Vocabulary

Vocabulary Terms to Know

  • INTRODUCTION TO PROGRAMMING VOCAB:
    • ABSTRACTION:
      • The process of reducing complexity by focusing on the main idea. By hiding details irrelevant to the question at hand and bringing together related and useful details, abstraction allows one to focus on the problem. (An example could be getting dressed - if you had to describe every detail, it would involve making sure clothes are not backwards, the correct order to put things on, detailed descriptions of what a shirt is, how to use a zipper - we normally abstract this by saying “get dressed” because we don’t need all the little details to do it.)
    • ALGORITHM:
      • A set of unambiguous (very clear) rules or instructions to achieve a particular objective.
    • CODE:
      • Any set of instructions expressed in a programming language.
    • COMPUTER SCIENCE:
      • The study of computers and algorithms, including their hardware, software, and their impact on society.
    • CONDITIONAL:
      • A statement within a program that only executes when the condition it is given is true. (In Scratch, we used If <condition> then... and If <condition> then... Else... conditional statements.)
    • FUNCTION (PROCEDURE):
      • Lists of programs to be executed. In programming, a function/procedure is another term for a module or subroutine. For our purposes, the words are interchangeable.
    • LOOP:
      • A sequence of statements which is specified once, but which may be carried out multiple times in succession. (In Scratch, we used Forever and Repeat <10> loops to carry out tasks multiple times.)
    • PROGRAM:
      • A set of instructions a computer executes in order to achieve a particular objective.
    • PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE:
      • Formal language used to give a computer instructions. (The example we have used is Scratch.)
    • STATEMENT:
      • A descriptive phrase that generates one or more instructions in a computer program. (An example from Scratch would be When Flag is Clicked, Go to x: 0, y:0 - this tells the computer what to do and when to do it.)
    • VARIABLE:
      • In computer programming, a variable is a way to store some value by giving it a name. The variable name is the usual way to reference the stored value.