Dividing Problems Up Into Modules: Functions And Procedures

Notes for the required material 

• These notes can be purchased in the Student Union Copy Center at cost
• Functions and Procedures in Pascal (Leestma & Nyhoff  Sections 5.1, 5.2, 5.5 and 5.6).    However, you don't need to worry about defining functions within functions (like they illustrate in Section 5.6).  You may also want to read through Section 5.3, 5.4 and 5.7 for additional examples, the latter Section provides an example of applying the top-down approach from the design step to actual implementation in Pascal: [PowerPoint] [Acrobat: 2 slides/page] [Acrobat: 6 slides/page]

Optional teaching material

Background / Sources of additional information

• Pascal Programming and Problem Solving by Leestma S. and Nyhoff L. 4th Edition (MacMillan Publishing Company).
• Pascal an Introduction to the Art and Science of Programming by Savitch W.J. (The Benjamin / Cummings Publishing Co., Inc.). 
• The Pascal link under the GNU website (since the U of C Computer Science department uses the GNU Pascal compiler gpc).

Teaching Tips

I have found that because functions and procedures involve a lot of new concepts that it takes students quite a while to absorb everything.   Consequently I have found it useful to separate when I talk about functions with when I talk about recursion.  This allows students some time to absorb the basic concepts before proceeding onto something much more advanced.