Programming Around Us

Introduction

Have you ever stopped and thought about how things work that are around you or why you do what you do each day? Maybe sometimes, but most times you probably take what you do for granted. We all do. It's how life is. We accept what we can do.

Have you ever put a homework paper in a place that the teacher asks you to put it? Yes, of course. In our online course, we submit completed work in a place the teacher has designated. In a traditional course, you may submit your completed work in a work collection box that the teacher designates.

Have you ever alphabetized? Put items in alphabetical order or in numerical order? Sorted by colors? If so, you are doing something a computer can do once instructed.

In each of these examples, what you have done is use data.

In the homework paper example, you placed the data (your work) in the teacher's box. To get the data on the paper you had to process the questions, the input, and provide answers.
In the alphabetizing example, you had data, the items that you were to alphabetize, the input, and you processed the letters and put them in order A to Z as requested, the output.

Going Deeper

Let's use a human analogy. You would like to teach your dogs, Alpha and Beta, the word sit and have them sit when you ask. So you begin by saying the word sit and pressing the dog's hind quarters down and leaving the front legs erect, repeating the word "sit."

The computer part of this? You give the instruction sit to your dogs, Alpha and Beta. Alpha and Beta hear the word (input), the brain processes the word, creating the reaction that you have trained for the word, the muscle movement to sit (output).

Working with data, storing and retrieving data, and outputting data in a format requested is essentially what a computer does. The computer programmer works to make the computer understand what is requested.

A computer cannot take things for granted. A computer only knows what it is told to do. And we expect the computer to give us information that we wish to have. In a previous module, we learned that a computer, whether desktop, laptop, cell phone, tablet, or a digital appliance (oven, refrigerator, etc.) handles information for us. The computer that is in the device takes in information from us, then processes the information, then completes a task. A computer knows how to accomplish the task, but who told the computer? Well, the programmer.

A computer programmer is a person who likes to code.

What is code?

Code is a series of symbols; letters, numbers, marks, pictures that create a message. Originally code was to be kept secret. Yes, today there still are secret codes, but code is also a method of writing to create a series of instructions to tell a computer what to do.

So, a computer programmer needs to know how to write in a computer language (which may or may not be the direct language of the computer). There are a variety of computer programming options from high level word-based languages to low-level binary language. Different programmers know different languages - each one, part of the process to make the computer understand the directions it is to perform.

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