Overview of Programming

Abstract

Now that we have covered some of the basics of computer science and algorithms, it’s time to get into the nitty-gritty of applying those concepts. Just as an astronomer uses a telescope to carry out their craft, so does the computer scientist using programming to bring their algorithms and ideas into reality. The point is that programming is a tool for transforming procedural steps into real life code that can be used. Consequently, we need to understand how to write these programs so that we can get actually useful outputs from an algorithm or (in the coming chapters) an AI program. In this chapter, we’ll be writing up a program to do a simple task, finding the roots of a quadratic equation. First, we’ll go over what programs are. Then, we’ll outline the task at hand. Finally, we’ll go through a few attempts at trying to solve the task at hand, learning basic Python syntax and concepts along the way.

All supporting code for this chapter can be found at https://github.com/Apress/Practical-AI-for-Healthcare-Professionals/tree/main/ch3