Computer Programming Explained

Computer programming is the process of designing and writing computer programs. That’s pretty simple, isn’t it?

At its most basic, you can think of programming as instructing a computer to do something you want it to do, which may sound very similar to how your desktop computer operates. Put simply, the only difference between what you are doing now as a computer user and what you might be doing as a computer programmer is that the instructions are stored somewhere so they can be used over and over again. In fact, if you’ve used macros in a software program like a word processor or spreadsheet (or countless other applications that are macro-enabled), you’ve done some form of computer programming.

Programs can be as simple as a set of instructions stored in a text file to perform some mundane task, such as backing up all the files on your computer to a folder, or as complex as something like a word processor or the operating system on your computer. uses that can require millions of lines of code. We need to understand that computers, which are usually just pieces of metal, plastic, silicone, and other materials glued together in a way that allows them to do amazing things that appear to think, can’t actually think at all. But what they can do extremely well is follow directions. So what are these instructions, anyway? At a computer’s level of understanding, these need to be very precise, very detailed, very complete step-by-step instructions, and they need to be in a form that the processor and other parts of the computer can understand, and that’s like little electrical pulses. that humans are not capable of emitting (at least not right now).

In a way, you can think of a computer program like a recipe: a set of instructions that can be followed to produce a result. In the case of a recipe, the instructions are used by a human and therefore can be a bit descriptive, leaving out some details. For example, if the instruction in a recipe is “pour mixture into a blender and beat until frothy”, it is assumed that humans know what a blender is, where it is, how to set it up, and how to use it. it – and also that for means, and that sparkling means, and so on. The human chef is expected to fill in the gaps. A computer can’t do this, it has no idea what anything means except for a few very simple instructions. So the way we do this is to give the human a way to write instructions that can then be translated into something the computer can understand. The “way of writing instructions” is called a programming language.

What a programming language allows us to do is write instructions for the computer in a more or less human-readable form that can then be translated into something the computer can work with. Human readable instructions are usually called (you guessed it) – code! Each line of human-readable code is translated into thousands of detailed computer instructions. A special program (or set of programs) is used to do this translation: each computer language has its own translators, called compilers or interpreters. Once the translation is done, the result is stored in some form, such as a file or set of files (or in the computer’s memory in some cases), and each time the software is run, the computer will follow the instructions. and (hopefully) the program. it will do whatever it is supposed to do.

Although it is often imagined that you have to be a genius to be able to write useful software, almost anyone who is computer literate and interested in becoming a power user can learn to program. Most software is written by average people with specialized knowledge and skills. Mastering computer programming can be a lifelong task, but gathering enough knowledge and skill to be able to do useful things isn’t out of reach for anyone who knows how to use a computer and is willing to spend a little time… or maybe a long time, but even so, it is not out of reach.