Explanation of computer programming
Computer programming is the process of designing and writing computer programs. That’s pretty straightforward, right?
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. Simplistically, the only difference between what you are doing now as a computer user and what you could be doing as a computer programmer is that the instructions are saved 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 a kind 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 that your computer uses which may require millions of lines of code. We need to understand that computers, which are usually just pieces of metal, plastic, silicon, and other materials glued together in a way that allows them to do amazing things that seem to think, can’t actually think at all. But what they can do very well is follow the instructions. So what are these instructions, anyway? At the level that a computer understands, these should be very precise, very detailed, and very complete step-by-step instructions, and they should be in a form that the processor and other parts of the computer can understand, and that’s like little electrical pulses that they Humans are not capable of emitting (at least not at the moment).
In a way, you can think of a computer program as 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 can therefore be a bit descriptive, leaving out some details. For example, if a recipe instruction is to “pour the mixture into a blender and blend until frothy,” the human is supposed to know what a blender is, where it is, how to set it up, and how to use it. that – and also what it means for, and what 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 it is to give the human a way to write instructions that can then be translated into something that 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 that 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 carry out this translation; Each computer language has its own translators, which are called compilers or interpreters. Once the translation is done, the result is stored in some way, 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 it takes a genius to be able to write useful software, almost anyone with a computer background and interested in becoming a power user can learn to program. Most of the software is written by average people with specialized knowledge and skills. Mastering computer programming can be a lifelong pursuit, but gathering enough knowledge and skills to be able to do useful things is not out of the reach of anyone who knows how to use a computer and is willing to put in a little time. .. or maybe a long time, but still, it’s not out of reach.
