What is programming?

Programming
is writing computer code to create a program, to solve a problem.
Programs
are created to implement
algorithms
. Algorithms can be represented as
pseudocode
or a
flowchart
, and programming is the translation of these into a computer program.

To tell a computer to do something, a program must be written to tell it exactly what to do and how to do it. If an algorithm has been designed, the computer program will follow this algorithm, step-by-step, which will tell the computer exactly what it should do.

What is a programming language?
A
programming language
is an artificial language that a computer understands. The language is made up of series of
statements
that fit together to form
instructions
. These instructions tell a computer what to do.

A computer can only be programmed using special programming languages such as Python. If you enter a command in a human language, it will cause an error.
There are many different programming languages, some more complicated and complex than others. Among the most popular languages are:

Python

Java
C++

BASIC

Scratch
Different languages work in different ways. For example, in Python all instructions are written in lowercase, but in BASIC they tend to be written in uppercase.

Programming languages are designed to be easy for a human to understand and write in. However, a computer cannot run programs written in these languages directly. Most programming languages have to be translated into
machine code
before the computer can
execute
the instructions.