ICT

Importance of programming and programming languages

By Ebin Robinson

AS Level

IN721

LCI

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Why is programming so important in the modern world?

Nowadays everyone has a smartphone in their hand which is due to the

technology revolution started by Apple. 

Since then the smartphone industry has grown a lot. So in modern day

programming is necessary to make the people to follow a company and

increase the competitive edge of a company by providing innovative

technologies to people's hands.

Now there is a little shift from traditional retail to e-commerce which is made

through programming. Programming is now focused on making feel

convenient so it is necessary in the modern world since people want to save

time by any means.

Programming is definitely important. Hundreds of universities, thousands of

professors, and scores and scores of students and practitioners teaching,

learning and practicing the discipline are enough testimony to the fact. Some of

the more obvious reasons programming is important are:

To interact with machines and computers

To harness the power of computing in all human endeavor

To automate tasks

To create intelligent machines,etc

Nothing is possible without programming in current generation. 

From the fan to your mobile, everything is built-in programmed.

Even electrical and mechanical engineers after their raw workout, will move to

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the final stage - Coding the tool.

Only then you can give life to that object.

Imagine there is no programming,just a hypothetical and funny thinking.

Satellite stops working, no TV, No Radio , No mobile , No stock exchange ,

No aerial resourcing of mining, fishing , agriculture and all resources, no

vehicles , no instruments , etc., 

No programming = No life to modern generation.

What is data type and why it is important in programming languages?

In case of programming languages, you can consider your body as data, the

disease as your data type, the medicines as the operators/functions or anything

that can work on data and ofcourse you, a programmer, would be the doctor.

Now, on the very basic level you need to know what type of data are you

working on. Without that, it wouldn't be easy and in some cases nigh

impossible to determine how to approach towards solution.

We can substitute a compiler/interpreter as the doctor as well. In that case, the

significance of the exact type of data is even more as the compiler/interpreter

must know if the program that is being fed as the input is valid or not. To be

more precise, it must check if the operations that you are trying to perform are

compliant with the data type of the data. It doesn't make sense to perform an

addition on two data-points: an integer (say 893) and a string (say

"programming").

What is Computer programming?

Computer programming (often shortened to programming) is a process that

leads from an original formulation of a computing problem

to executable computer programs. Programming involves activities such as

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analysis, developing understanding, generating algorithms, verification of

requirements of algorithms including their correctness and resources

consumption, and implementation (commonly referred to as coding) of

algorithms in a target programming language. Source code is written in one or

more programming. The purpose of programming is to find a sequence of

instructions that will automate performing a specific task or solving a given

problem. The process of programming thus often requires expertise in many

different subjects, including knowledge of the application domain, specialized

algorithms and formal logic. 

Related tasks include testing, debugging, and maintaining the source code,

implementation of the build system, and management of derived artefacts such

as machine code of computer programs. These might be considered part of the

programming process, but often the term "software development" is used for

this larger process with the term "programming", "implementation", or

"coding" reserved for the actual writing of source code. Software

engineering combines engineering techniques with development practices.

Types of Programming languages are :-

Different languages have different purposes, so it makes sense to talk about

different kinds, or types, of languages. Some types are:

Machine languages — interpreted directly in hardware

Assembly languages — thin wrappers over a corresponding machine

language

High-level languages — anything machine-independent

System languages — designed for writing low-level tasks, like memory

and process management

Scripting languages — generally extremely high-level and powerful

Domain-specific languages — used in highly special-purpose areas only

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Visual languages — non-text based

Esoteric languages — not really intended to be used

These types are not mutually exclusive: Perl is both high-level and scripting; C

is considered both high-level and system.

Other types people have identified: Toy, Educational, Very High-Level,

Compiled, Interpreted, Free-Form, Curly Brace, Applicative, Von Neumann,

Expression-Oriented, Persistent, Concurrent, Glue, Intermediate, Quantum,

Hybrid.

