Computer Programming - All You Need To Know About It

Find out What is Computer Programming, Who are Programmers? What are their skills, roles and why you should learn computer programming?

We all know that computers can do anything we want them to do. Let’s say, if you want the computer to calculate a simple mathematical question, 8+8, it can do it. Similarly, when it comes to doing a complex mathematical calculation, like finding a solution of a complex mathematical function which includes calculus, geometry and even mensuration, I’m sure your computer can do that too! Let’s not talk about only mathematics. A computer can also keep track of your financial status and give a detailed analysis of your expenditure! Scientifically, it can take down readings of an instrument, let’s say a thermometer- and can give you a graphical representation of the data collected!

So basically I wanted to say that a computer can do anything you want it to do. But no computer in the world can do anything like this until a computer programmer gives it a particular set of instructions. You ever wondered how all these things are possible with those certain sets of instructions. Or how can a computer do all these things? The answer is- programming! And in this blog post, we are going to talk about computer programming, and we will see how important it is for computers!

It is the computer programs only which can make computers work. Without software (or a program), computers nowadays are just complicated machines which can convert electricity into heat! So it is the program or the software in your computer which helps it to run the operating system, video player, browser, video games and even office suites.

What is programming?

As per the definition, “A computer programming is the process of designing and building an ‘executable’ program to accomplish a specific computing result.” The computer programming can involve various tasks like analysis, generating algorithms and profiling them, accuracy and resource consumption, or implementation of algorithms. All these can be done in a chosen programming language. Programmers or even laymen generally refer these programming languages as ‘coding’.

Programming is similar to giving instructions to the computer on how to do a particular task like addition or even downloading a specific file. The primary purpose of the programming is to find a sequence of instructions that can put the computer to perform a specific task automatically. Thus, we can say that the process of programming requires expertise in various fields and various subjects, including complete knowledge of the application domain, specialization in algorithms and even formal logic.

Computer Programmers

Computer programmer’s job is one of the most sought after and in-demand jobs in the world! The computer programmers can provide a valuable service across different economic and scientific sectors. This is done by creating codes for software and computer application programs. Computer programmers work in almost all fields. Some of the famous fields are Information Technology, academics, medical fields, government services etc. Additionally, they can also work as independent and contract workers.

What is the role of a computer programmer

The role of a computer programmer is to create a set of instructions for the computer and in some cases, machines so that they can execute it. This is done by writing and testing the written code which enables the software to operate successfully. To perform this task, computer programmers use specialized languages like Java, Python etc. to communicate with computers, applications, and other systems to make the computer perform the desired function.

How can a computer understand the instructions of a programmer?

As we have discussed in the last paragraph, the programmers write the codes (or the set of instructions) in high-level languages like Java, Python, C, C++ etc. These high-level languages are abstract by design. By abstract, I mean to say that these languages are very similar to the languages spoken by human beings, and are not understandable to computers and other machines. You must be aware that a computer cannot understand these simple layman language and these languages are needed to be compiled into machine code. Machine code is a set of instructions that are recognised by a computer’s central processing unit, CPU. This language consists of only zeroes and ones. And therefore, this language is also called ‘binary’ language.

For example, this is how we would write ‘Hello World’ in binary language:

01001000 01100101 01101100 01101100 01101111 00100000 01010111 01101111 01110010 01101100 01100100

We can see that the binary language is not easily readable to us, and hence the computer programmers and developers tend to avoid programming in machine code. So generally programmers simply use high-level programming languages. Let us learn about these programming languages in the next section.

Hard Skills Required by computer programmers

Computer programmers need to develop many hard skills to do well in their positions. Of course, programming language skills are very necessary, and computer programmers who have multiple programming languages in their tips can benefit a lot like by growing professionally and income-wise.

