If you’re here, that means you’re curious about writing code.
Before you dive in, let’s define some of the terms we’ll be using.
What’s a computer?
This might sound like an obvious question, but the answer has changed quite a bit over time.
Early computers were designed for very specific tasks, usually involving math and encrypting messages during World War 2. They were very big (some took up an entire room!), and the only people who worked with them were specialized experts.
Over time, computers got smaller and more generalized, meaning they could do more than just crunch numbers. They also became more personal, meaning people who weren’t experts could use them.
Nowadays, you probably own multiple computers. You might use a desktop computer, a laptop, a phone, a smartwatch, a fitness tracker, or a gaming console. These are all computers.
What’s a program?
You probably use computer programs every day. The web browser you’re using to read this tutorial is a program. Notepad is a program. Games, data visualizations, music, and video players, these are all programs.
Programs tell your computer what to do. Your web browser tells your computer to display content from a website. Spotify tells your computer to play a music file. Many programs include a user interface to allow humans to interact with the computer (like the buttons in your web browser). Other programs run “behind the scenes” to keep your computer running.
You might have heard words like application and app before- no matter what you call them, they’re all programs.
What is code?
How does a program tell a computer what to do? Computers can’t understand English (at least not yet), so programs are written in a language that computers can understand. These computer languages are called code. You can think of code as a set of instructions that tell the computer what to do.
Just like there are a bunch of different human languages, there are also a bunch of different coding languages. Different coding languages are good at different things: if you want to create a website, you’ll probably be using HTML and JavaScript. If you want to create a server, you might use Java. If you wanted to write low-level drivers that interact with hardware, you might use C++. If you wanted to create an interactive website, you might use JavaScript.
What is coding?
To summarize everything so far:
- Computers are devices like laptops and smartphones.
- Programs are a set of instructions that tell a computer what to do.
- Those instructions are written in code.
That means that coding (also called programming) is the process of writing that code!
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