Programming

So you want to learn to program? You’ve made a good decision. Programming is a fantastic skill to learn, and it’s great fun. It can be used to build the next generation of apps, hack a Raspberry Pi or Arduino, write the latest blockbuster games—and a ton of other things. In fact, once you learn how to program, the only limit is your imagination.

In this chapter, we’ll briefly survey the history of programming, look into what a computer program actually is, and then introduce the JavaScript programming language, which we’ll be using to learn how to program.

We’ll also be jumping right in and getting started with some programming, writing not one, but two programs in JavaScript!

We’ll finish the chapter with some programming challenges to help you to test your newfound skills—as we’ll do at the end of every chapter in this book.

Introduction to programming

Programming is about making computers do what we want them to do. A computer program is basically a series of instructions that tell our computer how to perform a task. Unfortunately, computers don’t speak the same language as us.

For example, we can’t just write change the color of the circle to blue and expect the computer to understand. A programming language acts as an intermediary: it’s a language that can be understood by both computers and humans.