Problem Solving and Structured Programming in Fortran [antikvár]

PREFACE This book is designed as a text for a one-semester, introductory course in computer programming. No background other than high-school algebra is assumed. The material presented reflects the authors' view that good problem-solving and programming habits should be introduced at a very early stage in the development of a student's programming skills, and that they are best instilled by examples, by frequent practice, and through instructor-student interaction. Therefore we have concentrated on demonstrating problem-solving and programming techniques through the use of approximately two dozen completely solved problems. Discipline and planning in both problem solving and programming are illustrated in the text from the beginning. We have attempted to integrate a number of relatively new pedagogic ideas into a unique, well-structured format that is uniformly repeated for each problem discussed. Three basic phases of problem solving are emphasized: the analysis of the problem; the stepwise specification of the algorithm (using flow diagrams); and finally, the language implementation of the program. Our goal is to bridge the gap between textbooks that stress problem-solving approaches divorced from implementation and language considerations and programming manuals that provide the opposite emphasis. Language-independent problem analysis and algorithms are described in the same text as the language features required to implement the problem solution on the computer. For each new problem introduced in the text, the problem analysis and algorithm description are presented along with the complete syntactic and semantic definitions of the new language features convenient for the implementation of the algorithm. The top-down or stepwise approach to problem solving is illustrated repeatedly 'i' I if vii