I have listed some of the critical hard skills required by computer programmers which are as follows:

Linux
Python
Java
JavaScript
C++
NET
C#
SQL
HTML
PHP
Visual Basics

Soft Skills Required by Computer programmers

In order to thrive in the real world of Information Technology, a computer programmer also needs to have certain Softskills. It’s true that soft skills come naturally in human beings, but computer programmers need to work on them and to master them in order to work effectively and efficiently. They have soft skills to help computer programmers to communicate well with colleagues.

Some of the soft skills which, in my opinion, are essential to learn, for a computer programmer are:

Communication skills: The computer programmers need to have strong communication skills to be able to communicate their ideas to their colleagues, seniors and even to a layman, who might be a customer or a shareholder.
Multi-tasking: Computer programmers often have to work on multiple works when working in a large project. They should be able to successfully organize their work and set priorities to get the best result and efficiency.
Organization Skills: These skills include the ability to remain focused and to allocate all the mental and physical energy to a specific task. These organization skills also include how the computer programmer manages time and resources available in time. Efficient management of time and resources is also a very important task in different professional fields.

What is a Programming Language?

By definition, “A programming language is a formal language comprising a set of instructions that produce various kinds of output.” These languages are used by computer programmers to develop software or to improve algorithms.

Most of the programming languages consist of sets of instructions for computers and machines. Even some programmable devices like digital watches, modern televisions, mobile phones etc. use these sets of specific instructions.

So far, thousands of different programming languages have been created by different developers and programmers and more and more are being built each year.

Programming languages generally fall in two categories- low-level languages (for example assembly) and high-level programming language (such as Python).

Easy way to explain Programming Language

To explain what programming language is in simple words, let us talk about spoken language. There are thousands of styles which one can use to express the same idea, to a different person. For example, if we have to say, “How are you?” to different people, you can write,

English: How are you

French: Comment ça va

Spanish: Cómo estás

German: Wie geht es Ihnen

Chinese: 你好嗎

As you can see, different languages are used to express the same idea in different ways. Similarly, programming languages are different ways of expressing the same instructions, but this time to a computer. For example, if you have to ask the computer to print “How are you” in a different language, then you can use:

JavaScript: alert(“How are you”);

Python: print(“How are you”)

Perl: print ” How are you “;

Different programming languages have their own syntax. In terms of a literature guy, we can say syntax is similar to grammar. Similar to English Grammar, these syntaxes have their own set of rules. Programmers can use these rules to give instructions to the computer.

According to ____ the top Programming Languages are,; (Image)s

Syntax to write “Hello World” in different languages

C++

#include <iostream>
int main()
{
 std::cout << "Hello, world!\n";
 return 0;
}

#include <iostream>

int main()

{

std::cout << "Hello, world!\n";

return 0;

}

C

#include <iostream>
int main()
{
 std::cout << "Hello, world!\n";
 return 0;
}

#include <iostream>

int main()

{

std::cout << "Hello, world!\n";

return 0;

}

C#

using System;
class Program
{
 static void Main(string[] args)
 {
 Console.WriteLine("Hello, world!");
 }
}

using System;

class Program

{

static void Main(string[] args)

{

Console.WriteLine("Hello, world!");

}

Assembly Language

global _main
 extern _printf
 section .text
_main:
 push message
 call _printf
 add esp, 4
 ret
message:
 db 'Hello, World', 10, 0

global _main

extern _printf

section .text

_main:

push message

call _printf

add esp, 4

ret

message:

db 'Hello, World', 10, 0

BASIC

10 PRINT "Hello, World!"
20 END

1 2	10 PRINT "Hello, World!" 20 END

IBM RPG

dcl-s wait char(1);
dsply ( 'Hello World!') ' ' wait;
*inlr = *on;

dcl-s wait char(1);

dsply ( 'Hello World!') ' ' wait;

*inlr = *on;

JAVA

class HelloWorldApp {
 public static void main(String[] args) {
 System.out.println("Hello World!"); // Prints the string to the console.
 }
}

class HelloWorldApp {

public static void main(String[] args) {

System.out.println("Hello World!"); // Prints the string to the console.

