Saturday, September 21, 2013

First Thoughts for Programming

Programming is difficult. It is not something you are born knowing. It is not something you usually learn when you are growing up. Programming languages are artificial. They serve to function as a bridge between human languages and machine language.

Programming languages are meant to have some of the features of human languages while maintaining the strict unambiguous logic required by computing machines.

Interestingly, computers don't understand the programming languages any better then you do at this point. A language must be complied, that is converted into the language of the machine before it can function.

Computers only understand 0's and 1's. on, off, magnetized, unmagnetized, switches open or closed. And a language must be compiled to a particular computer's processor and operating system to work.

Note: some languages, like C# or Java, do a precompile to a intermediate language that allow it to be more portable. The intermediate language is machine and Operating System neutral and can be ported to any machine. A run time (Java or .Net) then compiles the intermediate language to the actual machine.

There is usually a period of frustration when you first start programming. It seems alien and difficult and impossible. The important thing is, programming is something you can do with practice. You are smart enough. You can learn it with practice. The more you practice, the more you exercise your skills, the more you explore, the stronger your skills and instincts will grow.

You may find you like programming or you may find that you hate it, but you can learn it.

Either way it is valuable. Programming gives you a valuable insight into how computers work, and how all the things we take for granted on our computers, tablets and phones came to be.

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