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Roadmap: becoming a computational designer

roadmap

This roadmap provides guidence during the learning process, to understand how much you've progressed and what are the skills and concepts that you should master in order to move forward.

The roadmap is conceptually based on the definition of software by swiss computer scientist Niklaus Wirth: "Datastructures + Algorithms = Programs".

Let's break down this definition into its components:

Data Structures:

  • One of the most basic units of programs in a Data value, which exists first on its own.
  • Data can be of different types: single values, multiple values, mapping types, etc.
  • Data types are not just about categorizing data but also determining the operations that can be performed on the data.

Algorithms:

  • Data can be stored in a Variable. Variables are names (or labels) for data, and they can store and reference data values
  • Data and Variables (and a few more things) can be combined using operators to create an Expression. Expressions return a value.
  • Expressions can be composed into larger units called Statements. Statements which perform an action. Not all expressions are statements, but all statements contain expressions.
  • Statements can be composed into larger units to create Algorithms, which is a step-by-step procedure for solving a problem.
  • An Algorithm can be made re-usable if wrapped into a Function.
  • Functions can be composed into a Class together with Variables (attributes) so that data and behavior are bundled into one object.

Finally, once we have that, we can package our program into even larger units:

  • Functions and Classes can be composed into a larger unit called a Module. A Module is simply a python file.
  • Modules can be composed into a larger unit called Package. A Package is just a folder to organize related modules.
  • Packages can be composed into a larger unit called Library (or just app)
  • Libraries are larger re-usable pieces of code. We can include (import) as many libraries as we want in our code.