Section 1
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Problem Solving
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Date created
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Cards (166)
Section 1
(50 cards)
Problem Solving
The process of formulating a problem, finding a solution, and expressing the solution
Evaluate
To simplify an expression by performing the operations in order to yield a single value
Interpret
To execute a program in a high-level language by translating it one line at a time.
Operator
A special symbol that represents a simple computation like addition, multiplication, or string concatenation.
Mnemonic
A memory aid. We often give variables mnemonic names to help us remember what is stored in the variable
Value
One of the basic units of data, like a number or string, that a program manipulates.
Floor Division
The operations that divides two numbers and chops off the fraction part
Print statement
An instruction that causes the Python interpreter to display a value on the screen
Portability
A property of a program that can run on more than one kind of computer
Floating-point
A type that represents numbers with fractional parts
Operand
One of the values on which an operator operates
High-level language
A programming language like Python that is designed to be easy for humans to read and write
Assignment
A statement that assigns a value to a variable
Boolean expression
An expression whose value is either True or False
Chained Conditional
A conditional statement with a series of alternative branches.
Compile
To translate a program written in a high-level language into a low-level language all at once, in preparation for later execution
Central Processing Unit (CPU)
The heart of any computer. It is what runs the software that we write; also called "CPU" or "the processor"
Bug
An error in a program
Machine code
The lowest level language for software which is the language that is directly executed by the central processing unit
Secondary Memory
Stores programs and data and retains its information even when the power is turned off. Generally slower than main memory. Examples of secondary memory include disk drives and flash memory in USB sticks.
Rules of precedence
The set of rules governing the order in which expressions involving multiple operators and operands are evaluated
Nested Conditional
A conditional statement that appears in one of the branches of another conditional statement.
Low-level language
A programming language that is designed to be easy for a computer to execute; also called "machine code" or "assembly language."
Comment
Information in a program that is meant for other programmers (or anyone reading the source code) and has no effect on the execution of the program
Integer
A type that represents whole numbers
Comparison Operator
One of the operators that compares its operands: ==, !=, >, <, >=, and <=
Parse
To examine a program and analyze the syntactic structure.
Keyword
A reserved word that is used by the compiler to parse a program; you cannot use keywords like if, def, and while as variable names.
String
A type that represents sequences of characters
Main memory
Stores programs and data. Main memory loses its information when the power is turned off.
Logical Operator
One of the operators that combine boolean expressions: and, or, and not.
Semantic Error
An error in a program that makes it do something other than what the programmer intended
Body
The sequence of statements within a compound statement
Guardian Pattern
Where we construct a logical expression with additional comparisons to take advantage of the short circuit behavior.
Expression
A combination of variables, operators, and values that represent a single result value.
Condition
The boolean expression in a conditional statement that determines which branch is executed
Statement
A section of code that represents a command or action. So far, the statements we have seen are assignments and print statements.
Conditional Statement
A statement that controls the flow of execution depending on some condition
Program
A set of instructions that specifies a computation
Semantics
The meaning of a program
Concatenate
To join two operands end-to-end
Modulus Operator
An operator, denoted with a percent sign (%) that works on integers and yields the remainder when one number is divided by another.
Variable
A name that refers to a value
Branch
One of the alternative sequences of statements in a conditional statement
Prompt
When a program displays a message and pauses for the user to type some input to the program
Traceback
A list of the functions that are executing, printed when an exception occurs.
Type
A category of values. The types we have seen so far are integers (type int), floating-point numbers (type float), and strings (type str).
Source Code
A program in a high-level language
Compound Statement
A statement that consists of a header and a body. The header ends with a colon (:). The body is indented relative to the header.
Interactive Mode
A way of using the Python interpreter by typing commands and expressions at the prompt.
Section 2
(50 cards)
Function Call
A statement that executes a function. IT consists of the function name followed by an argument list.
Aliasing
A circumstance where two or more variables refer to the same object
Import Statement
A statement that reads a module file and creates a module object.
