Computer programming

1. Is it important for students to learn to program in LOGO, Pascal, Basic, Delphi or some other languages? Why or why not?

2. In what way is writing instructions for a computer more difficult than writing instruction for a person? In what way is it easier?

3. How would using a computer be different if it had no operating system? How would programming be different?

4. What does a job of a programmer involve?

5. Think of the adventages and disadvantages of working as a programmer?

Programming languages

Ada Lovelace

Ada Lovelace, was an English mathematician and the world’s first computer programmer and was chiefly known for her work on Charles Babbage’s early mechanical general-purpose computer, the Analytical Engine. The notes she created for the Analytical Engine include what is recognized as the very first algorithm created solely for the intent of being processed by a machine or in other words, the world’s first computer program. Ada was a gifted girl from the beginning with an uncommon mindset who predicted that one day computers would transcend from simply being used for crunching numbers — totally against the popular opinion of that time. And, without her, who knows how long it would take for another person to design a computer program.

The final program produced by computer programmers must sutisfy some fundamental properties. The following five properties are the most relevant:

Efficiency/performance: the fewer amounts of systems resources the program consumes, the better. This also refers to correct desposal to some recourses, such as cleaning up temporaty files and lack of memory leaks.

Realibility: how often results of a program are correct Realibility: how often results of a program are correct. This depends on conceptual correctness of algorithms, and minimanization of programming mistakes, such as mistakes in resourse management and logic errors.

Robustness: how well the program anticipates problems not due to a programmer error. This includes situations such as incorrect, inappropriare or corrupt data, unavailability of needed resources such as memory, operating system services and network connections, and user error.

Usability: the ease with which a person can use the program for its intended purpose or in some cases even unanticipated purposes. Such issues can make or break its success even regardless to other issues.

Portability: the range of computer hardware and oprating system platforms on which the source code of a program can be compiled/intereprated or run.

Comprehension 1. Programming is synonym for coding? T/F 2. To become a programmer, one has to have a special licence and a formal certificate? T/F 3. The choice of a programming language that a programmer will use always depends on the availibility of compilers for the language in question? T/F

4. There are several properties that a final program made by computer programmers needs to fulfill? T/F 5. Jobs in programming are expected to lose popularity in the near future? T/F

Discussion What do you think on the treatment of electronic waste in Serbia and elsewhere?

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