Introduction to Programming |
What exactly is programming?Programming can be defined as the art of telling a computer to do whatever you want it to. If you are reading this posting you probably started off with switching the computer on and then opened the browser that got you to this page. Every computer has a program that is called the Operating System These are among the first programs to be run in preparation for the platform that a human can understand and interact with. There are a number of them out there, common ones are Linux, Unix, Microsoft DOS and Microsoft Windows. These platforms contain clear instructions telling the computer to perform functions in a certain sequential order. Here is an example of instructions given to a computer to add two numbers: In human language it is as simple as 9 + 1 = Giving this instructions to a computer would take the following shape: 1. Take a number 9 2. Take a number 1 3. Add the two numbers 4. Return the result There are many programming languages out there that you can use to instruct the computer to do what you want. These languages include PHP, C#, C++, C, Java, JavaScript, etc. Some are easier to learn, runs faster and less resource intensive than others. To do this in PHP for example, you would issue the following instructions: <? if you wanted to use the numbers somewhere else in your program without having to be repetitive, you could do the following: <? These two pieces of code produce the same results. The command echo in PHP tells the computer to display the answer on the screen. If you omitted that line, the computer would still do the calculations but nothing would be displayed. |
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