CM10228 / Programming II:   Lecture 1

Reinventing the Wheel
or
Looking under the Hood
[Brit. Bonnet]

I.  What is this unit about?

1. CM10228 is Programming Ib, not Java Ib.
   
2. Programming Ia was mostly about how ordinary programmers program.
3. But you are not just ordinary programmers.  You are Computer Scientists.
1. Someone needs to know how things really work so they can be fixed.
2. Someone needs to invent the new big ideas!
3. Some of you may think you aren't good enough programmers to be computer scientists.
1. Don't panic.
1. Keep trying.  Practice!!  It takes time to learn new ways to think.
   
2. Let us know after the first coursework if you really are going to need remedial help.
3. Extra Thursday Lectures
   
4. newbies forum
   
2. Some people think computer scientists don't need to program.
3. But you do.
1. Programming is an essential skill.
1. Second year courses assume you have it.
2. Bath placements assume you have it.
3. Your dissertation (30% of 70% of your degree outcome) will need it.
2. It is possible to pass this course without learning to program.  Don't do that.
4. We are teaching you to be professionals, so we all look good.
   
5. Some of you are bored --- don't worry, it gets more interesting.
1. hackers forum
2. the top 30 points of coursework
   
6. When I ask questions in lecture, I know it's mostly the bored people who answer.
1. Two year's ago in student feedback, some thought I didn't know that.
   
2. If you are confused, you should say so.
3. But anyway, I ask questions so you can hear it reexplained from more than one perspective (not just mine).
1. Learning from peers sticks better than learning from lecturers.
2. Teaching peers makes you understand your course material better, improves exam marks.
   
4. Communication works different this term than last
   
1. Most support by forums.
1. The tutors get paid to spend time on these, but will mostly do that during normal hours.
2. If you explain something to someone else, you will remember it better, and do better on exams.
1. You may also realise that you don't understand it, which is a good thing to know.
3. Asking questions is also a form of public service!  Other people may be even more confused & not know what to ask.
4. But note, the tutors will check if you are right on the forums and will give you additional help if you need it. 
   
1. The tutors do not check your Facebook pages or Twitter accounts (or whatever else is cool now).
2. Sometimes whole groups of students get the wrong end of the stick!
3. Please use the forums and help the whole class.  We don't mark on a curve.
   
2. Labs are for you to get help.
1. Need to be working outside of labs too.
2. Best to get as far as you can yourself, then come to lab with questions.
   
3. Don't come to coursework support labs sitting around waiting for something to happen
1. Ask questions, talk to each other, talk to the tutors.
2. Don't leave it to the tutors to guess what help you need or want.
3. When should I go to the instructor?
1. After the lecture.
2. During office hours.
   
3. When the tutors can't help you (like if you have a problem with a tutor.)
   
5. 2013 year's exam results -- when some smart people think they didn't need lectures (draw picture)
   
1. Every year is different, but just in case you have similar attitudes!
2. Keep up with the lectures & notes.
3. Voice recordings may be available.
   
6. Broad categories for Programming II content:
1. Most lecture topics are about Computer Science --- understanding how the programs really work.
2. The coursework will help you learn these concepts, but more importantly will give you more practice programming.
3. There are several weeks of topics which are also more commercial skills.
1. GUIs
2. Applets
3. Internet Programming
4. AI?
4. Others are for professionalism / to appear educated
   
1. Database basics
2. History of Java & controversies of IP
3. AI
   
7. Details of Programming 1b content:
   See the table on the course web page:  http://www.cs.bath.ac.uk/~jjb/here/CM10228/course-sched.html  If that's too hard to remember, just Google Joanna Bryson -> teaching -> Programming Ib
   

II.  What is the difference between Programming and Java?

1. There are many different programming languages, but there are some common principles that underlie all of them, and others that are shared by most of them.
1. All languages:
   
1. Run on physical computers.
2. Take time.
3. Take space in memory.
4. Run algorithms.
   
2. Understanding how much time & space a program takes, and how to make it take less time & space, is known as understanding the complexity of a program. 
   
1. Determines what is computable.
2. Primary topic of the Theory of Computation.
3. Example:  The Church-Turing Thesis
1. Church-Turing thesis says any algorithm can be run on a Turing Machine.
2. Every computer you've met is Turing equivalent.
3. Every language you will learn is Turing complete.
   
4. But this is all less exciting than it seems when you realize an algorithm is defined as anything that can run on a Turing machine.
1. Is there any other kind of computation?
2. Is the human brain a Turing machine?
3. These are open questions!  (See this page for a description of the evidence for Church-Turing.)
   
