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Let there be code!
Beginning Programming All-in-One For Dummies offers one guide packed with 7 books to teach you programming across multiple languages. Coding can seem complex and convoluted, but Dummies makes it simple and easy to understand. You’ll learn all about the principles of programming, algorithms, data structures, debugging programs, unique applications of programming and more while learning about some of the most popular programming languages used today. Move confidently forward in your computer science coursework or straight into the workforce. You’ll come away with a rock-solid foundation in the programming basics, using data, coding for the web, and building killer apps.
This essential guide takes the complexity and convolution out of programming for beginners and arms you with the knowledge you need to follow where the code takes you.
Wallace Wang specializes in making complex topics understandable. His assorted For Dummies tech books have sold nearly half a million copies. He has a master’s degree in computer science along with side hustles in stand-up comedy and screenwriting because life is too short to focus on just one thing.
Introduction 1
About This Book 1
Foolish Assumptions 2
Icons Used in This Book 2
Beyond the Book 3
Where to Go from Here 3
Book 1: Getting Started with Programming 5
Chapter 1: Getting Started Programming a Computer 7
How Computer Programming Works 8
Identifying the problem 8
Defining the steps 9
The History of Computer Programming 10
Talking to a processor in machine language 11
Using assembly language as a shortcut to machine language 12
Hiding the details of a computer with a high-level language 15
Combining the best of both worlds with the C programming language 15
Weighing the pros and cons of programming languages 16
Figuring Out Programming 18
Desire beats technical training every time 19
Picking a computer and an operating system 19
Writing programs with an editor 21
Converting source code with an assembler or compiler 23
Translating source code with an interpreter 25
Combining a compiler with an interpreter to create p-code 25
Taking the time to understand 26
Chapter 2: Different Methods for Writing Programs 29
Spaghetti Programming 31
Structured Programming 34
The three parts of structured programming 34
Top-down programming 36
Event-Driven Programming 38
Designing a user interface 41
Writing event handlers 42
Writing your program 44
Object-Oriented Programming 44
Isolating data 46
Simplifying modifications 47
Using Protocol-Oriented Programming 49
Design Patterns 50
Chapter 3: Types of Programming Languages 53
Your First Language 54
BASICally disrespected 55
Visual programming with Scratch 56
Programming robots with LEGO Mindstorms 57
Learning object-oriented programming with Alice 57
Programming a killer robot 58
Curly-Bracket Languages 60
Learning programming with C 60
Adding object-oriented programming with C++ 62
Gaining true portability with Java 63
Programming more safely with C# 64
Choosing a curly-bracket language 66
Artificial Intelligence Languages 67
Scripting Languages 71
Automating a program 72
Customizing a program 73
Transferring data among multiple programs 74
Creating stand-alone programs 74
Database Programming Languages 75
Comparing Programming Languages 76
Chapter 4: Programming Tools 77
Choosing a Compiler 78
Defining your needs for a compiler 79
Evaluating the technical features of a compiler 80
Finding an Interpreter 84
Compiling to a Virtual Machine 86
Writing a Program with an Editor 88
Stand-alone editors 88
Integrated development environments 90
Fixing a Program with a Debugger 91
Stepping line-by-line 92
Watching variables 95
Saving Time with Third-Party Components 96
Optimizing a Program with a Profiler 97
Managing Source Code 97
Creating a Help File 99
Installing a Program 99
Dissecting Programs with a Disassembler 99
Book 2: Programming Basics 101
Chapter 1: How Programs Work 103
Using Keywords as Building Blocks 105
Organizing a Program 108
Dividing a Program into Subprograms 109
Dividing a Program into Objects 113
Creating a User Interface 115
Chapter 2: Variables, Data Types, and Constants 119
Declaring Variables 120
Variable naming conventions 121
Creating variables in a command 122
Declaring the data type of a variable 124
Using Different Data Types 126
Storing Data in a Variable 130
Retrieving Data from a Variable 132
Using Constant Values 133
Defining the Scope of a Variable 135
Handling global variables with care 136
Restricting scope to a module 137
Isolating variables in a subprogram 138
Passing data among subprograms 139
Chapter 3: Manipulating Data 141
Storing Data with the Assignment Operator 142
Using Math to Manipulate Numbers 143
