Short Description

This unit introduces students to the development of computer software, including problem analysis, establishing requirements, designing, implementing, and evaluating. This is a practical unit which will set up students with the programming skills that will be used in later units. 

You’ll learn to:

• Describe the design of a computer program separately from its implementation
• Explain the basic concepts of procedural and object-orientated programming in the design and implementation of computer programs
• Explain debugging and testing methods and how they contribute to robust code
• Design, construct and evaluate simple data structures and algorithms
• Plan, organise and implement program code to support reuse and maintainability of the software (project)
• Provide a critical review of software in terms of quality, design, reuse and robustness, and offer solutions to correct issues encountered
   

Topics covered in this unit may include (but are not limited to) the following:  

• An introduction to a programming language such as Java or C
• Procedural Control: Introduction to procedural system development. Discussion of control structures: sequence, selection, iteration and recursion.
• Objects: Introduction to object-oriented system development. Introduction of objects and classes, inheritance, and polymorphism. Comparison of procedural and object programming.
• Introductions to scope and extent, abstract data types. Design methods for such systems.