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Programming is writing in a language a computer can read

computers compute

Machine Language

A language a machine can read

Properties of a language

• Alphabet
  • Almost every computer language is in the latin alphabet
• Lexis
  • sets of words
  • Dictionary
• Syntax
  • The set of rules a language uses to make proper sentences
• Semantics
  • Rules determining if something makes sense

Program files

• They are called source code, and are written in a source file
• The source code for this markdown file is what you are reading right now, and the source file is ./non programming things about python.md

Compilation

• Your computer hardware reads in an extremely simple machine language(binary), as to be extremely fast, but thats not very readable by humans who dont have a PHD in mathematics
• As you get closer from the hardware, to the kernel, the operating system, and to computer programs, the machine languages get higher order, Ex: from binary to hexadecimal to assembly, to C, .
• Higher order computer languages are slower
• to solve this, some higher order computer languages compile themselves into a lower order computer language, so that they can be easily written by humans, and be fast like ones that aren’t
  • Java
• Others don’t do this, and instead are just interpreted by an interpreter
  • Python

Origin of Python

• Python is a communal project spearheaded by Guido van Rossum
• The name python is from the show Monty Python because its funny and programmers are massive nerds
• It is a high level, object oriented, easy to write, interpreted langauge