Background

I often hear from friends the same impression about computer programming, that it is hard and complicated. I do understand that point of view, I do feel that way, for a lot of different things. But I feel like that is caused by we learned about computer programming in a wrong perspective, such as we watched in movies or tv shows, that shows all code changing in a fast pace, that we never saw before in our life, to describe programming.

That might be realistic, but I don’t think it should be the first thing you learn about what is programming. So I thought, it would be nice to try to address it in a different point of view, and that’s what this is about.

Why it is important?

In the past 20 years computers have become more integrated and involved in our lives. Having no knowledge of them is exactly like letting a stranger live with you and never getting to know them 😣

So what is it?

I like to see programming as a way to communicate with a computer, which it is. So what it communication? I guess we all know, but I’ll share a bit just so we all are on the same page.

That’s what dictionary definition of communication. In our lives, we communicate with each other in a lot of different ways.

For example:

when you see a puppy, that makes you happy and you want to communicate your affection to them by smiling, pet their head, rub their belly. And they might communicate back to you by wiggling their tail.

And that’s it, you know how to communicate with a puppy. But what if you met a snake 🐍? I bet a lot of us might be terrified, and scared. It’s simply because we have no idea how to communicate with them, and we know that they are capable to hurt us. But when you do know how to communicate with a snake, then you can become a snake whisperer, and everything is fine.

That goes the same way with computer programming, it is a way to communicate with a computer. And if you don’t know how, it could be terrifying.

So, I’d say

Computer programming is as simple as 2 questions “What you can you do?” and, “How can I tell you to do or not do that?”

That is what computer programming is all about, we might not realize that we do programming every day in our lives, for example, this scenario when you got a phone

What my phone can do?

• ring a tone on certain time (alarm)

How can I tell my phone to do that?

• go to clock
• click + button
• set the time
• and click save

And congratulations 🎉, you’re a phone programmer 🤓, you program a phone to do certain things. And the steps on How can I tell my phone to do that? is what we called Algorithm.

I believe seeing programming in that perspective would make it looks more understandable.

Conclusion

Programming is not scary, and you don’t have to be a professional computer programmer to understand how to program. That goes the same way with, writing. You don’t have to be a professional writer if you learn how to write.

Programming is just another way to communicate with another beings 💻🤓, which would help our lives

PS: Don’t live with a stranger! get to know them 😉