Prelim - Ch. 1 & 2 - Social & Ethical, Hardware & Software

Question 1

Define ergonomics

Answer 1

The study of the relationship between people and their work environment.

Question 2

Define intellectual property

Answer 2

An invention, trade mark, design, brand, or the application of an idea, usually covered by a license.

Question 3

Define copyright

Answer 3

A legal right to licence the work of an author, artist or software developer.

Question 4

Define public domain

Answer 4

No exclusive intellectual property rights apply.

Question 5

Define User Interface

Answer 5

The space between human interactions and machines.

Question 6

Define Creative Commons

Answer 6

Has released licences free of charge to the public, waiving or reserving some copyright

Question 7

What does RSI stand for?

Answer 7

Repetitive strain injury (an injury caused by typing at a laptop for too long)

Question 8

What does CTS stand for?

Answer 8

Carpal tunnel syndrome (A numbness and tingling in the hand and arm caused by a pinched nerve in the wrist.)

Question 9

What does IP stand for and what does it mean?

Answer 9

Intellectual Property is property resulting from mental labour. IP Laws cover the design of most products to protect the rights of software developers.

Question 10

What does GUI stand for and what does it mean?

Answer 10

Graphical User Interface. It allows users to interact with electronic devices through visual and auditory techniques. It uses a bitmapped display and as a result requires significant processing and storage.

Question 11

What does CLI stand for and what does it mean?

Answer 11

Command Line Interface (a text-based user interface (UI) used to view and manage computer files)

Question 12

Define a character

Answer 12

Keystroke from a keyboard

Question 13

Define parse

Answer 13

To split a file or other input into pieces of data that can be easily stored or manipulated

Question 14

Define cast

Answer 14

Change a variable from one form to another e.g. string to integer

Question 15

Define function

Answer 15

Performs an operation and returns a value

Question 16

Define process

Answer 16

Performs an operation

Question 17

Define argument

Answer 17

A value passed into a process or function

Question 18

What does a conditional test look like?

Answer 18

If statements:
IF (TEST) THEN{ //do process
}
ELSE IF(TEST) THEN{ // do a different process
}
ELSE{ // do another process
}

Question 19

What do conditional loops look like?

Answer 19

While loops:
WHILE(TEST is TRUE){ // do a process 
}
FOR (TEST being TRUE){ // do a process for each iteration of the loop
}

Question 20

Define object-oriented programming (OOP)

Answer 20

A model of programming that revolves around objects and classes, instead of data. Examples of OO programming languages include C++, Java, Python etc

Question 21

Define class

Answer 21

A set of related objects that may inherit properties, used in OOP. E.g. square inherits properties of a rectangle, which inherits properties of quadrilaterals etc

Question 22

Define operators

Answer 22

Symbols with meaning:
==
!= or <>
\+
-

Question 23

Define operands

Answer 23

Variables or values involved in operations

Question 24

What are Low-level languages?

Answer 24

Hardware languages e.g. understood by assembler

Question 25

What are High-level languages?

Answer 25

Close to human language, will be compiled into a lower level language to create executable machine code

Question 26

Define syntax

Answer 26

The rules followed by a programming language, otherwise the code won’t compile

Question 27

What does HTML stand for?

Answer 27

HyperText Markup Language

Question 28

What does ASCII stand for?

Answer 28

American Standard Code for Information Interchange

Question 29

What is compliation?

Answer 29

Compilation is the process the computer takes to convert a high-level programming language into a machine language that the computer can understand.
The software which performs this conversion is called a compiler.
Translates the entire source code before running and therefore executes everything very fast. Common in computing.

Question 30

What is open source software?

Answer 30

Available for use and alteration by anyone, not copyrighted

Question 31

Why are commercial software programs distributed as an .exe file?

Answer 31

EXE files contain binary machine code that has been compiled from source code. The machine code is saved in such a way that it can be executed directly by the computer’s CPU, thereby “running” the program.

Question 32

What are the elements of a computer system?

Answer 32

• Hardware
• Software
• Procedures
• People
• Data

Question 33

What is interpretation?

Answer 33

Translates code statement by statement, and then is immediately executed. Slower than compilation.

Question 34

How does binary code work?

Answer 34

Binary code is a base two system, so each section progresses as:
2^4 2^3 2² 2^1 2^0

Therefore a number like 21 is represented by 10101.

Question 35

What are the different type of languages?

Answer 35

Machine language: binary
Assembly language: hexadecimal
High level languages: more like english, eg python
Declarative languages: what is to be done rather than how to do it.

Question 36

What is a gopher server?

Answer 36

A gopher server is a protocol designed for distributing, searching, and retrieving documents in Internet Protocol (IP) networks.

Question 37

What is an IP network?

Answer 37

An IP network is a set of rules governing the format of data sent over the internet or other network. Decides the method of transference as well.

Question 38

What is a bit-mapped display?

Answer 38

A screen which can display images or text, and is the main output to the user.

Question 39

What is an Absolute address?

Answer 39

The number given to identify a particular storage location in the computer’s memory.

Question 40

What does Abstraction do?

Answer 40

Abstraction is used to hide background details or any unnecessary implementation about the data so that users only see the required information.