1.Why Waste Energy In Learning Programming?

Introduction

In our day-to-day life, we come across Wh-questions most often, in fact, almost daily. Wh-questions are the questions starting with Who, What(Which), When, Where, How and Why? Either you ask these Wh-questions to someone or you answer the questions asked by someone. Example –

• Who is this?
• Where are you? I am waiting at the theatre.
• & so on…

Out of these Wh-questions, “Why” keeps a major reputation. Before starting a task, you tend to ask yourself, ‘Why am I doing this?’ When your brain is satisfied and convinced by the answer, you go ahead and do that task. While studying anything, you should ask “Why” question most often – Why should I read this? Why is this like this?

Hence, you should ask that question here also! Why should I learn programming? Why waste energy in learning programming?

Well, here is the explanation. Any programming language is a way to teach computer how should it do a task. Let’s understand it through an analogy. Technology doesn’t have to be confusing. On this site, you will find our own innovative analogies that translate complex computer science into simple, relatable stories.

Analogy 1.1

Sam’s mother goes to market to buy articles for home regularly. Now, she is old and finds it a tedious task. She decides to use Sam(who is younger and more energetic than his mom, of course) to get this tedious task done. Sam is not very out-going boy and knows very little about the market. Sam’s mother calls him and tells him –

• See this map to know exactly from where you need to buy.
• Buy clothes from these two shops.
• If a cloth is not available from first shop, buy from the second.
• Buy groceries from Family Supermarket.
• If potatoes are green, do not buy.
• Repeat these instructions for one month until your brother comes to take care of shopping.
  
  Try to understand below analogy-
  • The steps written above is program.
  • Sam is computer.
  • The mother is the person who is writing the program so as to get benefit from Sam so she is programmer.

Humans designed computers to automate repetitive, rule-based tasks previously done with pen and paper. Programming allows a person to brainstorm and write a solution just once. From that point on, the software handles the tedious work automatically. It liberates the user from daily chores, much like the system that saved Sam’s mother from constant trips to the market.

Examples of program

If you look around, you will find many examples where program is used.
1) At the city’s main junction, there are traffic light poles. Do you think there is a dedicated traffic policeman switching 4 roads X 3 lights(red, yellow and green) = 12 switches on and off? Obviously, no. It will be too tedious and error-prone if human starts doing it. There is a program running behind the scene which switches ON green on one side and red on the other.

2) Don’t relate the word “program” with just computers. Fundamentally, it is the knowledge of how a machine or device should act. Even, the safety valve present in the pressure cooker is also a program. We have instructed pressure cooker to emit the vapour from there if pressure builds too much and you are not able to whistle. We will say that cooker is programmed with safety valve.

So with these examples, we can say that program is used to save or avoid human efforts and make the life of human easy. Those are broad examples in real life but with your computer in your hand, we will learn computer program so that we can train computer how it should help us in doing a tedious task.

Program is a way to tell computer how should it perform a task.