Programming Fundamentals

Course Description

Programming Fundamentals moves from the ideas introduced in CSC101 into sustained program design: functions, data structures, and the habits that separate code that works once from code that can be maintained. Students complete progressively larger projects across the semester, culminating in a multi-file program built and tested incrementally.

Learning Outcomes

Design and implement functions with clear responsibilities and interfaces.
Use core data structures (lists, dictionaries, simple records) appropriately.
Write and run basic automated tests for their own code.
Organize a program across multiple files with a coherent structure.
Debug systematically using a debugger and structured logging.
Read and adapt someone else's codebase for a new purpose.

Weekly Topics

Examines functions & scope from a practical angle, using a case drawn from real systems to motivate the concepts.

Builds directly on the previous week to extend lists & iteration, with an emphasis on where the earlier techniques stop working.

Combines a short lecture on dictionaries & records with an in-class exercise students carry into the week's assignment.

Focuses on common mistakes and misconceptions around file input & output, using student work from the previous assignment as material.

Introduces error handling and immediately puts it to use in a small design or implementation task.

Situates introduction to testing within the broader arc of the course, showing how it connects to what comes next.

Uses a guest dataset or scenario to explore mid-semester review in a setting closer to professional practice.

Introduces recursion through short lectures and worked examples, building the vocabulary the rest of the course relies on.

Works through modular program design in a lab-driven session, with guided exercises students complete and discuss in small groups.

Covers debugging techniques in depth, connecting the underlying theory to a concrete example the class builds together.

Examines working with external libraries from a practical angle, using a case drawn from real systems to motivate the concepts.

Builds directly on the previous week to extend project integration, with an emphasis on where the earlier techniques stop working.

Combines a short lecture on revision with an in-class exercise students carry into the week's assignment.

Assessment

Assignments — 20%

Practical Work — 30%

Mid-Semester — 15%

Final Examination — 35%

Prerequisite Map

Related Courses

Core100 Level

CSC101

Introduction to Computing

Introduction to Computing is most students' first formal encounter with computational thinking. The course treats programming as a way of expressing precise ideas, not as a set of syntax to memorize: students learn to break problems into steps, represent information in ways a machine can use, and read their own logic critically before a computer ever runs it. By the end of the semester, students are writing small but complete programs and can explain, in plain language, what every line of their code is for.

Grace Okoye 3 cr

Core200 Level

CSC201

Data Structures & Algorithms

Data Structures & Algorithms is where students stop asking only "does this work?" and start asking "how well does this work, and why?" The course covers the core data structures used throughout the rest of the curriculum — stacks, queues, trees, hash tables, graphs — alongside the analytical tools to reason about their time and space costs. Every structure is motivated by a problem it solves better than the alternatives.

Kenji Watanabe 4 cr

Core200 Level

CSC203

Object-Oriented Software Design

Object-Oriented Software Design teaches students to organize larger programs around the responsibilities and relationships between the things a program models, rather than a single long sequence of instructions. The course pairs core object-oriented concepts with design principles that keep a growing codebase manageable.

Farah Haddad 3 cr