CMPT 120 Chapter Notes - Chapter 3: Computer Science

• School: Simon Fraser University
• Department: Computing Science
• Course: CMPT 120
• Professor: Liaqat Ali

Document Summary

In figure 2. 5, the binary string 0100100001101001 represents hi in ascii. But, if you look at this chunk of binary as representing an integer, it"s the same as 18537. There actually isn"t any difference as far as the computer itself is con- cerned. Its only job is to store the bits its given and do whatever calculations it"s asked to do. The programming language must keep track of what kind of information the different parts of the memory are holding. This is why the concept of types is so important in python. If python didn"t keep track of the type of each variable, there would be no way to tell. We will talk more about data structures in unit 5. ) We have also said that coming up with an algorithm is generally much harder than implementing the algorithm with a programming language. Cre- ating algorithms is something you"ll practice over the next few years if you continue in computing science.