In this article, you are going to learn about what is programming language and how you can give instructions to the computer to do a particular task. As a beginner, it is very important to know about the ways to solve any well-defined programming problem. And to do so various methods can you use to make our problem-solving process much easy and such methods are algorithms, pseudocode and flowchart.
What is a programming language?
Programming language is just like human language cause its main task is to communicate with the computer such as human language is used to communicate with other humans. Programming language is the way to give instructions to computers to do any specific task, it is the way to communicate with computers. As such another human language, programming language also follows strict rules which are known as syntax. Many examples of programming languages are java, c++, javascript, python etc.
A computer essentially only understands binary codes of 0 and 1 so that’s why the program written in a programming language is first converted into binary language with the help of a compiler.
What is an Algorithm?
An algorithm is a step by step procedure to solve any well-defined computational problem. It is written in general English its main task is to lay out the structure to solve any problem. The steps in Algorithm are finite in numbers.
For example:-
Write an algorithm for adding to numbers.
Step-1 :- Start
Step 2:- input a,b
Step 3:- initialize the sum variable
Step 4:- sum = a+b
Step 5:- print the sum
Step 6:- Exit
What is Flowchart?
A flowchart is the graphical representation of the step-by-step procedure to solve any well-defined computational problem. Flowchart draws out all the steps which are taken to solve any specific problem. The flowchart is having various components for the various task.
These components are:-
Terminator:- Terminator is the component that is used to start and end the flowchart.
Parallelogram:- The parallelogram component is used to take input and display the output.
Process:- Process component is used to show the operation and process in a flowchart.
4. Decision-making:- Decision-making component is the diamond shape figure which is used to show the decision-
making in a flowchart
Connector:- Connector is circle shaped component that is used to connect the flowchart which is written in separate pages.
Arrow:- Arrow component is used to show the flow of the program.
Example of Flowchart:-
