Computer Programming Basics

By Xavier Reinders

Computer programing like most hobbies or jobs has its own terminology that may seem nonsense to an outside observer.  I will attempt to discuss and clarify most of these terms and allow you the reader to have a better understanding of computer science as a field. I will discuss small simpler concepts and go into detail on larger more important things.

Some words that I use below do not require full paragraph definitions but are important to understand nonetheless. Editor, a computer program used to write other programs, like Microsoft Word but for a specific programming language. Byte, information storage, a set of 8 ones or zeros that are interpreted together. User, person who uses the program, like how you are currently using this web page by reading it. Input, information given by the programmer or the user to the computer. Output, information given by the computer to the programmer or user. Now let’s get into the more complex terminology.

Word art of some of the most common languages

First things first, what is a language? Much like a normal human language it is a means of communicating an idea that multiple people or a computer can understand. According to Wikipedia a programming language is a formal language designed to communicate instructions to a machine or computer. These languages can range from very basic, like in a calculator performing basic math, to very complex like google, sorting and processing trillions of bytes of information. You might hear these languages referred to as ‘levels of abstraction’ by a computer scientist. This comes from the very first language, binary, commonly known by its combination of 1’s and 0’s. All languages since then have been ways of making those 1’s and 0’s easier to interpret for humans. Instead of an insane string of 1’s and 0’s most languages have a single word function like ‘print’ that puts words on the screen.

As I said above languages are an attempt to humanize computer language through the use of functions. Functions are sections of code that when interpreted by the computer perform a certain task. They are usually labeled by a certain word or phrase like the ‘print’ function. This word is what the computer programmer actually types into their editor followed usually by input formatted as the language dictates. This function then returns and output which may go back into the program and trigger other functions or like with a ‘print’ function return things to the user like putting words on the screen.

Last of the big important things are Libraries. Libraries are the groups of functions that actually make up a language. Each library contains groups of similar functions, one common to most languages is an input-output library, deals with giving and taking information from the user. As I said these libraries are what make up the actual languages but there are two basic types of libraries within a language. The first I will call integral libraries, these are the structure of the language, they are written by the language creators and contain basic functions for operating programs. The input-output library would be an example of an integral library. The second type being complex libraries, these are often created by users of the language rather than its creators. These contain complicated functions based on functions in integral libraries that perform more complex tasks such as a random number generator function. Although these are not technically a part of the language they can be shared and downloaded with a language as long as their creator makes them available.