AP CSP BJC Units 1-3 Vocabulary

sprite

“actor” that can be told to do actions (walk around, speak, etc.)

costume

picture that can be “worn” by a sprite

transparency

how well you can see what’s behind the sprite (ghost effect)

list

ordered sequence of items

string

sequence of characters (letters, numbers, punctuation, etc.)

substring

piece of an existing string (example: “nnah”, “Hannah”, ““ for “Hannah”)

concatenation

connecting smaller strings to make a longer string

debugging

process of testing code, finding issues, and fixing the issues

procedure

named sequence of instructions that may take inputs and may report a value

reporter

oval shape; report a value

command

jigsaw shape; tell the computer to do something

predicate

hexagon shape; reporter that produces a boolean value

expression

constant value, or call to a reporter block including its inputs (single value)

algorithm

sequence of steps, usually performed by a computer

pseudocode

algorithm written in human language, unintelligible by computers

parameter

input name set in the block definition (example: number of branches)

argument

input value, given each time the block is run (example: 6)

iteration

repeating program structure

personally identifiable information (PII)

information that can let others figure out who you are and possibly get more information about you

infinite loop

when a program keeps running forever

code segment

sequence of connected instructions that carry out a purposeful action

composition

using the result/output of one reporter/function as the input to another reporter/function

abstraction

using a procedure to help write code

sequencing

process of ordering code

variable

labeled box that can hold one value at a time (word, costume, list, etc.)

local variable

variable that can only be set and used in the environment in which it is defined (inputs to procedures, variables in for or script variables)

global variable

variable that is usable by all scripts in the program

boolean value

true or false value

conditional

controls code based on a boolean

element

item in a list; has unique indexes

index

position number of an item in a list or string

sublist

list used as an item in another list

data type

what kind of data something is (number, list, etc.)

primitive data type

data type that is built into a programming language (number, text, boolean, etc.)

abstract data type

custom data type that is meaningful to the program

constructor

constructs an example of the data structure

selector

selects one piece of the data structure

data abstraction

use of abstract data types in a program

table

two-dimensional data structure; has rows and columns

traversing a list

looking at each item in a list (for each is iterative, like for, but does not use indexes)

domain

input type that a function accepts

range

output type that a function reports

selection

selecting which part of a program to run based on a boolean value

boolean function

and, or, and not functions; domain and range are boolean

nested conditional

conditional inside another conditional

string

ordered sequence of characters

software library

collection of procedures that can be used in a program

application program interface (API)

documents what a programmer needs to know about a library; description of procedures’ purposes, inputs, outputs

Creative Commons

specific family of copyright licenses; allow others to use, share, maybe sell, and maybe revise the work

free software

anyone can copy, use, modify, and redistribute, including commercially, provided that any modifications are under the same license

open-source software

code is available to anyone

open access research reports

available for free download

recursion

calling a procedure from inside itself

procedural abstraction

developing a program by dividing a larger problem into sub-problems

modularity

form of procedural abstraction; breaking a problem into smaller problems

input (program)

information entered into a program by the user

output (program)

data sent by the program

higher-order function

function that takes a function as an input or reports a function as an output

sprite variable

variable that only works within a specific sprite

artificial intelligence

field of computer science loosely defined as "trying to get computers to think”