Computer programming
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Computer programming (often simply programming) is the craft of implementing one or more interrelated abstract algorithms using a particular programming language to produce a concrete computer program. Programming has elements of art, science, mathematics, and engineering.
Programming languages
Main article: programming language
A programmer writes source code in a particular programming language.
Different programming languages support different styles of programming (called programming paradigms). Part of the art of programming is selecting one of the programming languages best suited for the task at hand. Different programming languages require different levels of detail to be handled by the programmer when implementing algorithms, often resulting in a compromise between ease of use and performance (a trade-off between "programmer time" and "computer time").
The only programming language a computer can directly execute is machine language (sometimes called "machine code"). Originally all programmers worked out every detail of the machine code, but this is hardly ever done anymore. Instead, programmers write source code, and a computer (running a compiler or an interpreter or an assembler) translates it through one or more translation steps to fill in all the details, before the final machine code is executed on the target computer. Even when complete low-level control of the target computer is required, programmers write assembly language, whose instructions are mnemonic one-to-one transcriptions of the corresponding machine language instructions.
In some languages, an interpretable p-code binary (or byte-code) is generated, rather than machine language.
Software development
Main article: software engineering
Software is a mass noun for computer programs and data. The accompanying documentation and software license is also considered an essential part of the software, even though they don't involve any actual coding.
Creating software involves:
- Requirements Analysis
- Specification
- Design and Architecture
- Coding
- Testing
- Documentation
- Maintenance
See software engineering for more details.
See also
es:programacin fr:Programmation fa:برنامهنویسی ko:프로그래밍 he:תכנות מחשבים hu:szmtgp-programozs nl:Programmeren ja:プログラミング pl:Programowanie ru:Ÿ€ог€амми€ование sl:Računalniško_programiranje sv:Programmering zh:程序设计