Now I am aware of OSSU, FCC and a few other online learning resources for studying outside of my coursework, but at this point I have already taken Intro to C, Object Oriented Programming (Intro to Java), and Computer Logic and Organization. Since these classes I have taken a few semesters off, and returning have mainly been completing GEP requirements, as my Computer Science I class is gated behind College Algebra. Semester after next I will be taking Computer Science I, and most of the curriculum will involve programming in C, so I decided to use this textbook as a refresher, and also as a deeper delve into the language, because I have projects in C++ I wish to try in the future, and I know it is introduced at the end of this textbook.

This being said the textbook I chose to give a try was C How to Program Seventh Edition by Paul and Harvey Deitel. I won’t necessarily go from start to finish, doing every assignment, but I do intend to thoroughly investigate this textbook before moving forward to another.

With that being said, this post will be dedicated to my learnings from the preface and everything within section 1 of 24. I will only write concepts which are new to me, a great deal of this section seems to be introducing computer components, input and output devices and other information that I’m simply already aware and comfortable with.

Section 1: Introduction to Computers, the Internet, and the Web

-Moore’s Law Every year or two the capacities of computers have approximately doubled inexpensively. As technology improves, cost to performance ratio also improves.

-Bits A bit, or binary digit is the samallest data item a computer can hold, measured in a value of either 0 or 1.

-Characters Every letter, number, and symbol is typically stored as a pattern of 1’s and 0’s used to represent that value within the computer. Characters are only used to increase user friendliness.

-Field As characters are composed of bits, fields are composed of characters, for instance names of workers on a payroll.

-Records A record is a group of related fields.

-File A file is a group of related records.

-Database A database is a group of related data organized in a way in which it is easy to access and manipulate, think large Excel sheets.

The rest of this section is introductory in nature and I’m not willing to spend time memorizing why TC/IP exists etc. We will move on to section 2 in our next post and write our first few programs with explanations.