CS 115 Reading: Week 4

This page lists the skills you should have by the end of the week and some suggested readings to help you get up to speed. How much you read is up to you.

Some of these sources discuss features of Python that we won't cover in class. You're welcome to use those features in your programs, but you will only be held responsible for material we actually cover in lectures, labs, and projects.

Zelle's graphics library

By the end of Week 4, you should be comfortable with:

• Writing programs that display graphics windows
• Placing colored circles and rectangles in a graphics window
• Calculating the desired positions of circles and rectangles

Suggested readings:

• Start with Sections 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, and 4.4 of your textbook.
• Section 4.5 is more of a challenge, but it will help you get the hang of calculating coordinates.

If-statements

We started this topic during Week 3. By the end of Week 4, you should be comfortable with:

• Tracing the execution of code using if, elif, and else
• Computing the values of Boolean expressions (expressions that evaluate to True or False
• Writing programs that use these constructs

Suggested readings for the basics:

• Sections 7.1, 7.2, and 7.3 of your textbook
• The CS Circles section on if-statements, which also has a great guide to common error messages.
• The CS Circles section on else, and, or, and not.

Suggested readings to take it to the next level:

• The How to Think Like a Computer Scientist section on if-statements approaches them from a more theoretical perspective, starting with Boolean (True/False) and working up to if-statements.
• Section 7.5 of your textbook. This section emphasizes problem solving rather than syntax. This is important! Learning the details of a language can seem overwhelming at first, but experienced programmers will tell you that figuring out the steps in solving a problem is the real challenge in the long run.

Nested for-loops

By the end of the week, you should be able to write nested for-loops and trace their execution.

Suggested resource:

• This tutorial video from Digilent

Exam 1

Exam 1 will cover the material from Weeks 1-4. To test your understanding, take a look at the archive of old CS 115 exams. Note that the content of these exams may be slightly different in different semesters.