Why do we need a programming language?

     One way to think of programs is that they are a set of instructions given to the computer to execute certain operations. These instructions are written by humans but not in a human language. Computers don't understand basic human words, they understand binary. We see the number 7 as "7" but computers see it in a string of 0s and 1s as "0111". When it comes to instructing computers human programmers must make sure that the computer is able to understand it but if programmers were to give all instructions in binary it would become difficult for the instructors themselves to understand what they are doing. This is where programming languages come in.
     What a programming language allows programmers to do is to give instructions to the computer in such way that both human and CPU will understand. A programmer essentially tells the computer to retrieve and store various values to different variables and objects throughout their code. These instructions are written in such way that a human can understand what's happening when they give these instructions. In JS, if the programmer writes var x = 7 they know they are storing the value 7 to a variable called x. The computer will also understand this soon. Once the code gets passed through a compiler it becomes a series of 1s and 0s and the computer will carry out the code correctly. There are many phrases humans can give other humans inform x = 7 such as "the variable x equals 7" or "the value of the
variable x is 7" but a programming language makes it only one way to inform it so there is less confusion for the computer. What the language essentially did was give a format to the instructions so both programmer and CPU understand what's going on. It makes it easier and faster to make programs and makes it simple to understand code.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Favicons

Image
     Favicons are small square graphics, ranging from 17 x 17 px to 28 x 28 px in preferred size, that give a graphical representation of the site the user is visiting. The favicon appear in the address bar on the left. The main reason websites use favicons is to improve their user's experience. Favicons, by giving a graphical representation of their site, make it easy for the user to recognize the site they're on while they might be switching tabs or scrolling through a list of bookmarks. A favicon adds to a website's uniqueness by making it stand out and different from other sites through use of graphics.      To create a favicon you need a favicon generator, a software where you can design your favicon. Sites may be owned by businesses that have logos to represent themselves but when it comes to favicons simply converting the image file for the logo into a .ico (file format that favicons use) may not be optimal. Favicons have a limited size, biggest size being 28 x 28 p
Read more

Favorite Teacher Project Reflection

Image
     The second project for DD this year was about creating a website in appreciation of your favorite teacher. This project was a lot like the our first project except it revolved around a teacher and not movies, otherwise, it required all the same skills we learned in the first project. Just like in the first project, the beginning steps were not in the computer, rather, they were on paper. After deciding which teacher to make the site about (Ms. Sakhno), I begun by creating wireframes both of the website itself and how the folders for the project would be organized. My website wireframe consisted of 4 pages all with relative links that took the user to all the other pages from any single page. There was a home page, which explained the purpose of the site and why the teacher I chose was my favorite, a biography page, which described the teacher's life up until now, a subject page, which discussed the subject the teacher taught, a trivia page, which displayed an infographic abo
Read more

Emoti-Con 2019 Reflection

Image
     Emoti-Con is  a conference held every year in NYC where teens across the 5 boroughs get to express themselves through technology and digital media. Teens get to showcase projects they've been working on and learn about how to improve their skills from each other and guest speakers. Teens can also learn about the path they need to take to seek a career in the industry. Projects also get entered into a competition that can win one of several digital badges. I'm on the left      I entered for Emoti-Con 2019 a month before the actual event along with the same team that I worked with for G4C and submitted Project Xeno. The actual event came on the 11th of May at NYPL and my team had prepared a poster board walking through our motives and development process just for the occasion. At the event, I got to travel around the venue looking at other people's projects. One that stood out to me was a prototype of a robot that dispenses cookies. It was completely made out of car
Read more