programming-for-dummies

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Book I: Getting Started
Computer scientists are constantly inventing new programming languages or
improving existing ones. These improvements or new languages typically
offer some feature that existing languages don’t offer or solve certain types
of problems that existing languages do poorly. For example, the C++ language
improves upon the C language, whereas the Java language improves upon
the C++ language.
Perhaps two of the biggest problems with programming involve writing a program
from scratch and modifying an existing program. When you write a
program from scratch, you want to write a working program quickly with
as few problems as possible.
That’s why programming languages include so many built-in commands. The
idea is that the more built-in commands available, the fewer commands
you’ll need to use to write a program and the shorter and easier your program
will be to write in the first place.
In addition, many programming languages include built-in error-checking features
to keep you from writing a program that doesn’t work. With some languages,
it’s possible to write commands that work perfectly, but can also
crash the computer if you give those commands the wrong type of data.
In Book I, Chapter 3, you find out more about the features of different
programming languages.
Half the battle of programming is writing a program that works. The second
half is modifying that program later. When you need to modify an existing program,
you must first understand how that existing program works and then
you need to modify it without messing up the existing program commands.
To help you understand how a program works, many programming languages
let you divide a large program into separate parts. The theory is that if one part
of a program isn’t working or needs to be modified, you can yank out part of
the program, rewrite it, and then plug it back into the existing program, much
like snapping Lego building blocks together.
Finally, all the best tools and the latest programming languages aren’t going
to help you unless you know how to use them correctly. That’s why computer
scientists are constantly developing new programming techniques that
work no matter what tools or language you use.
In Book I, Chapter 4, you find out more about the different programming
tools computer scientists have created to make programming easier, faster,
and more reliable.