Organizing equations with operator precedence 144
Using built-in math functions 146
Manipulating Strings 147
Finding Strings with Regular Expressions 148
Pattern-matching with the single character (.) wildcard 149
Pattern-matching for specific characters 149
Pattern-matching with the multiple-character (*) and plus (+) wildcards 150
Pattern-matching with ranges 151
Using Comparison Operators 153
Using Boolean Operators 156
Using the Not operator 156
Using the And operator 157
Using the Or operator 158
Using the Xor operator 159
Converting Data Types 160
Chapter 4: Making Decisions by Branching 163
Picking One Choice with the IF-THEN Statement 164
Picking Two Choices with the IF-THEN-ELSE Statement 166
Picking Three or More Choices with the IF-THEN-ELSEIF Statement 168
Checking a condition for each set of commands 168
Offering three or more choices 170
Playing with Multiple Boolean Operators 171
Making Multiple Choices with the SELECT CASE Statement 174
Matching multiple values in a SELECT CASE statement 177
Checking a range of values 178
Comparing values 179
Chapter 5: Repeating Commands by Looping 181
Looping a Fixed Number of Times with the FOR-NEXT Loop 182
Using a FOR-NEXT loop variable 183
Counting by a different range 185
Counting by different increments 186
Counting backward 187
Counting over arrays and other items 188
Looping Zero or More Times with the WHILE Loop 189
Looping at Least Once with the DO Loop 192
Playing with Nested Loops 193
Prematurely Exiting from a Loop 195
Checking Your Loops 195
Chapter 6: Breaking a Large Program into Subprograms 197
Creating and Using Subprograms 199
Creating a subprogram 200
“Calling” a subprogram 201
Passing Parameters 203
Passing parameters by reference 206
Storing values in a subprogram name 210
Repeating a Subprogram with Recursion 212
Chapter 7: Breaking a Large Program into Objects 215
How Object-Oriented Programming Works 216
Encapsulation Isolates Data and Subprograms 219
Shielding data inside an object 221
Grouping methods inside of an object 221
Protecting code from other programmers 222
Sharing Code with Inheritance 223
Polymorphism: Modifying Code without Changing Its Name 226
Design Patterns 228
Object-Oriented Languages 230
Hybrid languages 231
Pure languages 231
Disadvantages of object-oriented programming 232
Real-Life Programming Examples 233
Defining an object with a class 233
Creating an object from a class 236
Running methods stored in an object 236
Inheriting an object 238
Using method overloading to rewrite an inherited subprogram 239
Chapter 8: Reading and Saving Files 243
Storing Data in Text Files 243
Creating a text file 246
Reading a text file 247
Storing Fixed-Size Data in Random-Access Files 250
Writing data 251
Reading data 252
Storing Varying-Size Data in Untyped Files 253
Writing data 254
Reading data 255
Using Database Files 257
Looking at the structure of a database 257
Connecting to a database 259
Chapter 9: Documenting Your Program 263
Adding Comments to Source Code 264
Identifying the two types of comments 265
Describing code and algorithms 268
Documentation 270
Debugging 271
Writing Software Documentation 272
Documentation types 272
Documentation tools 274
Help files 275
Chapter 10: Principles of User Interface Design 277
The Evolution of User Interfaces 278
Command-line interface 278
Menus 278
Graphical user interface 280
Elements of a User Interface 281
Displaying commands to a user interface 281
Giving data to the user interface 284
Showing information back to the user 288
Organizing a user interface 290
Designing a User Interface 291
Know the user 291
Hide/disable unusable options 292
Tolerate mistakes 293
Be consistent 294
Give the user freedom to customize the user interface 295
Make navigation easy 295
Chapter 11: Debugging and Testing 297
Common Types of Programming Errors 297
Debugging with Comments and Print Statements 300
Breakpoints, Stepping, and Watching 302
Stepping through code 304
Watching variables 305
Testing Code 306
Unit tests 307
Integration tests 308
User interface testing 309
Book 3: Data Structures 311
Chapter 1: Structures and Arrays 313
Using Structures 314
Storing data 315
Retrieving data 315
Using an Array 316
Defining the size 317
Storing data 320
Retrieving data 321
Working with Resizable Arrays 321
BASIC 322
C# 323
Swift 323
Working with Multidimensional Arrays 323
Creating a multidimensional array 324
Storing and retrieving data 325
Using Structures with Arrays 325
Drawbacks of Arrays 327
Data types 328
Searching and sorting 328
Adding and deleting 329
Identifying the location of data in an array 330
Chapter 2: Sets and Linked Lists 333
Using Sets 334
Adding and deleting data in a set 335
Checking for membership 336
Avoiding duplicate data 337
