What are the basic programming concepts and the Fundamentals used in Coding?

A long time ago, coding was one of the hobbies for a few fiddling with computers. But now it has become a mandatory qualification in career skills. Job recruiters are also willing to pay a lot for people who are skilled in programming. Anyone can become a professional if they know the core concepts and fundamentals of coding.

The core concepts are the same for many programming languages. By understanding them, we can quickly learn other programming languages in less time. Here let us take the Java programming language to understand the basics which are common to other programming languages as well.

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The 5 basic concepts of programming language:

1. Variables
2. Control structures
3. Data structures
4. Syntax
5. Tools

Let us discuss them in detail.

1) Variables:

They are most important in a computer program. A variable is a location, where we can store information. This information can be referred to anywhere in the program by providing a unique name to it.
Example: What is your name?

The text box is the “Variable” that stores the information. Here, John is the information. Let us provide the variable with a unique name so that we can refer to it anywhere in the program. The unique name is “Myname”. (Or it can also be “ABC”).
As per the example, when we ask the program, what value does the variable “My-name” contain? The program replies “John” or whatever is mentioned in the textbox.

A variable name should not start with a number and should not contain space or underscores.

This process of getting the value for the variable is the important concept which we all have been using in online bank login, Amazon purchase, Facebook, etc…

Variables store different types of data like whole numbers, text, decimal numbers, etc… They are called data types.

Why are data types important?

Example: You define two variables. A=12 and B=5 and define both variables as integers, then sum of both integers i.e A+B=17. But if we define both variables as String, then the result A+B = 223. Because it treats both the variable values as text. So in order to obtain exact output, it is important to define data types.

Important Data types:

1. String (str): Used for a combination of any characters like letters, numbers, and symbols.
2. Character (char) : Used for single letters
3. Integer (int) : Used for whole numbers
4. Float (Real) : Used for decimal numbers or fractions
5. Boolean (bool) : Used for yes/no options.

2. Control structures:

It is the decision-making process in the program. It makes decisions based on parameters after analyzing the variable. Based on the condition given, it may skip a code or jump to a different part of a code or re-run the code.

Example 1:

If (age > 18)
{
// Eligible to vote
}
Else
{
// Ineligible to vote
}

Here the “if” condition is checked. If your age is > 18 then the first segment ( first set of {}) will be executed else the second segment will be executed.

Example 2:

While (age < 18)
{
// wait until your 18 years old to vote
}

This while loop control structure will check if age < 18 and will continue to execute the segment again and again until age =or >18.

3. Data structures:

It is a specific way of storing and organizing data. Some of the data structures are Array, Stack, Queue, Linked list, Trees, and Hashing.

Array:

It contains a group of elements with the same data type.

Example:
IntStudentID[3];
StudentID[0]=1254;
StudentID[1]=1255;
StudentID[2]=1256;

Stack:

It follows a particular order in which operations are to be performed. Any insertion and deletion of elements can only be done at one end which is from the top. The Operations are done in the stack are:

• Push: It adds an item on the stack and if it is full, then the condition is called “Overflow”.
• Pop: Remove an item from the stack and if it is empty, then the condition is called “underflow”.
• Peek or Top: Top element of the stack is obtained.
• Is empty: If the stack is empty, it returns true else false.

Queue:

It is similar to stack. But here we can insert data in one end and remove data from an-other end. It operates as (FIFO) First in first out algorithm. The operations in the queue are:

• Enqueue: Add an element in the queue if there is space in the queue.
• Dequeue: Remove elements from the queue if there are elements in the queue.
• Front: Obtain the first item from the queue.
• Rear: Obtain the last item from the queue.
• Isempty: Checks if the queue is empty.
• Isfull: checks if queue if full.

Linked list:

It is a set of nodes where each node contains one value and a pointer. The next member of the list is always pointed by the pointer.

There are 3 types:

• Singly-linked list: It is a collection of nodes where each node has a data field and an address field that holds the reference to the next node. All the nodes are connected in a sequential manner.
• Doubly linked list: It has extra memory to save the address of the previous node along with the address of the next node and data.
• Circular linked list: It can be a singly linked list or doubly linked list which contains no NULL values.

The operations of the linked list are:

• Traversal: To pass through all the nodes one by one.
• Insertion: to add a node at a given location.
• Deletion: To delete a node.
• Searching: To search an element by its value.
• Updating: To update a node.
• Sorting: To arrange the nodes in a linked list in a particular order.
• Merging: To merge 2 linked lists.

Tree:

It is nonlinear and has a hierarchical structure. The topmost node is called root and each node has some data which can be of any data type.

The basic operations of binary search tree:

• Insert: Insert an element in a tree or create a tree.
• Search: Search an element in the tree.
• Preorder traversal: Traverses a tree in a pre-order manner.
• Inorder traversal: Traverses a tree in in-order manner.
• Postorder: Traverses a tree in a post-order manner.

Hashing:

It converts large keys to small keys. The values are stored in the hash table. In the hash table, the data is stored as an array where each data has its own unique index value.

4. Syntax:

It is the rules that define the structure of a language. It has rules to control symbols, words, etc..so that the computer can understand. Else the compiler will display “syntax error”. Eg: spelling mistakes like “wile” instead of “while” or a missing bracket etc….

5. Tools:

It is software, used to create, maintain, debug the program. Some of the tools are Compiler, debugger, IDE, Profiler, etc… The most common are Source code editor or compiler.

FUNDAMENTALS OF CODING:

There are six basic fundamentals.

1. Sequencing
2. Branching
3. Iteration
4. Arithmetic
5. Data storage
6. Data in / Data out

Let us discuss them in detail.

1. Sequencing:
   They are the particular order in which instructions/commands are performed in an algorithm. It is important so that the computer can perform the task in the right sequence.
2. Branching :
   It allows the programmer to jump to a different part of the program. Common branching statements are break, continue, return and goto.
   • Break : It can be used with switch in case structure or can be used to break out of loop.
   • Continue: It causes a loop to stop its current iteration and start with the next iteration.
   • Return: It causes the program to exit from the function and return to the statement where the function was called.
   • Goto: It makes the logic jump to different parts of the program.
3. Iteration:
   It means the same process is repeated many times until a certain condition is reached or a certain number of times or iterate elements in an array. Example: Used in long division method, Fibonacci numbers, calculator game, etc.. The iteration statements are:
   • Repeat …Until…
     After each iteration, the condition is checked to see if the criteria have been met to exit. Here minimum of one iteration of the loop will be executed since the condition is at the bottom.
     Repeat
     Until
   • While…do…Endwhile
     This checks the condition of whether to enter the loop or skip the step. If the loop is entered, the condition will be checked again before each iteration to see if criteria have been met to exit.
     While Do
     Endwhile
   • For..to…Next
     The number of iterations is fixed in the starting of the loop.
     For = ToNext
4. Arithmetic:
   It can perform addition(A+B), subtraction(A-B), multiplication(A*B), modulo (A%B) and division(A/B).
5. Data storage:
   They are items that can store or save data like numbers or strings. Example: Variables.
6. Data in / Data out:
   The data that we give as input in order to obtain some data as output. The result is purely based on input data given. It need not root a database nor run another program. So it’s faster.