Programming Methods and Tools

Since the inception of computers (or more broadly – calculating machines), their creators aimed to either solve or accelerate the processes whose "traditional" implementation would take a lot longer and require considerable resources. However, to make this possible, the thought that it could be done had to come first. This thought had to be turned into an idea – how to achieve this (an algorithm). The idea had to be presented in a form that could be converted into commands for a computer (the source code in a programming language) and then translated into a set of machine statements that a computer could execute (executable program). Unfortunately, this process – although summarised in the three sentences above – is not simple. Each stage requires special knowledge and skills.This textbook Programming Methods and Tools is a collective attempt to look at the process of developing computer programs. There are many publications available on the market describing algorithms, data structures and programming languages, but the intention of the authors is to present the entire issue in one textbook: from the history of algorithms, through their analysis, to object-oriented programming and programming of mobile devices. Such an approach to this problem was not easy. Among the wealth of issues related to creating algorithms, building and using data structures and writing programs, the authors had to select those the knowledge of which is essential to the understanding of the entire subject, at the same time allowing readers to gain knowledge that is sufficient for effective programming.