Manipulating two sets 337
Using Linked Lists 342
Creating a linked list 343
Modifying a linked list 344
Creating a double linked list 345
Drawbacks of Sets and Linked Lists 346
Problems with pointers 347
Problems with accessing data 347
Chapter 3: Collections and Dictionaries 351
Using a Collection 352
Adding data to a collection 352
Deleting data from a collection 354
Identifying data with keys 355
Searching and retrieving data 356
Using Dictionaries 358
Adding data to a dictionary 358
Searching and retrieving data from a dictionary 359
Understanding Hash Tables 360
Converting keys with a hash function 360
Hash function collisions 362
Chapter 4: Stacks, Queues, and Deques 367
Using Stacks 368
Adding data to a stack 369
Removing data from a stack 370
Counting and searching a stack 371
Using Queues 372
Adding data to a queue 373
Removing data from a queue 374
Counting and searching a queue 375
Using Deques 376
Chapter 5: Graphs and Trees 381
Understanding Graphs 383
Types of graphs 384
Uses for graphs 385
Creating Trees 386
Ordered trees 387
Binary trees 388
B-trees 389
Taking Action on Trees 390
Traversing a tree to search for data 390
Adding new data 392
Deleting data 393
Pruning and grafting sub-trees 394
Book 4: Algorithms 397
Chapter 1: Sorting Algorithms 399
Using Bubble Sort 400
Using Selection Sort 402
Using Insertion Sort 403
Using Shell Sort 405
Using Heap Sort 406
Using Merge Sort 410
Using Quick Sort 411
Comparing Sorting Algorithms 412
Chapter 2: Searching Algorithms 415
Sequential Search 416
Backward or forward searching 417
Block searching 418
Binary searching 419
Interpolation searching 420
Using Indexes 422
Creating an index 422
Clustered and unclustered indexes 423
Problems with indexes 424
Adversarial Search 424
Depth versus time 426
Alpha-beta pruning 426
Looking up a library of good moves 427
Chapter 3: String Searching 429
Sequential Text Search 430
The Boyer-Moore algorithm 431
The Rabin–Karp algorithm 431
The Shift Or algorithm 433
The finite automaton algorithm 435
Searching with Regular Expressions 436
Searching for single character patterns 436
Searching for multiple character patterns 437
Searching for alternate patterns 438
Searching Phonetically 438
Chapter 4: Data Compression Algorithms 441
Lossless Data Compression Algorithms 442
Run-length encoding 442
The Burrows–Wheeler transform algorithm 442
Dictionary encoding 445
Lossy Data Compression 449
Chapter 5: Encryption Algorithms 451
How Encryption Works 451
The Basics of Encryption 453
Stream ciphers 456
Block ciphers 457
Symmetric/Asymmetric Encryption Algorithms 459
Cracking Encryption 463
Brute-force attacks 463
Dictionary attacks 464
Plaintext and ciphertext attacks 466
Book 5: Web Programming 469
Chapter 1: HyperText Markup Language 471
The Structure of an HTML Document 472
Creating a title 472
Creating the body text 472
Aligning text 474
Emphasizing text 475
Adding color 476
Changing the font size 477
Adding comments 478
Adding Graphics 478
Defining the Background 479
Creating Hyperlinks 480
Defining an anchor point 480
Linking to an anchor point 480
Making Tables 481
Defining a table 481
Defining a table heading 482
Creating table rows and data 483
Displaying a table caption, header, and footer 484
Chapter 2: CSS 487
The Structure of a Stylesheet 488
Creating Style Classes 489
Separating Styles in Files 491
Cascading Stylesheets 493
Chapter 3: JavaScript 495
The Structure of a JavaScript Program 496
Creating Comments 497
Declaring Variables 498
Using Operators 498
Increment and decrement operators 500
Assignment operators 501
Branching Statements 501
Looping Statements 503
Creating Functions 504
Using Arrays 505
Designing User Interfaces 505
Creating dialog boxes 505
Creating windows 507
Chapter 4: PHP 509
Examining the Structure of a PHP Program 510
Creating Comments 510
Declaring Variables 511
Using Operators 512
Increment and decrement operators 513
Assignment operators 515
Branching Statements 515
Looping Statements 517
Creating Functions 518
Using Arrays 519
Creating Objects 520
Chapter 5: Ruby 523
The Structure of a Ruby Program 524
Creating Comments 524
Declaring Variables 525
Using Operators 526
Branching Statements 528
Looping Statements 530
Creating Functions 531
Using Data Structures 532
Creating Objects 534
Book 6: Programming Language Syntax 537
Chapter 1: C and C++ 539
Looking at the Structure of a C/C++ Program 540
Creating Comments 541
Declaring Variables 542
Declaring string data types 542
Declaring integer data types 543
Declaring floating-point data types 544
Declaring Boolean values 545
Using Operators 545
Increment and decrement operators 546
Assignment operators 548
Branching Statements 548
Looping Statements 550
Creating Functions 551
Data Structures 553
