Computer Science Illuminated, 7th Edition

6.5 Expressing Algorithms

In the previous sections, we have written programs to write out a greeting, read characters in and write them out in reverse order, add numbers together and print an error message if the sum is negative, and enter a value and read and sum that many numbers. We expressed the solution to each problem in paragraph form and then wrote the code. In computing, the plan for a solution is called an algorithm. As you saw, going from the problem in paragraph form to the code is not always a clear-cut process. Pseudocode is a language that allows us to express algorithms in a clearer form.

Pseudocode Functionality

Pseudocode is not a real computer language, but rather a shorthand-like language that people use to express actions. ...