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What is Programming_00003

The term 'program' originates from Greek, meaning to write in advance, which relates to computer programming as writing instructions for computers. The document compares programming a computer to giving detailed instructions for a task, like making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, highlighting the need for specificity when programming due to the lack of creativity and intuition in computers. It emphasizes that while humans can infer and use context, computers require explicit and detailed instructions to perform tasks.

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ni.tya.a.n.antharama.n.187
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6 views

What is Programming_00003

The term 'program' originates from Greek, meaning to write in advance, which relates to computer programming as writing instructions for computers. The document compares programming a computer to giving detailed instructions for a task, like making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, highlighting the need for specificity when programming due to the lack of creativity and intuition in computers. It emphasizes that while humans can infer and use context, computers require explicit and detailed instructions to perform tasks.

Uploaded by

ni.tya.a.n.antharama.n.187
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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The word “program” can be traced back to the Greek words “pro” (before) and “graphein” (write).

In other
words, it was the act of writing something in advance, or ahead-of-time. Of course, 2000 years ago this
was not used in reference to writing instructions for computers, but it still accurately describes what we
mean when we say “computer programming” or just “programming.” When we “program” a computer we
are writing instructions that we want the computer to follow, before it begins the process of following
those instructions.

The process of a human writing computer code is analogous to one human giving instructions for another
human to follow. A classic example of this comes to play in food-preparation recipes. A recipe for a meal
can be boiled-down to a sequence of instructions that a human must follow very carefully, and in the
correct order, in order to arrive at the desired goal: a delicious meal. As a rudimentary example, let’s use
the “recipe” for making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich (yes, this still counts as a “delicious meal” :).
Imagine you were teaching your friend, Ryan, to make a Pb&J who had never made one before. If you had
to write down the steps, you’d probably tell him something such as:

• Get out two slices of bread, a jar of peanut-butter, and a jar of jelly.
• Place each piece of bread next to each-other on a plate.
• Get a knife, and scoop out a few ounces of peanut butter.
• Spread the peanut butter evenly on one of the open bread faces.
• Get a separate knife, and scoop out a few ounces of jelly.
• On the other slice of bread, spread evenly.
• Fold the two pieces of bread together, with the peanut butter and jelly sides facing each other.
• Enjoy!

In this case, you essentially just “programmed,” except instead of programming a computer, you
programmed Ryan. You wrote down the instructions for creating a Pb&J in advance, and then gave these
instructions to your programe. Writing computer code, or “programming” a computer, can be thought of in
a similar way to giving instructions to another human being. There are obviously some differences,
because a computer is a very different type of entity.

• Computers are VERY good at following instructions. They do EXACTLY what you tell them to do (not
always the case with us humans)
• However, computers are not CREATIVE and don’t have INTUITION. This means that you have to be
VERY speci�c when telling a computer what to do.

As you might expect, computers aren’t really designed to create Pb&J sandwiches. However if we were to
attempt to communicate to a computer how to make one, we would have to be much more speci�c that
we were to Ryan. This is because Ryan can use his intuition, creativity, context, memory, etc to extrapolate
some of the things we say. For example, when we said:

“Get out two slices of bread, a jar of peanut-butter, and a jar of jelly”

Ryan already knows what peanut-butter is, what jelly is, what bread is, and where these ingredients are
stored in the kitchen. He also uses his intuition to �gure out what we mean by “Get out…”. He can infer that
this probably means pull each out of the cabinet / fridge and place them on the counter top. If we were to
program the computer (say, inside of some kind of robot) to make Pb&J’s, we need to have instructions
with much greater detail. For example

• Begin at the north-west corner of the kitchen.


• Move 1.5 meters south.
• Turn 90 degrees left.
• Use arm to open the cabinet door in front of you.
• Find the jar with the words “peanut butter” on it.
• Pull said jar out of cabinet and place on counter top immediately below.
• Close cabinet door.
• Turn 180 degreed right.
• Move 1.2 meters forward.

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