Creating a structure 553
Creating enumerations 554
Creating an array 554
Using Objects 555
Chapter 2: Java and C# 557
Looking at the Structure of a Java/C# Program 558
Creating Comments 559
Declaring Variables 559
Declaring string data types 560
Declaring integer data types 560
Declaring floating-point data types 561
Declaring Boolean variables 562
Using Operators 562
Increment and decrement operators 564
Assignment operators 564
Branching Statements 565
Looping Statements 568
Creating Functions 569
Data Structures 571
Creating a C# structure 571
Creating an array 572
Creating a Java linked list 573
Creating C# data structures 574
Using Objects 574
Chapter 3: Perl and Python 577
Reviewing the Structure of a Perl or Python Program 578
Creating Comments 579
Defining Variables 580
Using Operators 580
Increment and decrement operators 582
Assignment operators 583
Branching Statements 584
Looping Statements 586
Creating Functions 588
Making Data Structures 588
Perl data structures 589
Python data structures 590
Using Objects 592
Chapter 4: Kotlin 595
Looking at the Structure of a Kotlin Program 596
Creating Comments 596
Declaring Variables 597
Declaring string data types 597
Declaring integer data types 598
Declaring floating-point data types 599
Declaring Boolean values 599
Declaring Constants 600
Using Operators 600
Branching Statements 601
Looping Statements 605
Creating Functions 606
Creating Data Structures 608
Creating a list 609
Creating an array 610
Creating a set 610
Creating Objects 611
Chapter 5: Swift and SwiftUI 613
Considering the Structure of a Swift Program 614
Understanding SwiftUI 614
Creating a SwiftUI user interface 616
Understanding SwiftUI state variables 616
Creating Comments 618
Declaring Variables 618
Declaring string data types 619
Declaring integer data types 620
Declaring decimal data types 620
Declaring Boolean values 621
Declaring Constants 621
Using Operators 622
Branching Statements 623
Looping Statements 627
Creating Functions 628
Data Structures 630
Creating an array 630
Creating a dictionary 632
Creating a set 633
Creating Objects 634
Chapter 6: Flutter and Dart 637
Working with Flutter 638
Understanding the structure of a Flutter program 638
Working with widgets in Flutter 639
Aligning widgets in rows and columns 642
Understanding the Dart Language 645
Creating comments 645
Declaring variables 646
Using operators 646
Using branching statements 649
Using looping statements 650
Creating functions 652
Creating data structures 653
Using objects 656
Book 7: Applications 657
Chapter 1: Database Management 659
Understanding the Basics of Databases 659
Free-form databases 660
Flat-file databases 661
Relational databases 663
Manipulating Data 667
Writing database commands 669
The SQL language 670
Data integrity 671
Data mining 672
Database Programming 672
Chapter 2: Bioinformatics 675
The Basics of Bioinformatics 676
Representing molecules 676
Manipulating molecules in a computer 677
Database Searches 679
Bioinformatics Programming 681
Chapter 3: Computer Security 685
Stopping Malware 686
Viruses 687
Worms 687
Trojan horses 688
Spyware 689
Distributed denial-of-service attacks 690
Stopping Hackers 691
Intrusion detection systems 692
Rootkit detectors 693
Forensics 694
Secure Computing 695
Patching as an afterthought 695
Security in coding 696
Security by design 697
Chapter 4: Artificial Intelligence 699
Problem Solving 700
Game-playing 701
Natural language processing 702
Speech recognition 704
Image recognition 705
Machine Learning 706
Bayesian probability 707
Neural networks 707
Applications of Artificial Intelligence 710
Chapter 5: Mobile and Wearable Computing 711
Understanding the Different Generations of Computing 712
Giving Data to the User 714
Getting Data from the User 716
Tracking Motion and Location 717
Tracking Real-Time Health Data 718
Looking to the Future of Augmented Reality and Wearable Computers 718
Chapter 6: Game Engines 721
Understanding Game Engines 722
Picking a Game Engine 723
Programming a Game Engine 724
Exploring the Future Uses of Game Engines 726
Filmmaking 726
Architecture and engineering simulations 727
Marketing and advertising 728
Chapter 7: The Future of Computer Programming 731
Picking a Programming Language 732
Picking an Operating System 733
Doing Cross-Platform Programming 735
The portability of C 735
Cross-platform languages 736
Virtual machines 737
Software as a service 738
Data science 739
Website programming 740
Macro programming 740
Robotics programming 741
Blockchain programming 742
Defining Your Future in Programming 743
Teaching yourself other languages 743
Combining other interests besides programming 744
Getting experience and knowledge 744
Index 747
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