A General Introduction to Programming
Bart Baesens, Aimée Backiel, Seppe vanden Broucke · 2012
This introductory chapter discusses the fundamental concepts of programming. The wrox.com code downloads for the chapter are found at www.wrox.com/go/beginningjavaprogramming on the Download Code tab. The chapter first explains the key steps in a programming process, and provides a sneak preview of object-oriented programming. Programs are typically written using a step-by-step approach, as follows: requirements gathering and analysis; program design; program coding; translation to machine language; testing and debugging; deployment; and maintenance. Because our environment is continuously evolving, software, too, is often continually reviewed and adapted. The chapter describes different types of programming errors. The basic principles of software testing and software maintenance are also discussed. Among the four types of maintenance, perfective maintenance typically takes the main share of all maintenance efforts (it can even be more than 50%), followed by adaptive, corrective, and preventive maintenance. Finally, the chapter discusses some basic principles of structured programming.