Core concepts Flashcards
What is programming?
Programming is the act of constructing a program—a set of precise instructions telling a computer what to do.
The art of programming is to take an idea of how a software should run and break it apart into smaller steps, and know how to write these pieces in statements in a programming language, in the right order, in the right syntax so that the machine can read it and perform the action. (lynda.com: Programming foundations: Fundamentals)
What is a programming language?
A programming language is an artificially constructed language used to instruct computers.
What is machine code?
Machine code, also known as machine language, is read by the computer’s central processing unit (CPU), is composed of digital binary numbers and looks like a very long sequence of zeros and ones.
What is a high-level programming language?
A high-level language (HLL) is a programming language such as C, FORTRAN, or Pascal that enables a programmer to write programs that are more or less independent of a particular type of computer.
Such languages are considered high-level because they are closer to human languages and further from machine languages.
What is source code?
Source code is any collection of code, possibly with comments, written using a human-readable programming language, usually as plain text.
https://www.webopedia.com/TERM/S/source_code.html
What is a bit?
A bit (short for binary digit) is the smallest unit of data on a computer; each bit has a single value of either 1 or 0.
https://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/bit-binary-digit
What is a variable?
When you write any programming language, you need to keep track of data.
A variable is a container that holds data. You grab a piece of the computer memory to hold data, name it and put a value in it, like an email address like a name or number.
https://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/variable
What is data type?
The data type defines which operations can safely be performed to create, transform and use the variable in another computation.
https://searchmicroservices.techtarget.com/definition/data-type
What is a statement?
Statements are sentences in programming languages that use numbers, words and punctuation.
The way you write statements depends on the programming language.
Lynda.com: Programming foundations: Fundamentals
What is the difference between variable values and constant / fixed values?
Variable values can change, depending on conditions or on information passed to the program.
Constants or fixed values never change.
https://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/variable
What is the difference between a strongly typed and weakly typed language?
In a weakly typed language, you can create any variable, give it a name and put a value in it.
Strong typed language, have different kinds of variables for different kinds of data.
Lynda.com: Programming foundations: Fundamentals
What is a string variable?
Strings = One or two characters strung together
Lynda.com: Programming foundations: Fundamentals
What is an operator?
In mathematics, an operator is a character that represents an action, as for example x is an arithmetic operator that represents multiplication.
https://whatis.techtarget.com/search/query?q=operators
What are conditional statements?
Code that sometimes runs and sometimes doesn’t based on the conditions of the programme at the time, i.e. on whether a programmer-specified boolean condition evaluates to true or false.
Lynda.com: Programming foundations: Fundamentals
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conditional_(computer_programming)
What is a switch statement?
Switch statements compare a given value with specified constants and take action according to the first constant to match. There is usually a provision for a default action (‘else’,’otherwise’) to be taken if no match succeeds.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conditional_(computer_programming)#Case_and_switch_statements
What is modular programming?
Modular programming is a software design technique that emphasizes separating the functionality of a program into independent, interchangeable modules, such that each contains everything necessary to execute only one aspect of the desired functionality.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modular_programming
What is a function?
A function is a block of JavaScript that robotically does the same thing again and again, whenever you invoke its name. It saves you repetitive coding and makes your code easier to understand.
Myers, 2015, Smarter way to learn JavaScript
