Code is not written in natural languages, like English.
This code displays true, which istechnicallycorrect. The number fiveiseither oddoreven, but thats not what I meant.
Friction Between Programming Professionals and Beginners
Computers take everything literally. If you ask a computer whether a number is odd or even, it will always answer yes. Im not even joking here is the Ruby code:
Computer programming, also known as coding, is the process of creating software. But what exactlyissoftware, and how is it made?
Writing code is just one part of making software.
These instructions are usually calledsource code. Source code is just a set of written instructions that a computer can understand.
Here is the exact same program, written in a similar language called Python:
Another large part of making software istesting. Just because the code has been written doesnt 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.
Here is the same program in a different-looking language called Clojure:
Then there isdebugging, which is the process investigating, diagnosing and fixing problems in source code. This is a skill in itself.
Instead of manipulating ingredients, computers manipulate data. The instructions inside software look more like this:
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. Thats great if youre communicating with a human, but computers dont understand any of that.
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.
What Should I Make? Beginner Programming Project Ideas
Send the result data over the internet
Transform those two bits of data into result data
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 calleddesignorarchitecture. On large projects, a lot of time is spent designing and architecting before code is written.
Here is a little program written in a language called Ruby:
This program displays the current top post on reddit, like this:
A book that teaches you to code, by making little games.
Made with less-than-three byTom Dalling
Send the result data to the monitor for display
Two Approaches to Learning Programming: Top-Down and Bottom-Up
Software is a set of instructions for a computer to perform.