Introduction to programming

Introduction to programming

Summary

o What is programming
o Why programming is important
o What skills are needed
o Develop a basic recipe for writing programs
o Points to remember

What is programming

As this course is titled “Introduction to programming”, therefore it is most essential and
appropriate to understand what programming really means. Let us first see a widely
known definition of programming.
Definition: "A program is a precise sequence of steps to solve a particular problem.”
It means that when we say that we have a program, it actually mean that we know about a
complete set activities to be performed in a particular order. The purpose of these
activities is to solve a given problem.
Alan Perlis, a professor at Yale University, says:
"It goes against the grain of modern education to teach children to program. What fun is
there in making plans, acquiring discipline in organizing thoughts, devoting attention to
detail and learning to be self-critical? "
It is a sarcastic statement about modern education, and it means that the modern
education is not developing critical skills like planning, organizing and paying attention
to detail. Practically, in our day to day lives we are constantly planning, organizing and
paying attention to fine details (if we want our plans to succeed). And it is also fun to do
these activities. For example, for a picnic trip we plan where to go, what to wear, what to
take for lunch, organize travel details and have a good time while doing so.
When we talk about computer programming then as Mr. Steve Summit puts it
“At its most basic level, programming a computer simply means telling it what to do, and
this vapid-sounding definition is not even a joke. There are no other truly fundamental
aspects of computer programming; everything else we talk about will simply be the
details of a particular, usually artificial, mechanism for telling a computer what to do.

Sometimes these mechanisms are chosen because they have been found to be convenient
for programmers (people) to use; other times they have been chosen because they're easy
for the computer to understand. The first hard thing about programming is to learn,
become comfortable with, and accept these artificial mechanisms, whether they make

Why Programming is important

The question most of the people ask is why should we learn to program when there are so
many application software and code generators available to do the task for us. Well the
answer is as give by the Matthias Felleisen in the book ‘How to design programs’
“The answer consists of two parts. First, it is indeed true that traditional forms of
programming are useful for just a few people. But, programming as we the authors
understand it is useful for everyone: the administrative secretary who uses spreadsheets
as well as the high-tech programmer. In other words, we have a broader notion of
programming in mind than the traditional one. We explain our notion in a moment.
Second, we teach our idea of programming with a technology that is based on the
principle of minimal intrusion. Hence, our notion of programming teaches problemanalysis
and problem-solving skills without imposing the overhead of traditional
programming notations and tools.”
Hence learning to program is important because it develops analytical and problem
solving abilities. It is a creative activity and provides us a mean to express abstract ideas.
Thus programming is fun and is much more than a vocational skill. By designing
programs, we learn many skills that are important for all professions. These skills can be
summarized as:
o Critical reading
o Analytical thinking
o Creative synthesis

What skills are needed

Programming is an important activity as people life and living depends on the programs
one make. Hence while programming one should
o Paying attention to detail
o Think about the reusability.
o Think about user interface
o Understand the fact the computers are stupid
o Comment the code liberally
Paying attention to detail
In programming, the details matter. This is a very important skill. A good programmer
always analyzes the problem statement very carefully and in detail. You should pay
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