The Universe of Programming
G.I. JOE
This is the name of the most remarkable homing pigeon who saved
1000 British soldiers during World War II.
The little pigeon flew 20 miles, in just as many minutes, back to the American base, preventing the attack planes from taking off:
The British soldiers had already occupied the town of
Colvi Vecchia, the Germans had retreated, and an air raid
would have been devastating for the alliance. The Mayor of London later awarded the pigeon the Dickin Medal for bravery.
Nowadays, an almost instant message on
WhatsApp or
Messenger is enough, and the medal might go
to
Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of
Facebook. 😉
Computer Programming
Similar to training animals,
computers are programmed. While G.I. Joe navigated by the position of the Sun,
Earth's magnetic field, or instincts, electronic devices are a raw computing force
that initially knows nothing (
hardware).
The
microprocessor (
Central
Processing
Unit) is the brain of the computer and operates
under the control of
machine code instructions, incredible sequences of
0s and
1s, which are difficult
to understand without advanced knowledge:
To operate a computer, we rely on
software, which consists of specialized programs classified into four main categories:
operating systems,
applications,
compilers, and
interpreters.
For example, to develop an application, we need to know a
programming language such as
C++,
C#,
Java,
Python, etc.
A programming language consists of instructions that follow certain
syntax rules, allowing us to program the
computer to perform a
sequence of operations to achieve a desired
result. These instructions are written
in a language close to a natural one, most often in English, creating what is known as the
source code.
Depending on the language used, the source code is converted into machine code using a
compiler or an
interpreter.
A
compiler scans and analyzes the entire source code and then transforms it all into machine code, producing an
executable program. Although it is faster, program errors are displayed at the end, making debugging somewhat
more challenging.
Examples:
C++,
C#,
Java, etc.
An
interpreter converts the source code into machine code line by line, without requiring an executable
file to be generated at the end. The analysis stops at the first error, making it easier to debug it.
Examples:
Python,
Perl,
JavaScript, etc.
As a programmer, you need to have deep analytical thinking, be attentive, persistent, creative,
and... enjoy developing useful applications!
If you've finished reading, proceed to the next page.
