Introduction
Learn what a programming language is, and why we choose Ruby as the programming language for this course.
We'll cover the following
A programming language is a language that is used to write instructions for computers to understand and execute. There are several popular programming languages such as Java, C#, Ruby, and PHP. For beginners, it is recommended to not fixate on one.
Computers all internally work the same way, and mastering thinking in programming is more important than mastering one language syntax. You can think of different programming languages as different dialects. Once someone has mastered one, it is easy to learn another.
Why did we choose Ruby?
Throughout this course, we'll use Ruby, a popular and elegant programming language. Ruby is widely used in enterprise business applications and software testing (Twitter was initially developed in Ruby). The main reason we chose Ruby is that it is concise. Therefore, learners can focus more on thinking rather than syntax.
Is programming mysterious?
We are in the Information Age, computers are a large part of our lives. It seems that programming remains mysterious and challenging to most people, even though they spend most of their working hours in front of computers.
Once someone has mastered programming, there are many things they can do, such as the following:
- Instantly rename hundreds of files with a script instead of doing it one by one.
- Generate an excellent Excel report from raw data instead of retyping.
- Write a document once and use scripts to generate several different formats—HTML (online) and PDF.
- Turn on or off certain electronic devices based on specific criteria.
- Write a cool iOS or Android app.
- Develop a web application.
The bottom line is that once we know how the software works, we'll be better equipped to use computers. Like many skills, we cannot master programming by reading only, so we need to get hands-on and write some code.
Let's begin!