Codelab / Chapter 02
Introduction to Data

Lesson
- What is data?
- How to data
- Basic data representations
New Terms
- Analog: Relating to continuous numerical values of infitesimal granularity
- Binary: Base-2 numeral system, consisting only of 0 and 1. Counting up from 0, the binary numbers are: 0, 1, 10, 11, 100, 101, 110, 111, 1000…
- Boolean: A data type that has two possible values: True and False. These are often used with and associated with the binary values 1 and 0. Boolean values in Python are often used in conditionals and loops (which we’ll talk about in the future)
- Digital: Relating to discrete numerical systems
- Floating Point Number (Float): A number with a decimal point (e.g.
3.0rather than3). Because computers use binary numbers internally to represent numbers with decimal points, we often run into very small and unexpected rounding errors when using floats. - Integer: A positive, negative, or zero whole number (e.g.
3rather than3.0). - String: Text data. We can think of it as a list of this as a list of characters. For example,
"Hazel"[2]is'z'.
Homework
Do:
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Let’s flex our algorithmic thinking muscles some more. Write out in plain English an algorithm to sort a deck of cards.
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And: Write out in plain English an algorithm for a cashier to find exact change.
Read:
Posner, Miriam (2015), Humanities Data, a Necessary Contradiction
Horgan, John (2017), Profile of Claude Shannon, Inventor of Information Theory
Atwood, Jeff (2010), The Great Newline Schism
