Before we start, it’s important for you to get an overview understanding of what kind of things we’re going to learn this semester. When you hear “Computer Programming” what do you think of? Many people picture a programmer, typing away in front of a glowing computer screen with Matrix code flowing on it. However, programming is so much more than that.

It’s helpful to break down some of the terminology: computer science, computer programming, and coding are all different things. The diagram below is how I like to briefly explain what each entails.

Computer Science is a broad field that covers a lot of computer-related ideas:

• General computer knowledge.
• Popular culture surrounding computers.
• Computer Programming.
• …

Computer Programming is just one piece of Computer Science:

• Planning out a program.
• Thinking through the logic of how a program should work.
• Coding.
• …

Coding is just one piece of Computer Programming:

• Writing code in a computer language.
• Testing a program to find bugs.
• Fixing bugs within a program.

Because this is Intro to Computer Programming we are not going to focus on the broad Computer Science topics more than we have to. But we are similarly not going to just be writing code. Programming involves an entire process surrounding thinking logically and planning out a project. You can expect to think through problems to solve them, as well as to use a bit of math.

To start you thinking about what it means to think logically, there are plenty of great games available on the internet that practice programming-style thinking.

The first one we’re going to do is called Lightbot. Click here to play through this game. The goal is to give the robot instructions so that it will light up all the blue squares. If you should finish the game before we move on, try this game which is similar, but a bit more difficult.

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