Let’s now look at what a program is. Your browser (Chrome, Firefox or the one you use) is a program.
This website is made possible by a program that I use to help me generate it. I provide the content, the program generates the HTML pages.
Your phone is run by a big program, called iOS or Android. That’s a huge program, of course, and it’s not even fair to call it a program - it’s a collection, an ecosystem of programs. To which we give a name.
The apps on your phone are programs.
The apps on your computer, of course, are programs. The apps on your phone, too.
Your car is controlled by programs.
A program is a set of instructions, which the programmer assembles to make the machine perform a specific action.
Typically the program is compiled by the programmer before it can be executed. Sometimes however programs are interpreted by another program.
Like in the case of JavaScript, which is run by the browser. In this exact moment, there is some JavaScript code I wrote, being executed by the browser you are using.
So, here’s a first big separation of programs: compiled and interpreted. And different programming languages will allow one or the other method.
Ultimately a program is something you build to perform something specific. It might be helping simplify the management of an enterprise, or solving a problem, like the problem of boredom, by creating the ultimate video game.
Now that we’ve defined what a program is, let’s dive into the question of programming.