Deterministic
Pertaining to a program that does the same thing each time it runs, given the same inputs.
Format Operator
An operator, % that takes a format string and a tuple and generates a string that includes the elements of the tuple formatted as specified by the format string
Initialize
An assignment that gives an initial value to a variable that will be updated
Immutable
The property of a sequence whose items cannot be assigned
Algorithm
A general process for solving a category of problems.
Function Object
A value created by a function definition. The name of the function is a variable that refers to a function object.
Index
An integer value used to select an item in a sequence, such as a character in a string.
Format string
A string, used with the format operator, that contains format sequences.
Iteration
Repeated execution of a set of statements using either a recursive function call or a loop
Return value
The result of a function. If a function call is used as an expression, the return value is the value of the expression.
Object
Something a variable can refer to. For now, you can use "object" and value" interchangeably.
Format sequence
A sequence of characters in a format string, lie %d, that specifies how a value should be formatted.
Function
A named sequence of statements that performs some useful operation. Functions may or may not take arguments and may or may not produce a result.
Increment
An update that increases the value of a variable (often by one)
Counter
A variable used to count something, usually initialized to zero and then incremented.
Function Definition
A statement that creates a new function, specifying its name, parameters, and the statements it executes.
Pseudorandom
Pertaining to a sequence of numbers that appear to be random, but are generated by a deterministic program.
Infinite Loop
A loop in which the terminating condition is never satisfied or for which there is no termination condition.
Newline
A special character used in files and strings to indicate the end of a line
Short Circuit
When Python is part-way through evaluating a logical expression and stops the evaluation because Python knows the final value for the expression without needing to evaluate the rest of the expression.
Heaader
The first line of a function definition
Accumulator
A variable used in a loop to add up or accumulate a result
Pythonic
A technique that works elegantly in Python. "Using try and except is the Pythonic way to recover from missing files"
Composition
Using an expression as part of a larger expression, or a statement as part of a larger statement
Decrement
An update that decreases the value of a variable
Module Object
A value created by an import statement that provides access to the data and code defined in a module.
Text FIle
A sequence of characters stored in permanent storage like a hard drive.
Parameter
A name used inside a function to refer to the value passed as an argument.
Invocation
A statement that calls a method
Item
One of the values in a sequence.
Search
A pattern of traversal that stops when it finds what it is looking for
Traverse
To iterate through the items in a sequence, performing a similar operation on each.
Slice
A part of a string specified by a range of indices.
Empty String
A string with no characters and length 0, represented by two quotation mars.
Flow of Execution
The order in which statements are executed during a program run.
Quality Assurance
A person or team focused on insuring the overall quality of a software product. QA is often involved in testing a product and identifying problems before the product is released.
Catch
To prevent an exception from terminating a program using the try and except statements
Sequence
An ordered set; that is, a set of values where each value is identified by an integer index.
Dot Notation
The syntax for calling a function in another module by specifying the module name followed by a dot(period) and the function name.
Body
The sequence of statements inside a function definition
Argument
A value provided to a function when the function is called. This value is assigned to the corresponding parameter in the function.
Delimiter
A character or string used to indicate where a string should be split
Flag
A boolean variable used to indicate whether a condition is true.
Fruitful Function
A function that returns a value
Void function
A function that doesn't return a value.
Counter
A variable used in a loop to count the number of times something happened. We initialize a counter to zero and then increment the counter each time we want to "count" something.
Method
A function that is associated with an object and called using dot notation.
Section 3
(50 cards)
Grep
A command available in most Unix systems that searches through text files looking for lines that match regular expressions. The command name stands for "Generalized Regular Expression Parser".
Equivalent
Having the same value
Idential
Being the same object (which implies equivalence).
Scrape
When a program pretends to be a web browser and retrieves a web page and then looks at the web page content. Often programs are following the links in one page to find the next page so they can can traverse a network of pages or a social network.
