Programming

The article “Future Developments: Tomorrow’s IT Stars Will Need More Than Mere Skills” published in eWeek (2004) likens the science of application development to basic reading and writing skills that all educated people have developed.  This is not to say that all people are today equipped with the knowledge of programming fundamentals.  Rather, the author of the article makes the point that since writing an enterprise application requires a mere set of rules and directions such as those that car drivers are acquainted with, it is possible that every educated person in the near future will be equipped with the knowledge of programming fundamentals.

By following a set of rules and directions, therefore, every person who needs to write an enterprise application or software program would be able to find his way.  In that case, what would be the job of trained programmers?  The author describes the programmers of tomorrow as masters in their science.  Like “master tour guides,” these individuals would be akin to the “Formula 1 racers who can push their enabling technology to new limits.”  So yes, there will be need in the days to come for trained computer scientists.  All the same, today’s programmer must seek to be a master in the science – one who knows more about the technology than laymen who merely follow the guidelines to programming.

Given that the layman, too, should be able to follow specific rules to write applications, it is wise to let the computer software be divided into operating systems and applications.  This makes it easier for anyone who is not a master in computer science to easily use both operating systems and applications, each with their own guidelines for operation.  If applications and operating systems were integrated, the layman would have to learn much more than he would be willing to learn about programming anyhow.

Lastly, Coffee (2004) asks if knowledge of programming fundamentals would be required in the same way in the future that reading and writing are taken for granted today as basic skills.  Based on the summary of the article above, the answer to the question is: Yes, every working professional who wishes to follow the set of rules and directions to write his own program in the future would be able to do so almost perfectly.  However, unlike reading and writing skills that are acquired by both working and unemployed people, the skill of writing programs by following a set of guidelines is not expected to be acquired by all people.

Introduction:

The purpose of this paper is to provide a simple example of a selection structure that is contained as part of the Programming Solution Proposal I am developing throughout the course of this programming class. The selection structure I chose to make an example of isn’t really inclusive as part of my original programming proposal due in week 5, however, I devised a very simple “If-Then-Else” structure that uses somewhat of the same information and calculation as what I may use in my final proposal. I’ve written the pseudocode for a section that at this time appears to make sense to use, given the selection structure I chose, and I also paralleled that with a Visual Logic flowchart.

The visual logic flowchart was executed correctly with specific values that are to be used in order for others to properly test it. These values will change as the program gets fine-tuned, however, for now there are specific values that must be used to obtain the correct percentages. Purpose of the structure

The reason I chose the “If-Then-Else” structure is because it seemed to make the most sense for my program and it didn’t appear to be too complicated a structure to master. Even though this structure may not be included as part of my final proposal paper, I thought it would be good to work with and verify if I could somehow make it work. The program I’ll ultimately be creating is one where seasonal stats will be entered in by an assistant coach, for athletes on any given basketball team.

Through this they will be able to determine a players overall field goal average, free throw percentage, rebound average, etc. However, for now, I’ve decided to simply use an If-Then-Else structure that displays a friendly output message of what the user might see if he/she entered their “field goals attempted” value and “field goals made” value. The pseudocode for the If-Then-Else structure

Again, I must reiterate, that the selection structure I chose to use may not be part of my final proposal paper, however, the pseudocode that is displayed below is a simple and short example of how I used the information for my original proposal, using the If-Then-Else structure: Write “Enter amount of field goals attempted: “

Input FGA
Write “Enter amount of field goals made: “
Input FGM
Set Average = FGM / FGA
If Average => 50 Then
Set FieldGoalAverage = Average
Write “Your field goal average is: ” + FieldGoalAverage + “%” Else
Write “Your field goal average is: ” + FieldGoalAverage + “%” Write “You need to work on your shooting game!”
End If

Visual Logic flowchart
The Visual Logic flowchart I put together, which parallels the pseudocode above, has been executed successfully. The field goal average in this VL example is calculated using the following values: FieldGoalAttempts (FGsAttempted): 5000

FieldGoalsMade (FGsMade): 50
The values for the variables above test the ‘True’ decision statement. Entering the following values below execute and test the ‘False’ decision statement: FieldGoalAttempts (FGsAttempted): 2000

FieldGoalsMade (FGsMade): 50
The .vls file has been uploaded as a separate attachment in the Assignments tab of the UoP Student website.