Practical Computing for Science and Engineering
This course will give you a kit of skills and tools that will help you do great things even if you're not a mathematical prodigy. All you need is a little computing expertise. This course is designed for novice programmers: no programming experience is required! We'll teach you all the basic skills you need.
We'll focus on using using computers to solve common problems you'll encounter in science and engineering. In particular we'll talk about using computers to analyze data, simulate data, and visualize data.
You can download all of the notes as a single document here, or get them individually below.
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Introduction
What's this all about?
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1. Zero to Loops
Simple C programs; Variables; Loops; Putting it all together.
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Writing Pretty Programs
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2. Random Numbers and Simulations
The Code Development Dance; More command-line tools; More operators and math functions; Nested loops.
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3. Writing Flexible Programs
Readin' and Iffin': Using scanf to read input from the user, and using "if" statements to make decisions.
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A nano Cheat-Sheet
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4. Math and More Loops
"while" loops and "do" loops.
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5. Reading and Writing Files
Using the fprintf and fscanf functions.
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6. Using Arrays
Using arrays, and looking out for some potential pitfalls.
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7. Statistics
Creating histograms and analyzing data.
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8. Character Strings
Using strings while avoiding pitfalls.
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9. Functions
Defining and using functions.
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10. Numerical Integration
Approximating a definite integral with the "Trapezoid Rule", and doing "Monte Carlo" integration.
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11. Libraries
Creating and using your own libraries.
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12. Structures
Using structures to pack multiple properties into single variables.
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13. Bitwise Operators & Binary Numbers
Testing and flipping bits.
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Appendix A. Some Challenging Projects
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Appendix B. Installing Necessary Software
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Appendix C. Getting Example Data Sets
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Appendix D. Some Notes About Gnuplot
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Appendix E. Format Specifier Tricks