Program Design and Debugging

This unit develops core programming skills: problem decomposition, control structures, functions/modularity, and basic data handling. Students will write, test, and debug small programs in a development environment, building on introductory concepts and preparing for integration with systems and software engineering topics in subsequent units.

Learning Objectives

• Analyze problem requirements and develop algorithmic solutions using stepwise refinement and common control structures (sequence, selection, iteration).
• Apply language syntax and development tools to implement variables, data types, control flow, functions/methods, and simple data structures in working programs.
• Demonstrate modular program design by creating, documenting, and invoking functions or modules with clear interfaces and appropriate comments.
• Evaluate program correctness and reliability by performing systematic debugging and testing (including unit tests and use of debugging tools) and applying fixes using version control best practices.