Class1.md

Class 1: Monday, March 20 – Number Bases

Topics:

• number bases: decimal, binary, hexadecimal
• negative integer representations: signed magnitude, ones' complement, two's complement

Resources:

• review Make School's slides on number bases
• read BetterExplained's article on number systems and bases
• play with Dan Wolff's live-updating base conversion calculator

Challenges:

• practice conversions on number bases worksheet
• implement base conversion functions for positive numbers using starter code:
  • implement decode - convert a number from any base to base 10
  • implement encode - convert a number from base 10 to any base
  • implement convert - convert a number from any base to any other base
  • run python bases.py number base1 base2 to test convert on a number
    • example: python bases.py 42 10 2 gives the result 101010
  • run pytest test_bases.py to run the unit tests and fix any failures

Stretch Challenges:

• implement base conversion for negative binary numbers (using two's complement)
• implement base conversion for fractional numbers (using a radix point)