Chapter 1
Getting Started Programming a Computer
IN THIS CHAPTER
Understanding how computer programming works
Diving into the history of computer programming
Discovering programming
Believe it or not, if you can write a recipe on an index card, you can program a computer! At the simplest level, computer programming is nothing more than writing instructions for a computer to follow, step-by-step. The most important part of programming isn’t knowing how to write a program or how to use a particular programming language, but knowing what to create in the first place.
Some of the most popular and useful computer programs were created by people who didn’t have any formal training in math or computer science. Dan Bricklin invented the spreadsheet while studying for his MBA at Harvard. Scott Cook, who worked in marketing and product development at Procter & Gamble, created the popular money-management program Quicken after hearing his wife complain about the tedium of paying bills. Nineteen-year-old Shawn Fanning created Napster, the first peer-to-peer file-sharing network, after hearing a friend complain about the difficulty of finding his favorite songs on the Internet. Game developer ...
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