Languages Languages

There is lot of myth to upcoming programmers when they start early in their programming about Programming Languages.

Many students think that Programming Languages are used to write programs which consist of instructions to the computer. When I ask some of them they say I am learning programming language because it is there in my syllabus.
If you feel this way then let me tell you, it is not the reason why you are learning programming language. Then why are you learning. Lets take an example and try to remove this myth.

For suppose, I have a deaf servant, and I have to send him to the market, to get some vegetables for me. How would I tell him which vegetables do I want. Of course I can’t use sign language, because it may not be accurate

Yes the best thing to do is to write the list in a paper and give it to him. Now you see the deaf person is actually your computer it also can’t hear anything but still it does all the work for you. The question is How, and the answer is quite simple in the same manner what you did to your deaf servant, you write a list of instructions to the computer and ask it to do whatever you want it to do.

Therefore the conclusion is if you want the computer to perform any kind of work that you want then you write a program and submit to it, and the computer will do that work for you.

The you may ask me what about programming language?

Let us consider the same above language, If my deaf servant knows French and I know English and if I write the list in English, then can he do the work again the answer is a big “NO”.

Then in order for my servant to do my work I have to write the list in the language which he knows. Similarly, if I write to the computer in my language, then can the computer do the work, the answer is the same “NO”. Then in order for my computer to do the work I have write a program in a language which the computer understands.

That is why you have to learn a programming language, by which you can ask the computer to perform any work as per your requirements.