Lecture 1: introduction to 6.00

Question 1

What is declarative knowledge?

Answer 1

it is composed as a statement of fact

Question 2

what is imperative knowledge?

Answer 2

is about how to accomplish something, it is the “know how” knowledge

Question 3

what were the two types of computers?

Answer 3

fixed program computers & stored program computers

Question 4

what is the advantage of stored program computers?

Answer 4

it is more versatile than a fixed-program computer by interpreting a program given to it. it carries out those instructions rather than being built to do just one thing.

Question 5

What defines a programming language?

Answer 5

Syntax, static semantic & semantic

Question 6

what is the syntax of a language?

Answer 6

syntax are sequences of characters and symbols that constitute a well-formed string. determines whether a string is legal.

Question 7

what is the static semantics of a language?

Answer 7

determines which well-formed strings have a meaning.

Question 8

what is the semantics of a language?

Answer 8

determines what the meaning is. semantics assign a meaning to a legal sentence (assuming no static semantic error)

Question 9

what sorts of errors can occur in a program?

Answer 9

programs can crash, run in a loop forever or run correctly but provide a wrong answer.

Question 10

what can you build given a small set of instructions?

Answer 10

any computer program you want. computers have a small number of built-in instructions, combining them you can do complex things.

Question 11

What is a programming language?

Answer 11

provides a set of primitive control instructions and how to combine them.

Question 12

What is an approximation algorithm?

Answer 12

is an algorithm that given an input finds a solution that is close to the actual solution but the actual solution. it is often easier and faster to compute than the actual solution.

Question 13

What is an algorithm?

Answer 13

A description on how to perform a computation.

Question 14

What does it mean when an algorithm has converged?

Answer 14

It mean that the algorithm has halted.

Question 15

What is the flow of control?

Answer 15

the order in which the instructions are executed.

Question 16

What is the termination condition?

Answer 16

When the algorithm tell the program to stop.

Question 17

What is an interpreter?

Answer 17

A program that can execute any legal sets of instructions

Question 18

what is the name of the instructions provided to the computer?

Answer 18

Source code

Question 19

How does an interpreter program work?

Answer 19

you provide the source code to the program at which point the language checks the code and then interprets the code ultimately producing an output.

Question 20

how does a compiler program work?

Answer 20

you provide the source code to the program at which point the language checks it and then compiles it and then translates it to another language called the object code.

Question 21

What is an object code?

Answer 21

it is the language that is closer to what the computer knows how to interpret then the hardware interpreter interprets the compiled code and produces an output. compiled languages are more efficient.