Absolute Beginner's Guide to Programming, Third Edition

People and Computers

People and computers can work together very well. A person cannot total a list of 100 numbers in the blink of an eye, but a computer can. A person cannot print 1,000 names and addresses sorted by ZIP Code in under a minute, but a computer can. People get bored doing the same job over and over, but computers never get bored. Computers can perform varied tasks, from graphic art to scientific calculations, whereas people are often really good at only a handful of different tasks.

The computer, however, is no match for a human being. People can think, whereas a computer can only blindly perform instructions line by line. Where do those instructions come from? They come from people who write the programs of instructions. People ...