Basic Programming Terminology
You are probably asking, why do you need to learn the terminology:
Wouldn't it be nice if doctors and nurses discuss diagnoses with each other in such simple terms.
Medicine is complicated and practitioners communicate with a complicated set of terminology.
Yes, everyone understands the term “broken leg,” but that is too vague for a medical diagnosis and correct treatment. Using precise terminology like “transverse compound fracture of the tibia” allows medical staff and students to communicate accurately about where the injury is, what type of injury it is, and the extent of the injury.
Programming is not as complex as the human body and medicine, but it is still complex.
So like medicine, programming has has it's own complex terminology. We use terminology to communicate accurately, because simple terms are often too vague.
Medicine is complicated and practitioners communicate with a complicated set of terminology.
Yes, everyone understands the term “broken leg,” but that is too vague for a medical diagnosis and correct treatment. Using precise terminology like “transverse compound fracture of the tibia” allows medical staff and students to communicate accurately about where the injury is, what type of injury it is, and the extent of the injury.
Programming is not as complex as the human body and medicine, but it is still complex.
So like medicine, programming has has it's own complex terminology. We use terminology to communicate accurately, because simple terms are often too vague.
Let's get started learning some of the common terms that are helpful to know.
Your task is to provide brief or simple definitions for the following terms: (try to define as many as you can)
Your task is to provide brief or simple definitions for the following terms: (try to define as many as you can)
- Programming or Programmer
- Computer program or code
- High level programming language (Give several examples)
- Syntax and syntax errors
- What is a bug? What is debugging?
- Compiler and Compilation
- Interpreter (How is it different than compilation)
- Running or Execution of a program (how is this different than compilation)
- Decomposing
- Algorithm
- Pseudocode
- Machine code or machine language
- Relational operator
- Logical Operator
- Mathematical operator
- Boolean
- Input and output
- Variable (By extension, types of variables)
- Constants
- Array
- Assignment
- Functions or Procedures or Subroutines (By extension, what are parameters)
- Call or invoke
- Brackets (types, open and closing)
- Commenting
- Indentation
- Control flow
- GUI or graphical user interface
- Sequence or sequential
- Conditional statements and branching
- Iteration / loop
- Nested or embedded
- Parallelism
- Run time
- Sandbox
- Read and write (during the execution of a program)
- Simulation
- Cowboy coding
- Spaghetti coding