4. But not the topic of this course.
5. An open question is one still being actively researched.  Intelligent, well-educated experts in a field hold opposing views with each other.
   
3. Differences between languages (just a few!):
1. Compiled vs. interpreted.
1. Java, C, C++
2. Lisp, smalltalk, prolog
   
3. NB: Can write Java, C interpreters if you want to.
   
2. Strictly typed or not.
1. Java, C, C++
2. Lisp, python, perl
   
3. Object oriented or not or sort of.
1. Java, smalltalk, python
2. C
3. Lisp, C++, perl
   
4. High-level vs. low vs. in between
   
1. Python, PHP, SQL.
2. C, assembler
3. Java
   
5. Dynamic or not or maybe -- can write & evaluate new code on the fly (while running).
   
1. Lisp, python, perl, smalltalk.
2. C, C++
3. Java? (Introspection, Reflection)
   
4. The fact Java comes sort of in between on a couple of these lists is part of what makes it obscure / not the best teaching language.
1. So don't feel bad when things seem confusing.
   
2. Also what makes it an excellent (& dominant) programming language for real work.
   
3. In tutorial this week you'll be able to play with Lisp, which may make Java seem clearer.
5. Why have different languages?
1. Because they make different tasks easier to program.
2. Usually a tradeoff between run-time speed & programming speed.
3. Help you think in different ways. 
   
1. I enjoy translating my best programs/ideas between languages to understand them better.
6. Here is the page I mentioned in lecture, 99 Bottles of Beer, currently in 1500 different languages (380 more than 10 years ago). 
   
1. Check out the Common Lisp version using the format command.  (That's from the page, but they've currently messed up the formatting there. There is also a more normal lisp version available on the page.) 
2.  It works in lispworks, but not euscheme (see this week's lab for an explanation of the difference.)
7. Less diverse or seemly, but perhaps more telling, here is a 2011 account of which programming languages make programmers swear the most. another thing that Java is sort of in the middle of.
   

III.  Thinking About Memory

1. It helps you program if you visualise where the memory is! (so in lecture I draw the below)
   
1. Arrays of basic types are chunks of adjacent memory.
2. Arrays of objects are adjacent references, which point to memory allocated elsewhere.
3. A list is a bunch of simple elements arranged in a chain.
1. Each element has a reference to its contents, and a reference to the next element.
2. The last element sets its "next" reference to null.
2. In the old days, you used an array when you knew how much memory you needed, because they were faster, and lists when you didn't, because you could easily make them longer.
1. Arrays also let you index any element quickly (via arithmetic) instead of by reading lots of memory cells.
1. Arithmetic:  address you want = address of first element + (index * size-of-element).
   
2. But lists let you do more elaborate things, like for example making the last element point at the first & make a loop.
   
3. Now that computers are faster, languages like Java let you change the length of arrays
   
1. extending an array is still a slowish operation, but you might not care...
   
2. or you might extend the array much less often than you index into its memory, so it's still faster over all than a list.
4. It is also easier to insert new things in the middle of lists.
1. All the same arguments apply as in the previous point.
2. Copying arrays sections (to move them back & make space for the new stuff) is usually a fairly fast operation, not much worse than reallocating the new memory in the first place.  Still slow enough that you don't want to do it as often as you reference the memory.
3. Google uses Lisp so there are now some very fast list algorithms out there, see Lispworks.
   
5. Quick intro to lists in lisp
1. cons pairs:
   
1. the first reference is called "first" (or sometimes "car"), points to a value
   
2. the second part is called "rest" (or sometimes "cdr"), points at the rest of the list.
3. You construct a list by consing something onto the front of an existing list
1. you start with the empty list.
2. Null (called nil in lisp) is a basic type / object and is exactly equivalent to the empty list.
2. See this week's tutorial for more details.
3. Why car & cdr?  

1. Lisp was originally implemented on the IBM 704 computer, in the late 1950s. The 704 hardware had special support for splitting a 36-bit machine word into four parts, an "address part" and "decrement part" of 15 bits each and a "prefix part" and "tag part" of three bits each.

   Precursors to Lisp included the functions which took a machine address as an argument, loaded the corresponding word from memory, and extracted the appropriate bits.

1. car (short for "Contents of the Address part of Register number"), and

2. cdr ("Contents of the Decrement part of Register number").

2. Note:  Wikipedia is pretty good for computer science topics.
   
6. Exercises for later: how would you write a list in Java?
   
1. with the libraries?
2. from scratch?