Designing Programs Overview
Programmers need to have a good understanding of the data to be processed. This includes the data variables, constants and literals. It also includes elementary data items, data structures, files and data validation.
Seven steps in program development
- Define the problem.
- Outline the solution.
- Develop the outline into an algorithm.
- Test the algorithm for correctness.
- Code the algorithm into a specific programming language.
- Run the program on the computer.
- Document and maintain the program.
Three different approaches to program design:
- procedure-driven
- event-driven
- data-driven program design.
Procedural programming
Object-oriented programming
Top-down development
Modular design
Algorithm
An algorithm is a set of detailed, unambiguous and ordered instructions developed to describe the processes necessary to produce the desired output from the given input.
Pseudocode
Pseudocode is an English language-like way of representing the algorithm