JSON
JavaScript Object Notation - A format that allows for the markup of structured data based on the syntax of JavaScript Objects.
Element
One of the values in a list (or other sequence), also called items
Port
A number that generally indicates which application you are contacting when you make a socket connection to a server. As an example, web traffic usually uses port 80 while e-mail traffic uses port 25.
Object
SOmething a variable can refer to. An object has a type and a value
Attribute
One of the values within a tuple. More commonly called a "column" or "field"
Histogram
A set of counters
Implementation
A way of performing a computation
XML
eXtensible MArup Language - A format that allows for the markup of structured data
Nested Loops
When there is one or more loops "inside" of another loop. The inner loop runs to completion each time the outer loop runs once.
Index
An integer value that indicates an element in a list
Dictionary
A mapping from a set of keys to their corresponding values
Regular Expression
A language for expressing more complex search strings. A regular expression may contain special characters that indicate that a search only matches at the beginning or end of a line or many other similar capabilities.
Item
Another name for a key-value pair
Hash function
A function used by a hashtable to compute the location for a key
Database Browser
A piece of software that allows you to directly connect to a database and manipulate the database directly without writing a program
API
Application Program Interface - A contract between applications that defines the patterns of interaction between two application components
Scatter
The operation of treating a sequence as a list of arguments
Singleton
A list (or other elements) with a single element
Hashable
A type that has a hash function. Imutable types like integers, floats, and strings are hashable; mutable types lie lists and dictionaries are not.
Lookup
A dictionary operation that takes a key and finds the corresponding value
List Traversal
The sequential accessing of each element in a list
Nested List
A list that is an element of another list
Socket
A network connection between two applications where the applications can send and receive data in either direction
Key-value pair
The representation of the mapping from a key to a value
List
A sequence of values
ElementTree
A built-in Python library used to parse XML data
Brittle Code
Code that works when the input data is in a particular format but prone to breakage if there is some deviation from the correct format. We call this "brittle code" because it is easily broken
Comparable
A type where one value can be checked to see if it is greater than, less than or equal to another value of the same type. Types which are comparable can be put in a list and sorted.
DSU
Abbreviation of "decorate-sort-undecorate," a pattern that involves building a list of tuples, sorting, and extracting part of rthe result.
Hashtable
The algorithm used to implement Python dictionaries
Reference
The association between a variable and its value
Wild card
A special character that matches any character. In regular expressions the wild card character is the period character.
Tuple Assignment
An assignment with a sequence on the right side and a tuple of variables on the left. The right side is evaluated and then its elements are assigned to the variables on the left.
Gather
The operation of assembling a variable-length argument tuple.
Key
An object that appears in a dictionary as the first part of a key-value pair
REST
REpresentational State Transfer - A style of Web Services that provide access to resources within an application using the HTTP protocol
Shape (of a data structure):
A summary of the type, size, and composition of a data structure
Value
An object that appears in a dictionary as the second part of the key-value pair. This is more specific than our previous use of the word 'value.'
Greedy Matching
The notion that "+" and "*" characters in a regular expression expand outward to match the largest possible string.
Data Structure
A collection of related values, often organized in lists, dictionaries, tuples, etc.
Tuple
An immutable sequence of elements
BeautifulSoup
A Python library for parsing HTML documents and extracting data from HTML documents that compensates for most of the imperfections in the HTML that browsers generally ignore. You can download the BeautifulSOup code from www.crummy.com
Cursor
A cursor allows you to execute SQL commands in a database and retrieve data from the database. A cursor is similar to a socket or file handle for network connections and files respectively.
SOA
Service Oriented Architecture - When an application is made of components connected across a network
Spider
The act of a web search engine retrieving a page and then all the pages linked from a page and so on until they have nearly all of the pages on the Internet which they use to build their search index.
Constraint
When we tell the database to enforce a rule on a field or a row in a table. A common constraint is to insist that there can be no duplicate values in a particular field (i.e. all the values must be unique).
Section 4
(16 cards)