Personally I rather look forward to a computer program winning the world [chess] championship. Humanity needs a lesson in humility. We have come through a strange cycle in programming, starting with the creation of programming itself as a human activity. Executives with the tiniest smattering of knowledge assume that anyone can write a program, and only now are programmers beginning to win their battle for recognition as true professionals. Not just anyone, with any background, or any training, can do a fine job of programming.
Programmers know this, but then why is it that they think that anyone picked off the street can do documentation? One has only to spend an hour looking at papers written by graduate students to realize the extent to which the ability to communicate is not universally held. And so, when we speak about computer program documentation, we are not speaking about the psychology of computer program ming at all - except insofar as programmers have the illusion that anyone can do a good job of documentation, provided he is not smart enough to be a programmer.
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Wikipedia 3. Freebase 3. Editors Contribution 2. Submitted by MaryC on January 22, Matched Categories Computer Science Software. When you start learning to code, one of the questions you probably ask yourself is "What lannguage should I learn first? One of the most exciting — and at times overwhelming — things about learning to code is just how much there is to learn.
But instead of just focusing on learning one specific technology, it can also help to learn the foundations — the building blocks. You can peel back the layers of abstraction to get to know the underlying principles that all technologies have in common. Understanding what coding is at a fundamental level will make solving problems easier and will give you a better understanding of how different technologies work underneath the hood. This article goes over the fundamentals of computer coding and what programs are made of, while also giving some suggestions on how to start taking your first steps in learning how to code.
Coding is a way to tell the computer how it should behave overall - the exact actions it needs to take and how to take them in an effective and efficient way. Specifically, coding is the process of creating and then giving the computer a detailed set of instructions to be carefully executed in sequential order.
In a nutshell, coding is the art of humans communicating with computers. It helps us solve problems and create helpful new tools for communities, such as apps or websites, and lets us analyze and process large sets of data.
When writing code, you'll be taking a problem and breaking it down into smaller and smaller steps of action, using logical reasoning, to finally come to a conclusion and solution.
Making a small mistake in your code — such as a typo in a word, a missed semicolon, telling a computer to repeat a certain action but not telling it how and when to stop repeating it — will all result in an error message. The process of identifying the possible mistakes, finding what is causing the problem, and then fixing the mistake so the code works as it was intended to is called debugging.
Figuring out the exact instructions to give the computer so it can accomplish specific tasks is the most difficult part of coding and problem solving. Computers make no assumptions and they do exactly as they are told. This means that there should be no ambiguity in the instructions they receive.
Instructions need to be defined clearly, with the correct number and order of steps the computer should take to solve a problem. The set of step-by-step, ordered instructions for solving problems and for the computer to complete every single task are called algorithms.
Algorithms are sequences of actions that need to be correct, efficient, precise, and to the point, and they should leave no room for misinterpretation. Algorithms are not only reserved for computers to follow. Humans use algorithms on a daily basis, too. The recipe is the algorithm. You need to follow the series of steps in the recipe in the correct order to get the end result you want. The way to organise, plan ahead, and write down the steps you need to follow, or the algorithm, is to first write pseudocode.
There is no specific syntax to pseudocode. It is written in plain, readable English or any other natural, human language using some technical terms. Pseudocode is a simpler version of computer code and is the first step before any computer code gets written. For example, say you wanted to write a program that aksed the user to enter their password and checked if it was equal to ''. If the password was equal to '', then you'd let them into the system, otherwise they would be rejected.
Webopedia Staff. September 1, Updated on: January 3, Programs vs. For more information on current editorial staff, please visit our About page. Top Articles.
We look at the history of Windows Read more. Website Shortcut on Your Desktop reviewed by Web Webster This Webopedia guide will show you how to create a website shortcut on your desktop using What are the Five Generations of Computers? Reviewed by Web Webster Learn about each of the 5 generations of computers and major technology developments that have led to the computing devices that When "program" is used as verb, it means to create a software program.
For example, programmers create programs by writing code that instructs the computer what to do. The functions and commands written by the programmer are collectively referred to as source code. When the code is finished, the source code file or files are compiled into an executable program.
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