Complexity
One of those gaps is software design
A large program is more than just a dozen small programs
Most programming language features exist to manage complexity
Figure 1: How complexity grows with size.
How to Learn Design
Best way to learn design is to analyze, critique, and recapitulate examples
These lessons use small versions of programming tools as examples
Generally accessible to people who are programming
Introduce some fundamental ideas in computer science
People who know how tools work are (hopefully) more likely to use them well
Who's Your Audience?
Figure 2: Abstraction vs. comprehension for novices and experts.
Experts understand lower and higher abstraction levels than novices
Preferred level shifts with experience
Code that is optimal for one reader may not be optimal for another
Audience
Maya has a master's degree in genomics
Knows enough Python to analyze data from her experiments
But is struggling to write code that other people (including her future self) can use
These lessons will teach her how to design, build, and test large programs
in less time and with less pain
Prerequisites
Write Python programs using lists, loops, conditionals, dictionaries, and functions
Puzzle your way through Python programs that use classes and exceptions
Run basic Unix shell commands like ls and mkdir
Read and write a little bit of HTML
Use Git to save and share files
In Addition
Yim teaches two college courses on web programming
They are frustrated that so many books talk about details but not about design
and use examples that their students can't relate to
This material will give them material they can use in class
and starting points for course projects
The Big Ideas
Source code is just text.
A program in memory is just a data structure.
We can control and inspect programs while they are running.
A week of hard work can sometimes save us an hour of thought.
The Author
Greg Wilson
Dedication
This one's for Mike and Jon:
Summary
Figure 3: Lesson topics and dependencies.
