Topic outline

  • Day 1

    Let's get started! Outline of the course, requirements, expected learning outcomes. Introduction to programming (see slides below).

    Exercise in pairs: writing instructions. What makes for good instructions?

    Finding your way around in the Processing editor. Making sure everyone has a working environment for real use.

    Special characters

    … and how to type them on your keyboard. We’ll need many of these when typing in our programs, since they have special meanings. Finnish translations for the non-obvious ones included (the tips work for a Finnish Mac keyboard):

    • parentheses ( )
    • square brackets (hakasulut) [ ] – alt-8, alt-9
    • braces/curly brackets (aaltosulut) { } – alt-shift-8, alt-shift-9
    • asterisk *
    • slash (kauttaviiva) /
    • pipe (putki) | – alt-7
    • ampersand &
    • equal sign, “is” =
    • colon :
    • semicolon ;
    • comma ,
    • hash (“risuaita”) #
    • tilde (“mato”) ~ – alt-^-space
    • single quote (heittomerkki) ‘ – note that this is not the same as accent ´
    • double quote (lainausmerkki) “
    • less/greater than < >


    Program flow

    Statements are executed (“run”) sequentially line by line. The order of the statements is crucial: changing it will result in completely different end results. Comparable to a cake recipe: there’s ingredients (data) and instructions what to do (program code, statements).

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