}

JAVASCRIPT

console.log("Hello World!");

1	console.log("Hello World!");

MATLAB

classdef hello
 methods
 function greet(this)
 disp('Hello, World')
 end
 end
end

classdef hello

methods

function greet(this)

disp('Hello, World')

end

PASCAL

program HelloWorld(output);
begin
 Write('Hello, world!')
end.

program HelloWorld(output);

begin

Write('Hello, world!')

end.

PERL

print "Hello, World!\n";

1	print "Hello, World!\n";

PYTHON

print("Hello World")

1	print("Hello World")

SWIFT

println("Hello, world!")

1	println("Hello, world!")

Machine Code

Machine code is a low-level programming language. It is the lowest level of instruction a computer programmer can send to the Central Processing Unit. The machine code is generally not readable to the human. Hence all the languages, especially the high-level languages, convert their codes to machine language before they send the instructions to the CPU. This is how writing “Hello World” would look like in Machine Code.

b8    21 0a 00 00   #moving "!\n" into eax
a3    0c 10 00 06   #moving eax into first memory location
b8    6f 72 6c 64   #moving "orld" into eax
a3    08 10 00 06   #moving eax into next memory location
b8    6f 2c 20 57   #moving "o, W" into eax
a3    04 10 00 06   #moving eax into next memory location
b8    48 65 6c 6c   #moving "Hell" into eax
a3    00 10 00 06   #moving eax into next memory location
b9    00 10 00 06   #moving pointer to start of memory location into ecx
ba    10 00 00 00   #moving string size into edx
bb    01 00 00 00   #moving "stdout" number to ebx
b8    04 00 00 00   #moving "print out" syscall number to eax
cd    80            #calling the linux kernel to execute our print to stdout
b8    01 00 00 00   #moving "sys_exit" call number to eax
cd    80            #executing it via linux sys_call

b8 21 0a 00 00 #moving "!\n" into eax

a3 0c 10 00 06 #moving eax into first memory location

b8 6f 72 6c 64 #moving "orld" into eax

a3 08 10 00 06 #moving eax into next memory location

b8 6f 2c 20 57 #moving "o, W" into eax

a3 04 10 00 06 #moving eax into next memory location

b8 48 65 6c 6c #moving "Hell" into eax

a3 00 10 00 06 #moving eax into next memory location

b9 00 10 00 06 #moving pointer to start of memory location into ecx

ba 10 00 00 00 #moving string size into edx

bb 01 00 00 00 #moving "stdout" number to ebx

b8 04 00 00 00 #moving "print out" syscall number to eax

cd 80 #calling the linux kernel to execute our print to stdout

b8 01 00 00 00 #moving "sys_exit" call number to eax

cd 80 #executing it via linux sys_call

Why should you learn Computer languages

You can take programming as fun: If you have knowledge of any programming language, you can create your own video games, can create social networking sites (like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc.) and even create e-commerce websites! You can create applications of your own games and put it on PlayStore, Apple Store (Correction needed) etc.!
Or you can do a startup: Mark Zukerberg created Facebook using some coding languages and now see how rich and successful he is! Jeff Bezos started the e-commerce giant Amazon using computer programming, and now he is the richest man in the world! You can also do a start if you know computer programming and who knows you can be the next billionaire!

The backbone of Tech Companies: You would be aghast to know that the backbone of all the tech companies (yes, you read it right; ALL THE TECH COMPANIES) is computer programming! These companies hire thousands of skilled programmers. If you have enough programming skills and a degree in Computer Science Engineering or Bachelors of Computer Applications from a top University, then you can get hired by these companies!
High paying salaries: Computer programmers are paid extremely well across the globe! Top programmers in Silicon Valley earn millions of dollars every year! Check out salaries of Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Microsoft CEO Satya Nandella! Some companies even give STARTING salaries as high as $100,000 a year!

Programming

Computer Programming – All You Need To Know About It