Course co-ordinator(s): Mehran Sharghi (Edinburgh).
Aims:
This course is aimed at students enrolled in the BSc Data Sciences programme and it introduces computer programming
language fundamentals suitable for a data scientist using a relevant programming language, e.g., python.
Detailed Information
Course Description: Link to Official Course Descriptor.
Pre-requisites: none.
Location: Dubai, Edinburgh.
Semester: 1.
Syllabus:
- Introduction to software development and procedural programming
- Variables, primitive data types, operators, expressions
- Conditional execution
- Loops
- Sequences (strings, lists, tuples)
- Dictionaries
- Other data types, e.g., sets, arrays
- Functions, recursion
- File handling
- Programming paradigms, e.g., procedural, object-oriented
Learning Outcomes: Subject Mastery
- Understanding the procedural programming paradigm
- Awareness of the contrast with other programming paradigms, e.g., object-oriented
- Understanding of programming data types and control structures
- Understanding and using documentation in an API
- Reading, understanding, adapting, creating, and documenting code
Learning Outcomes: Personal Abilities
- Sharing work with random partners in laboratories using version control (pair programming)
- Deriving and creating own solutions to problems (pdp)
- Competence in the use of a command-line shell (pdp)
- Reading and running code, and modifying it.
Assessment Methods: Due to covid, assessment methods for Academic Year 2021-22 may vary from those noted on the official course descriptor. Please see the Computer Science Course Weightings and the Maths Course Weightings for 2020-21 Semester 1 assessment methods.
SCQF Level: 7.
Credits: 15.