A few examples of Software are:

Java - Java is a set of several computer software and specifications

developed by Sun Microsystems. later acquired by Oracle Corporation,

that provides a system for developing application software and

deploying it in a cross-platform computing environment. Java is used in

a wide variety of computing platforms from embedded

devices and mobile phones to enterprise servers and supercomputers.

While less common, Java applets run in secure, sandboxed environments

to provide many features of native applications and can be embedded

in HTML pages. It was first released in 23 January 1996.

Android 4.4 Kitkat - Android 4.4 "KitKat" is a version of

the Android mobile operating system developed by Google. Google

announced Android 4.4 KitKat on September 3, 2013. Although initially

under the "Key Lime Pie" ("KLP") codename, the name was changed

because "very few people actually know the taste of a key lime pie."

Some technology bloggers also expected the "Key Lime Pie" release to

be Android 5. KitKat debuted on Google's Nexus 5 on October 31, 2013,

and was optimised to run on a greater range of devices than earlier

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Android versions, having 512 MB of RAM as a recommended

minimum; those improvements were known as "Project Svelte"

internally at Google. The required minimum amount of RAM available

to Android is 340 MB, and all devices with less than 512 MB of RAM

must report themselves as "low RAM" devices.

KitKat's new features

User interface and apps

Refreshed interface with white elements instead of blue

Clock no longer shows bold hours; all digits are thin. The H, M, and S

markings for the stopwatch and timer have been removed, leaving just the

numbers.

New framework for UI transitions

Ability for applications to trigger translucency in the navigation and status

bars

Ability for applications to use "immersive mode" to keep the navigation

and status bars hidden while maintaining user interaction

Action overflow menu buttons are always visible, even on devices with a

"Menu" key, which was officially deprecated by Android 4.0.

Wi-Fi and mobile data activity (TX/RX) indicators are moved to quick

settings

Settings application no longer uses a multi-pane layout on devices with

larger screens

Settings application now makes it possible to select default text messaging

and home (launcher) application

Built-in screen recording feature (primarily for developers, as usage of

ADB is required)

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WebView

WebView components now based on Chromium engine (feature parity with

Chrome 30 for Android)

Disables text wrapping in the WebView browser component

Storage

Restriction for applications when accessing external storage, except for

their own directories. This restriction was later removed in Android

Lollipop.

Storage Access Framework, an API allowing apps to retrieve files in a

consistent manner. As part of the framework, a new system file picker

allows users to access files from various sources (including those exposed

by apps, such as online storage services).

APIs

Optimizations for performance on devices with lower specifications,

including zRAM support and "low RAM" device API

Public API for developing and managing text messaging clients

Sensor batching, step detector and counter APIs

Native infrared blaster API

Expanded accessibility APIs and system-level closed captioning settings

Android Runtime (ART) introduced as a new experimental application

runtime environment, not enabled by default, as a replacement for the

Dalvik virtual machine

Hardware

Wireless printing capability

Bluetooth Message Access Profile (MAP) support

NFC host card emulation, enabling a device to replace smart cards

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Audio tunneling, audio monitoring and loudness enhancer

Disabled access to battery statistics by third-party applications

Other

Expanded functionality for notification listener services

iOS - iOS (originally iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created

and developed by Apple Inc. and distributed exclusively for Apple

hardware. It is the operating system that presently powers many of the

company's mobile devices, including the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. It

is the most commonly used mobile operating system in Canada, the

United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, andAustralia,

while Android is the most popular mobile operating system as it is most

popular in most other countries. iOS is also the most commonly used

tablet operating system in the world.

Originally unveiled in 2007, for the iPhone, it has been extended to

support other Apple devices such as the iPod Touch(September

2007), iPad (January 2010), iPad Mini (November 2012) and second-

generation Apple TV onward (September 2010). As of January 2015,

Apple's App Store contained more than 1.4 million iOS applications,

725,000 of which are native for iPads.These mobile apps have

collectively been downloaded more than 100 billion times.

Bibliography

Quora digest Android.co.ukApple.com Wikipedia Goodreads

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