Unit 1.2 What you will learn
We will use the evaluation of a polynomial as an example with which to ilustrate two key ideas in computer science:
The importance of mathematics. In our example, we used mathematics to specify the operation to be performed. In our further discussion, we will see how (mathematical) logic allows one to carefully reason about the correctness of a program.
The importance of abstraction. In our example, we quickly abstracted away from conversion between a specific base and decimal numbers to conversion between a general base and decimal numbers. In our further discussion, we will illustrate the benefits of abstracting away from reasoning with individial entries in an array to reasoning with regions of numbers (subarrays) in that array.
This will give you a glimpse at why programming is more than just coding in some computer language.