Computer Programming is the art of making a computer do what you want it to do.
At the very simplest level it consists of issuing a sequence of commands to a computer to achieve an objective. In the Microsoft world MS DOS users used to create text files with lists of commands called BAT files. These simply executed the sequence of commands as a BATCH, hence the name. You can still produce these in Windows environments today but in practice they are rarely seen.
For example you might be producing a document (such as this tutorial) which comprises lots of separate files. Your word processor may produce backup copies of each file as it saves a new version. At the end of the day you may want to put the current version of the document (all the latest files) into a 'backup' directory/folder. Finally, to tidy up, delete all the backup files ready to start work the next day. A simple BAT file to do this would be:
COPY *.HTM BACKUP DEL *.BAK
If the file were called SAVE.BAT then at the end of each day I could simply type SAVE at a DOS prompt and the files would be saved and backups deleted. This is a program.
Computer Programming is the art of making a computer do what you want it to do.
ReplyDeleteAt the very simplest level it consists of issuing a sequence of commands to a computer to achieve an objective. In the Microsoft world MS DOS users used to create text files with lists of commands called BAT files. These simply executed the sequence of commands as a BATCH, hence the name. You can still produce these in Windows environments today but in practice they are rarely seen.
For example you might be producing a document (such as this tutorial) which comprises lots of separate files. Your word processor may produce backup copies of each file as it saves a new version. At the end of the day you may want to put the current version of the document (all the latest files) into a 'backup' directory/folder. Finally, to tidy up, delete all the backup files ready to start work the next day. A simple BAT file to do this would be:
COPY *.HTM BACKUP
DEL *.BAK
If the file were called SAVE.BAT then at the end of each day I could simply type SAVE at a DOS prompt and the files would be saved and backups deleted. This is a program.