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What Is Programming

Computer programming, also known as coding, involves writing source code instructions in programming languages for computers to execute. Source code is a set of instructions, like a recipe, that directs a computer to manipulate and transform data. Programming large software requires planning the code architecture through design. Testing and debugging are also important parts of the programming process to identify and fix problems in the code.

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49 views

What Is Programming

Computer programming, also known as coding, involves writing source code instructions in programming languages for computers to execute. Source code is a set of instructions, like a recipe, that directs a computer to manipulate and transform data. Programming large software requires planning the code architecture through design. Testing and debugging are also important parts of the programming process to identify and fix problems in the code.

Uploaded by

qtiejeyd
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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What is Programming/Coding?

Computer programming, also known as coding, is the process of creating software. But what
exactly is software, and how is it made?

What is Software?
Software is a set of instructions for a computer to perform.

It’s a bit like a cooking recipe:

1. Crack an egg into a bowl


2. Whisk the egg
3. Put a pan on medium heat
4. Grease the pan
5. Pour the eggs into the pan
6. And so on

Instead of manipulating ingredients, computers manipulate data. The instructions inside software
look more like this:

1. Load some data


2. Load some other data
3. Transform those two bits of data into result data
4. Send the result data to the monitor for display
5. Send the result data over the internet
6. And so on

These instructions are usually called source code. Source code is just a set of written instructions
that a computer can understand.

What Does Source Code Look Like?


Code is not written in natural languages, like English.

Here is a little program written in a language called Ruby:

require 'open-uri'
require 'json'
FRONT_PAGE_URL = 'https://reddit.com/r/all.json'
front_page = JSON.load(open(FRONT_PAGE_URL).read)
top_post = front_page['data']['children'][0]['data']
puts 'The top post on reddit is:'
puts top_post['title']
puts top_post['url']
This program displays the current top post on reddit, like this:

The top post on reddit is:


One of my favourite things about working in the ski fields
http://i.imgur.com/hWwlWgI.jpg

Here is the exact same program, written in a similar language called Python:

import urllib, json


FRONT_PAGE_URL = "https://reddit.com/r/all.json"
front_page = json.loads(urllib.urlopen(FRONT_PAGE_URL).read())
top_post = front_page['data']['children'][0]['data']
print "The top post on reddit is:"
print top_post['title']
print top_post['url']

Here is the same program in a different-looking language called Clojure:

(require '[clojure.data.json :as json])


(def front-page-url "https://reddit.com/r/all.json")
(let [top-post (-> front-page-url
(slurp)
(json/read-str)
(get-in ["data" "children" 0 "data"]))]
(println "The top post on reddit is:")
(println (get top-post "title"))
(println (get top-post "url")))

As you can see, programming languages are very different to natural languages. Natural
languages are ambiguous, with many different layers of meaning – sarcasm, innuendo, and those
sorts of things. That’s great if you’re communicating with a human, but computers don’t
understand any of that.

Computers take everything literally. If you ask a computer whether a number is odd or even, it
will always answer “yes.” I’m not even joking – here is the Ruby code:

puts (5.odd? or 5.even?)

This code displays “true,” which is technically correct. The number five is either odd or even,
but that’s not what I meant.

It’s More Than Just Writing Code


Writing code is just one part of making software.

Large pieces of software – like Windows, OS X, and big-budgets games – are made up of
millions and millions of lines of code. When you have that much code, you need to plan out how
the code will be written, and how different parts of the code will work together. This kind of
planning is called design or architecture. On large projects, a lot of time is spent designing and
architecting before code is written.

Another large part of making software is testing. Just because the code has been written doesn’t
mean it is correct. The code might crash sometimes, or give the wrong results, or freeze, or any
number of other problems. To try and avoid these problems, professional software developers
have various different ways to test their code.

Then there is debugging, which is the process investigating, diagnosing and fixing problems in
source code. This is a skill in itself.

Conclusion
So programming is writing instructions for a computer to perform. The instructions, called
source code, are written in special languages that are unlike natural human languages. It also
involves planning, testing, and debugging source code.

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