INTRODUCTION
The electronic computer is one of the most important developments of the twentieth century. Like the industrial revolution of the nineteenth century, the computer and the information and communication technology built upon it have drastically changed business, culture, government and science, and have touched nearly every aspect of our lives. This text introduces the field of computing and details the fundamental concepts and practices used in the development of computer applications. Entering into a new field like computing is a bit like going to work in a country that you have never visited before. While all countries share some fundamental features such as the need for language and propensities for culture and trade, the profound differences in these features from one country to the next can be disorienting and even debilitating for newcomers. Further, it’s difficult to even describe the features of a given country in any definitive way because they vary from place to place and they change over time. In a similar way, entering the field of computing can be disorienting and finding clear definitions of its features can be difficult. Still, there are fundamental concepts that underlie the field of computing that can be articulated, learned and deployed effectively. All computing is based on the coordinated use of computer devices, called hardware, and the computer programs that drive them, called software, and all software applications are built using data and process specifications, called data structures and algorithms. These fundamentals have remained remarkably stable over the history of computing, in spite of the continual advance of the hardware and software technologies, and the continual development of new paradigms for data and process specifications. This chapter defines the notion of computing, discusses the concepts of hardware and software, and concludes with an introduction to the development of software, called computer programming. The remainder of the text focuses in on the development of computer software, providing a detailed discussion of the principles of software as well as a snapshot of the current culture of the software development field. Processing, a Java-based development environment, is used throughout the first half of the text; the text then transitions to use of the full Java development environment.
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