ENGR 103 — Week 07: Functions: Decomposition and Abstraction

📖 Weekly Overview

Functions are the fundamental building blocks of good software. This week we learn to write well-designed, documented functions that make code reusable, readable, and maintainable — essential skills for any engineering software project.

🎯 Learning Objectives

By the end of this week, you will be able to:

Define functions with def, docstrings, and return
Apply decomposition to break complex analysis into functions
Use default parameters and assertions for validation
Build a reusable environmental engineering function library

📚 Required Reading

Guttag, "Introduction to Computation and Programming Using Python" (3rd Ed)
Week 07 Reading: Ch 4.1–4.2
Complete before the first lecture of the week.

📅 This Week's Schedule

Monday: Monday: Defining functions and docstrings
Friday: Friday: Default arguments and function libraries.

🔬 Studio 3 (this week): Functions for environmental data analysis

✅ Assignments Due This Week

Week 07 Quiz — Due Sunday 11:59 PM on Canvas (15 questions, 15 pts)
Week 07 Assignment — Due Sunday 11:59 PM on Canvas (3 coding problems)
Studio 3 (this week): Functions for environmental data analysis — During studio session

🔗 Resources

Lecture slides available on Canvas before each class
Textbook: Guttag Ch 1 available free at MIT OpenCourseWare
Python documentation: docs.python.org
Office hours: Check Canvas calendar for times and Zoom/room info
Course Piazza: Post questions (anonymously if preferred)