Programming is the art of making computers do what we want with programs.
A computer program is a repeatable set of instructions that a computer can use to solve a class of problems
Computers lack both the same common sense and world model that we have, and English. This means we can't instruct them to do things as simply as instructing another person: we have to really "dumb it down" and use very specialized and precise language, like a programming language.
Critical mental model: programming skill is composed broadly of two things:
- COMPUTATIONAL THINKING: how to model problems so they can be solved by computers
- CODING: how to translate these models into valid instructions that a computer can follow
CODING tends to get all the attention. This is the syntax, the unfamiliarity of code language, should you learn Python or Javascript or C++ or Rust... And this is important!
But COMPUTATIONAL THINKING is the foundation, without which you cannot be a programmer. Professional programmers use computational thinking as a foundation and move from programming language to language, as the job requires.
Let's have a look at what the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) and the Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA) have to say about this
Computational thinking (CT) is a problem-solving process that includes (but is not limited to) the following characteristics: • Formulating problems in a way that enables us to use a computer and other tools to help solve them. • Logically organizing and analyzing data • Representing data through abstractions such as models and simulations • Automating solutions through algorithmic thinking (a series of ordered steps) • Identifying, analyzing, and implementing possible solutions with the goal of achieving the most efficient and effective combination of steps and resources • Generalizing and transferring this problem solving process to a wide variety of problems
These skills are supported and enhanced by a number of dispositions or attitudes that are essential dimensions of CT. These dispositions or attitudes include: • Confidence in dealing with complexity • Persistence in working with difficult problems • Tolerance for ambiguity • The ability to deal with open ended problems • The ability to communicate and work with others to achieve a common goal or solution
To get more intuition for the distinction from coding, consider that there are two broad classes of "bugs" (ways that programs can be broken/incorrect) that will come up as you program:
- Syntax errors, which are when the computer can't even execute the code because it is not "legal"/valid code in some way. These bugs require CODING fixes: writing the code with correct, well-formed syntax for whatever programming language you are coding in. You can think of this as mapping to things like typos/misspellings and grammatical errors in writing.
- Semantic errors, which are when the computer does (exactly!) what you say, but not what you want (e.g., unexpected behavior, incorrect outputs). These bugs require COMPUTATIONAL THINKING fixes: modeling the problem --- its data structures, subproblems, workflows, and algorithms --- better.