 11
.... 12

– The second column above is essentially the code that gets to be executed by the core
18 so that the user sees the outcome of her program.
 High-Level Programming Languages

 Using Enlgish-like keywords such as for, while, return, print, read, if,
then, else, etc. and variable/structures laid out in set of distinct statements, a
program designates a piece of computation.

– Every statement (often a line of text) corresponds to a number of assembly

instructions and machine language commands (one-to-many).

– It is much easier to write a high-level source code for a program than its respective
set of assembly isntructions.

– Data is referenced using descriptive names called variables.

– Operations can be described using familiar symbols (such as math symbols) in

addition to user-define operations or functions.

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 Syntax in Programming Languages (PLs)

 Syntax is the structure of a program as well as the rules behind the structure:
– The syntax designates the set(s) of legal expressions in that language

 In English, sentences often follows the syntax rule: noun + verb + noun
– John plays chess → legitimate
– John chess plays → non-correct syntax

 PLs do have syntax rules:

– SumOfGrades / NumberOfCourse → often legitimate
– SumOfGrades NumberOfCourse /
→ this is not allowed in the majority of High-Level PLs!

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 Frequent Types of Errors in Programming

 Syntax Errors happen when authoring rules for the PL get violated:
– When illegal/not-permissible expressions are used; for example:
– AlexFindGPA(SumOfGrades,NumberOfCourse)
when AlexFindGPA as an entity (i.e., function) that has not been defined yet!

 Runtime errors occur when program runs but it cannot successfully complete:
– Division by zero
– Invalid input data

 Logical or Semantic Errors:

– Although a program completes execution, it delivers incorrect results.

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 High- vs. Low-Level PLs

 Streams of PL instructions have to be executed by the CPU.

High Level Assembly Machine

Instr. Stream Instr. Seq. Instructions
... ...
movl $46, %edx
.... 8b 55 f4
leaq .LC0(%rip), %rsi
c = a +b ; 8b 45 f8
movl $1, %edi
... 01 d0
movl $0, %eax
... 89 45 fc
...

– High-level source code has to be transformed to Assembly and ultimately to Machine

Code to be “understood” by the CPU.

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 High-Level Source Code Programs Handling

 Compilation vs. Interpretation

Programmer Programmer

Compiler Interpreter

program is dealt with in

a line-by-line fashion
as a whole

Processor
program is

Processor
dealt with

– Compiler: transforms the entire source code program into an executable!

• This executable has to be loaded in Main-Memory to be executed.

– Interpreter: executes a program in a line-by-line fashion.

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 Python3: Our Main Tool for Programming in CSUH1001

 High-level & interpreted language:

– Designed for rapid prototyping and easily maintainable code.
– It can also be compiled.

 Popular and simple(r) to learn.

 Promotes clear and readable syntax.

– Has good documentation [Link]

– Comes into 2 “flavors”: Python2 and Python3!

– Python3 is the version that will be using.

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 Installing Python3

 [Link]
 [Link]

 The terminal or tty interface to running programs (similar for WinsXX and MacOS):

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 Running the 1st Program
 Write a program that displays the string “Hola Amigos” in your terminal.

• Just write the

statement (or
function)
print() on
the tty and
see the result.
• This is the
interactive
way of
authoring and
running a
program.

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 Running a Program using the Command Line (or Inline)

 Edit the program in a text file name [Link] whose content is:
# This is my first attempt 1
2
print("Hola Amigos\n") 3
print("Myname is Alex\n") 4
5
print(450/12) 6

 The out-
come is:

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 Basic Representation of Characters/Numbers into Bytes

 A computer’s memory is divided into small storage locations known as Bytes.

 Each Byte can store a letter of the alphabet or a small int number.

 A Byte consists of 8 Bits:

– Each Bit can have value 1 or 0

– These 2 Bit (Binary) Values are also known as on and off.
– The Bit along with its 2 values create the base upon which the binary system is
founded.

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 Basic Representation of Characters/Numbers into Bytes

• By setting bits to have different values, we can represent 28 distinct values ranging
from 0..255 (in decimal equivalent).

• These different numbers can be stored in Registers, Main Memory, Disk and other
magnetic and SSD-type devices.

• The Byte below has (decimal) value: 77 – how does this come about?

0 1 0 0 1 1 0 1

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 Understanding How the Binary Numbers Work

 Every decimal number can be represented as a binary number and vice versa.
 In a binary number, each bit if set, it “carries” a value along with it.

• The position of each bit has a decimal value assigned to it.

• This assignment goes along the following map:
Byte
Bits[0/1]

20 1
21 2
22 4
23 8
24 16
25 32
26 64
27 128

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 Converting Binary to Decimal Numbers

 For the following 2 binaries, what is the equivalent decimal representation (easily
understood by humans)?

0 0 1 0 1 1 0 1 Bits 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 1 Bits

20 1 20 1
21 2 21 2
22 4 22 4
23 8 (b) 23 8
(a)
24 16 24 16
25 32 25 32
26 64 26 64
27 128 27 128

The Decimal Number is 45 The Decimal Number is 141

• Case (a): 1 ∗ 25 + 1 ∗ 23 + 1 ∗ 22 + 1 ∗ 20 = 45
• Case (b): 1 ∗ 27 + 1 ∗ 23 + 1 ∗ 22 + 1 ∗ 20 = 141

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 Representation of Long(er) Numbers

 How to represent integers larger than 255??

– Place multiple bytes next to each other to offer a longer range.
– If you put, 2 Bytes the range of integers expresses can go up to 65,535.
2 Bytes

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
15 14 ..... 11 10 9 8 7 .... 3 2 1 0 #of Bit

Most Significant Bit Least Significant Bit

• Value of the above represenation is:

1 ∗ 20 + 1 ∗ 21 + 1 ∗ 22 + 1 ∗ 23 + ... + 1 ∗ 214 + 1 ∗ 215 = 65535

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 Representing Characters

 Characters, symbols and punctuation signs have to represented somehow in computing

devices.

– When such a character is stored in a computer’s memory it is initially converted to a

specific numeric code.

– These codes are known as ASCII codes ⇒ [Link]

– These ASCII codes (or charcaters) are stored as Bytes (with specific value) in memory.
– For example, the code for “a” is 97 and for “W” is 87.
– The respective Binary representations for “a” and “W” are: 01100001 and 01010111.

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 Going from character =⇒ Byte representation
ASCII (dec)
letter 'b' 0 1 1 0 0 0 1 0
Number: 98
Binary Repr. for 'b'
• Remember: reading a Byte can be reading a character or a (portion of) number.
• Python3 can be used to find out the ASCII value of characters.

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 Mini-Tasks

 Install Python3.
1. Print on your screen (i.e., tty) your full name.
2. If you run the Marathon in 2H and 45M, what would be your expected 1-Mile time?
– The Marathon is 42.195Km.
– 1 Mile is 1, 609 Meters.

3. Etisalat uses an Internet unidirectional down-link of 10 Gbps (or GigaBits per

Second). How much data in terms of Megabytes can this link “download” in 1H?

4. Can you run the above 2 programs from the command line?

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Alex Delis, [Link] -AT+ [Link]
NYU Abu Dhabi