Computational Thinking

Computational Thinking

1. Abstraction

   • Separating the component parts and decide which are worth including
   • Variables are an abstraction
   • different layers
     • concentrating on one issue at a time
   • Filtering out unnecessary data
   • create a model

2. Thinking Ahead

   • inputs and outputs
     • determining what outputs are needed
       • But know all inputs before hand, ready to use
   • Caching
     • Data that is an input can be stored if it is needed again before shut down
       • Does not need to be read from the disk, therefore faster response time.
     • Prefetching
       • an instruction is requested of the memory before the cpu needs it.
         • reduces the number of access actions
   • Preconditions and Reusability
     • reusing models in action
       • having to code less, less expensive (time wise), less problematic code

3. Thinking Procedurally

   • Decomposing problems, program modules that correspond with each sub-problem.

4. Thinking logically

   • decision making, if statements, flowcharts

5. Thinking concurrently

   • different parts of the program can be processed at the same time.
     • Advantage: save time, more efficient
     • Disadvantages: smaller mistakes lead to a larger failure
   • multi-core processors
     • parallel processing