LETS LEARN TECH TOGETHER (PROGRAMMING) #01.

Welcome to my blog, friends...
We are starting rightly and just on the first day of the month. "Lets learn tech together" is a series i am starting, where i will take you all through the programing world. It will be a step by step learning process and as time goes on you will get into the technical part. Lets begin with understanding programming.

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WHAT IS PROGRAMMING?

Alright, what do you need to know about programming if you are just getting started? We all have to deal with certain tasks in our daily lives. Many we can solve on our own, while others, especially the ones that are more complicated can be solved with the help of a computer. Assume you have defined a problem that must be solved and you know the steps that must be taken to solve it even if you could structure your logic perfectly and type a brilliant solution in English, the computer will not understand it as it understands 0s and 1s only, no other symbols. Similar to a light switch, it recognizes two phases, on and off.

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To communicate a real life problem to the computer you need to create a specific type of text called a Source Code or a human readable code that software can read and then process to the computer in Zeros and Ones.
A program is a sequence of instructions that designate how to execute a computation.Therefore the formal definition of programming is the following:

Taking a task and writing it down in a programming language that the computer can understand and execute. You need not be a geek or computer scientist to program, actually the subject of computer science is not the study of programming. These are different things and this can confuse beginners. Computer science is about understanding what computers can do, Programming instead is the activity of telling computers to do something for us. Think about the world we live in today.

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There are more than a thousand programming languages out there and each language is designed for carrying out specific tasks, so depending on the sphere to which your problem applies, only some languages can be of good use. For instance PHP is good for web programming but is not suitable for programming devices. C++ can definitely help you with the latter while python and R are some of the favorite tools of data scientists and people from the finance industry. When you meet an experienced programmer, don't think he can program in all languages out there. Instead it is likely he can work with one or maybe a few languages but he has mastered them well.

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How does somebody become good at programming?

First, programming requires problem solving skills and involves abstract thinking. Your supposed to understand your test perfectly and then break it down into a sequence of instructions or smaller computational steps that the computer can execute. For example, John is asked by his boss to do the following: create a program that adds 10 to any number his Boss inputs with the keyboard, The correct reasoning would be if x is the unknown, provided we need an output of X plus 10. Once you’ve created these steps using a programming language, you’ll begin writing clean, well structured lines of codes.

Secondly, mechanistic thinking is a crucial skill to develop. If we set aside artificial intelligence, also known as AI, computers can only execute what you explicitly ask them to do.They wouldn't understand what you imply through your instructions. Even AI sometimes misinterprets your intentions, therefore you should learn to write clear code the computer can execute to produce the desired result, regardless of whether it's interpreted by you or by an AI. Fortunately even though AI sometimes outperforms us in interpretation, humans remain the ultimate decision makers when responsibly understanding, overseeing, and adjusting code instructions.

Lastly, having a solid knowledge of a programming language’s syntax and the ability to read and write code are paramount. It will positively influence your thinking process by helping you break down problems into parts the computer can process. This skill is essential even when working with AI, because strong programming skills enable you to understand its behavior, debug effectively, and connect all the puzzle pieces.

In the example we provided above, John must think of the following subtasks:
First, he must define a function that takes x as an argument and then returns as an output a new variable equal to x + 10, this is how this problem can be solved regardless of the problem you are facing or the programming language you are using, your coding style is crucial, remember that having three lines of code is straight forward to understand. However, in practice you will likely work with hundreds of lines of code that must be sent to other people. If your work is difficult to read, unnecessarily complicated, full of variable names conveying no meaning, it will be poorly received by other programmers. Therefore, throughout this series, we pay attention to the best practices that will help you organize your codes.

In conclusion, Programming challenges are great as they develop your mechanistic thinking and problem solving abilities. This involves formulating problems, breaking them down into meaningful steps, and communicating the steps to the computer.

Thank you for reading, you can ask your questions in the comment.