Functional decomposition: extra help

Why do you need to decompose a program into parts (functions)

• A previous CPSC 231 assignment ("Good thing Tam isn't make the assignments for this class!!!)
  • You should see you why you need to decompose a bigger, more complex program into parts (functions) i.e. it's too overwhelming for the average beginner to tackle as one big program trying to solve all the problems all at once.
  • [Link to the assignment description]

Early help with Exercise 5:

Learning objective: seeing a program with functions that take parameters and return information back to the caller. There isn't much of an explanation on how these constructs work that comes with Part II of the lectures on functional decomposition but seeing an actual program can help with this exercise as we won't complete this part of the lectures for a while. [PowerPoint notes] [Acrobat notes] [Example program]

Practice problems, my old mini-assignments (information sent out earlier via an email to the class list).

They are required for credit for this course but working through them can help you apply the concepts you have/will learn by writing very small programs so it's your worth your time to try them.

• First mini-assignment: writing code inside the body of a function, calling that function. No parameter passing, no return values: [Link to description]
• Second mini-assignment: the real use of local variables, parameter passing, returning and saving values from functions: [Link to description]
• Old tutorial exercises that I had my 231 students try in class, TAs explained what each program needed to do and students were given time in class to work through each one. [Descriptions of the problems] [Starting code - as applicable for each problem] [Solutions to the problems]