This document discusses 8 important programming concepts for beginners to know in 2017: 1. Variables - boxes that can hold different values and be used in code. 2. Data types - including numbers, text, lists, and dictionaries which store different types of data. 3. Classes/IDs and selectors - tools used to identify and style elements in code like HTML and CSS. 4. Functions/methods - pre-written blocks of code that perform tasks when given arguments. 5. Arguments - ingredients passed to functions that are necessary for the function to run. 6. Libraries - collections of pre-written functions and methods that help solve common problems. 7. Lists/arrays and dictionaries -

1. 8 Programming Concepts You Should Know in 2017
If you want to get into coding, there are chances that you’ll come across several problems
that could be discouraging, mainly in tutorials owing to your lack of previous experiences
in programming. Even the programming classes for beginners might appear difficult if
you are not aware of the below­mentioned basic programming concepts.
Initially, several questions come to mind. Like how to do programming or
which programming courses for Beginners could be helpful. There are several online
sources that would help you with the later question; here we shall discuss the former query.
What is computer programming?
Computer programming or in short programming is a process that leads to a formulation of
a computing problem to be run by computer programs. A source code is written in one or
many programming languages.
Top 8 Programming Concepts You Should Know in 2017 for beginners:
1. Variables
I want to start with first programming concepts as a variable. They are like boxes can hold
various things at various times. This is one of the most basic elements of programming. In
short, a way to refer something such that you could use it in a line of code:
•You might develop a variable to store age of a person and call it ‘age’
•May develop a variable to store user’s name and call it ‘username’
•You can develop a variable to count how many times a thing happened and call it ‘counter’
•You would develop a variable to store position and call it an ‘index’
Variables are changeable. A user’s name could be different every time when one code runs.
A list of items could have other items added to it, or removed.
They can be combined as well: an age might be calculated based on a birth date, here both
age and birth date are two different variables. This is the first basic programming concepts
you will come across if starts to learn to program.
2. Strings, integers and other types of data
A string is a series of characters.
You have different types of variables, which keep on changing. The basic types include:
•Numbers — integers and floats (they have decimal places)
•Text — basically called strings and indicated by quotation marks, e.g.“17 August”

2. •Lists or arrays indicated by square brackets and commas, e.g. [“Manchester”, “Glasgow”,
“Paris”]
•Dictionaries or dicts normally mentioned by curly brackets, colons and commas, e.g.
{“Age” : 23, “Name”: “Jane”}
This is important as problems could occur when code gets information in a wrong format.
For instance, you can’t do a calculation with strings, or in several cases, mix text with
numbers.
In such cases programming involves instructing the code to treat ‘7’ as a number and not as
a string, or to convert the string ‘seven’ to its numerical version. Computers need exact
instruction to perform.
3.classes and #ids and selectors
Selectors like .nav permits you to find or control items in a web page.
HTML code applies the class= and id= to identify particular types of content and make it
possible to edit with other code. For instance, you might have such a code in a web page:
•<div class=”article”>
•<ul class=”nav”>
•<h2 class=”subhead”>
•<div id=”footer”>
There are about 3 ways in which, these classes and ids become useful:
1.They can be styled by making use of CSS
2.It could be identified and written using languages like Ruby, Python, and PHP
In many cases, this is done using selectors. These selectors mention a class with a period,
and an id with a hash, as shown below:
•.article (for class=”article”)
•#footer (for id=”footer”)
4. Functions, methods
Functions and methods are like titles. You only need to provide the ingredients.
Functions and methods are basically one­word formulae to perform things that would
otherwise take several lines of code. For instance:
•len in certain languages means ‘give me a length of the thing I specify’
•split in certain languages means ‘split this thing into one or many based on a criteria I
specify’

3. To do that, the function requires an ingredient called an argument or parameter, and the
method is fixed to an ingredient called an object.
The difference between methods and functions is minute and can’t be explored here.
One basic useful thing about functions is that you could define your own in your code.
Other functions can be used in the programming concepts or languages from the beginning.
5. Arguments or parameters
Arguments are necessary to make your formula.
Functions and methods need ingredients to work, each called an argument or parameter.
These appear in parentheses that follow the name of the function.E.g.
len(“Paul”)
len(myname)
The len function will give you the length of whatever argument is mentioned in the
parentheses.
In the first instance, there is a string “Paul”. The result here is 4 (4 characters).
In the second instance the argument is a variable — myname — so the result will vary
based on what that variable has at that moment. If myname is “Bradshaw”, the result will
be 8 (8 characters).
Some functions and methods use above one parameter, each one separated by a comma.
And some parameters are optional. At several times, the parentheses are left empty like so:
ready (). Again, this should be mentioned in the documentation.
6. Libraries
Libraries are for collections of many functions and methods which help you to do more
than you can with only the basics of the coding language.
If you consider a problem, it appears as if someone has created a library to deal with it:
sketching a map; getting information from a number of web pages; transforming a
document; creating animations or effects.
Hence, there is a useful tip to search for your problem, the language you’re learning or
using, and the word ‘library’, e.g. ‘javascript mapping library’.
7. Lists/arrays and dictionaries/dicts
Lists are like a row of people, you can find items by their position.
Lists and dictionaries are special types of information which could be very useful in
programming but at the same time quite confusing for laymen.
The terms vary; in some languages, lists are called arrays, and dictionaries are called dicts.

4. A list or array is but a list of items, which appear like this:
[“Asia”, “Africa”, “Europe”]
The contents list could be one or more of any of the data types mentioned above.
Lists are quite useful to:
•Store information and to
•Repeat actions.
A dictionary has both labels and values. Dictionaries are also a form of list, but with a main
difference that they are a list of pairs. Each pair has a label (known as a key) and a value,
connected by a colon, for instance:
“Age”: 24
Consider dictionary as a collection of words with a definition. But you could also consider it
as column headings (age, name, location) and values (18, Sarah, Chicago).
Each pair is next separated by commas and the whole is placed in a list in curly brackets, as
shown below:
{“Age” : 23, “Name”: “Jane”}
This is very useful for storing data that has more than one label. For instance, you might
save a list of ages as a very simple list. But if you want to connect each age to a name or
location, then you will need a dictionary.
This could be behind the logic of data format JSON, a number of APIs use this format.
Very much like lists, dictionaries also contain various types of data under each key, which
includes lists and dictionaries as well.
8. Objects
With our final concept from top programming concepts Objects, I think after it you are
reddy to learn new language.
Lego objects could only be used with another lego objects, and not with Duplo objects.
The trem ‘object’ in programming is something which could be edited or used in some way
by the program, like a variable that has an age, name, list, etc.
When the term ‘object’ is preceded by another it could be annoying. For instance, you must
have read about a ‘jQuery object’ or an ‘lxml object’.
When objects are described such a way it means that the object in question can be modified
or used by code from a library:
jQuery methods, could be used on a ‘jQuery object’; lxml methods could be used on a ‘lxml
object’.

5. How do they become such an object? There is basically a point in the program where a
variable is made into a ‘jQuery object’, ‘lxml object’ etc.