Computer coding

💻С.. You’ve heard tons about coding and know that it has to do with computers and how they process the information we see. However, you may not have much more than this vague understanding of the concept. Don’t feel bad. Many people don’t really understand it, though we all depend on the fundamentals of code each and every day. It’s such an important aspect of the technological landscape that, according to Fortune, former President Obama unveiled an initiative called “Computer Science for All” that has been backed by and invested in by big names, including the Turner Broadcasting Network. This movement is one that mirrors that of our nation’s schools that have been emphasizing the value of technology, computer science, engineering, and other STEM-related topics. Read on to discover what computer code is and why it is of such importance in today’s society.

Computer Coding

What Coding Is🙃

Coding is basically the computer language used to develop apps, websites, and software. Without it, we’d have none of the most popular technology we’ve come to rely on such as Facebook, our smartphones, the browser we choose to view our favorite blogs, or even the blogs themselves. It all runs on code.

How Coding Works💯

To put it very simply, the code is what tells your computer what to do. To go a bit deeper, computers don’t understand words. They only understand the concepts of on and off. The capabilities of a computer are guided by on and off switches, or transistors. Binary code represents these on and off transistors as the digits 1 and 0. An infinite number of combinations of these codes make your computer work. In order to make binary code manageable, computer programming languages were formed. These languages each serve different purposes, but they all allow programmers to translate important commands into binary code.

Each computer application needs a properly written code to know what to do. Most software has thousands to billions of lines of coded text and numbers. The code gives computers a step-by-step guide on how to function. Computers speed through reading the code to execute every online and offline task. In today’s digital world, everything from mobile phones to smart TVs and cars run using coded software. For example, the code might tell the computer to input an image and make it spin. Creating flawless code is essential to avoid 404 error pop-ups and software crashes. Debugging code is always the final step to reveal and fix coding issues.

Is Learning to Code Difficult❓

Coding isn’t that hard for tech-savvy people who patiently put in the time and effort to learn. Coding gets an unnecessarily bad reputation from people who weren’t persistent enough to practice. The easiest coding languages only involve a few hundred terms and rules to remember. That’s a tiny sliver in comparison to learning a spoken foreign language. Once the easier languages are mastered, it’s relatively simple to learn other ways to code. Many programming languages use similar methods to code and debug computer applications.

Beginners starting to code must possess certain skills to be successful. Having strong attention to detail to pour over long lines of coded text is imperative. New coders need abstract thinking skills to visualize what written code will become. Novices must have problem-solving skills to persist against challenges without letting frustration win. Intuitive logical reasoning skills help coders correctly conclude why a code isn’t working right. Good writing skills are critical to creating code that appropriately conveys the intended message. Technology skills are also an obvious requirement for coders to fearlessly work with computer programs.

Popular Coding Languages to Learn

Since the 1970s, computer experts have created more than 700 different programming languages. Each language has a unique way of helping computers process huge amounts of information. Every coding language has different features and terms with some overlap. New coders shouldn’t be overwhelmed by the plethora of programming types though. There are only about a dozen programming languages that are commonly used. These include Ruby, Swift, JavaScript, Cobol, Objective-C, Visual Basic, and Perl. Let’s look at some of the major coding languages about which beginners should know.

Computer Coding for Beginners

There’s a lot of hype around coding, so let’s start by clarifying what coding isn’t. I mentioned above that when I first saw the source code of a web page, I thought that I was looking at the language my computer spoke. This is a common way of explaining what code is, but it’s not exactly true.

Your computer doesn’t understand the nuances of language. In fact, the only terms your computer understands very well at all are “Yes” or “No.”

Imagine you are building a bridge with a group of engineers. You’re on one side, they are on the other, and you need to communicate to finish the project. The problem is, your phone has died, and your radio only works one way. All you have to communicate with them is a flashlight. One flash for yes, two for no. It will take a while but, eventually, the bridge will be built.

This is how a computer communicates with people. The language the computer speaks is binary code, a mathematical language of ones and zeros. Just like the flashlight, there are only two options. The computer understands “on” and “off,”  and nothing else. So unless you’re typing strings of ones and zeros into your text editor (which you’re not), you’re not really writing code in the computer’s language.

But if the code isn’t written in the computer’s language, what are you doing?

Computer Code is a Language

Think about writing code like this. You don’t speak binary, and the machine can’t come close to understanding human languages. So, for you to tell the computer what to do, you need to design a translator that can act as an intermediary. This is the purpose of code. Code is a  form of writing that isn’t binary, that is easy to learn and interpret for humans, but that the computer can still understand.

For most of the programs you’re likely to work on, the code you write is actually a step removed from the binary code that the computer will process. You’ll write in a code that pulls from human language. Programs built into your computer then translate what you’ve written into binary. It’s like if you needed to speak to someone who in Mandarin, you only know English, and the only translator you could find spoke only Mandarin and French. You would need another translator to translate from English to French and then the first translator can translate French to Mandarin, hopefully without meaning getting lost in the process.

What sort of blows my mind about all of this is that it somehow works. We have programs translating programs for a machine that only speaks binary. This is an insanely complicated process, yet here I am typing human words on my binary speaking computer.

There’s a lot more to it, of course, but these are the essential things to know before you start a conversation with your computer through code.

Coding vs. Programming: What’s the Difference?

When I was growing up, my dad and all the people he worked with were computer programmers. This framed how I understood people who wrote code for computers for a long time: They were programmers.

More recently it seemed like there was a shift in either the terminology or the industry. Suddenly, people who wrote for computers were coders. This shift has prompted me to wonder whether there is any difference between what programmers do and what coders do.

Many say that there really isn’t a difference between a coder and a programmer at all. It’s a difference in terminology rather than activity. If anything, in my humble opinion, saying you are a coder is slightly more general than saying you are a programmer. Since to me the word programmer is often associated with computer programming (and computer science) courses at a university. Whereas, coding feels like something everyone can do.

Jonah Bitautas, the product designer behind Cards Against Humanity,  makes an interesting point when he argues that there is a real difference and it’s rooted in issues of scale. Essentially, a coder is someone who writes language for computers. A programmer is someone who oversees the writing of a whole program — that is to say, an entire project’s worth of coding.

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