Overview

Teaching: 10 min
Exercises: 0 min

Questions

• What is programming?

Objectives

Programming is a way of communicating with the computer. You give your orders to a computer via a computer program written in a programming language and the computer understands your orders and execute them. Computers are good followers.

Depending on what you want to do (e.g., writing a code to solve a partial equation, creating a user interface, developing a computer game, etc.), you need to select an appropriate programming language. Each programming language has its own syntax that programmers should learn and follow. Once you have your program, a software called compiler or interpreter (depending on your programming language) translates your program to something that computer can understand.

Python is a popular programming languages with easy to understand syntax and good community support. To write your programs in Python, you need an editor as well as a Python interpreter. The Setup tab explains how to download and install a Python interpreter.

Key Points