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Computer programming

Computer programming (often shortened to programming or coding) is the process of designing, writing, testing, debugging, and maintaining the source code of computer programs. This source code is written in one or more programming language. The purpose of programming is to create a set of instructions that computers use to perform specific operations or to exhibit desired behaviors. The process of writing source code often requires expertise in many different subjects, including knowledge of the application domain, specialized algorithms, and formal logic.

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The Analytical Engine was a proposed mechanical general-purpose computer designed by English mathematician Charles Babbage. It was first described in 1837 as the successor to Babbage's difference engine, a design for a mechanical calculator. This Analytical Engine incorporated an arithmetical unit, control flow in the form of conditional branching and loops, and integrated memory, making it the first Turing-complete design for a general-purpose computer.

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Ronald Paul "Ron" Fedkiw (/ˈfɛdkoʊ/; born February 27, 1968) is an associate professor in the Stanford University department of computer science and a leading researcher in the field of computer graphics, focusing on topics relating to physically based simulation of natural phenomena and level sets. His techniques have been employed in over twenty motion pictures. He has earned recognition at the 80th Academy Awards as well as from the National Academy for Science.

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Credit: Kleiner

The Hello world program (shown here in C++) is one of the simplest programs to create, often used to illustrate the basic syntax of a programming language and its development cycle.

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Did you know?

... that custom allocators may greatly improve the performance of a computer program written in C++?

... that the return value optimization is one of the very few compiler optimizations that are allowed to change the observable behaviour of a C++ program?

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