bedlow i will provide to you the transcription of a video lesson. Study the content of it, find the meaning the speaker wants to convey and create a text, a lesson that will convey this meaning in an easy to understand way to college students new to the subjects discused in it. this is the transcript : ""1
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So what exactly is programming?

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Well, you may have heard a phrase like this before.

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A computer program is a set of instructions.

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Here is the problem.

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This sounds like one of those phrases that might be technically true and is

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kind of useless, like the human brain is 80% water. Because you hear this phrase

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but then you see a complex program like Photoshop or Flash or something playing

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high-definition video or a 3D game and you think, "Yeah but that can't just be a

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set of instructions." But that's exactly what these are, all of them.

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Every computer program is a series of instructions.

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A sequence of separate small commands, one after the other.

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Now there maybe five instructions contained in a program, maybe 5,000, maybe 5

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million. Each instruction is telling the computer to do something very small,

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but very specific and the art of programming is to take a larger idea and break

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it apart into these individual steps.

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And the wonderful thing is everyone can already do this.

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Let's imagine that you're sitting in your house in the suburbs waiting for a

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visit from a friend.

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Your phone rings, it's her, and she's asking for directions.

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She tells you she's at a nearby gas station and you know it. You pass it

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everyday, it's on your way home.

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So that journey point A to point B drops into your head as one piece, but you

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instantly know you can't communicate the journey the way you understand it.

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You have to break it down into simpler parts and you have to think about it to

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break it down because it's so natural to you.

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So you start to pull this apart and "You say you are going to need to turn right,

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then drive one mile, then you will turn left on Acacia Avenue, then you'll take

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the second right and then it's the fourth house on the left."

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Specific, individual, simple, clear, self-contained instructions.

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Now you know that sequence here is vitally important.

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You mix these up, you will get very different results.

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"Turn right, drive 1 mile" takes you to quite a different place from "drive 1 mile, turn right."

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But this same level of simple instructions,

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turn right, turn left, go straight, could take you around the corner or it could

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take you on a five-year trip around the world visiting every Starbucks along the way.

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You'd still have instructions like turn right and left.

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You'd just need a lot more of them.

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So with programming we are giving directions to the computer.

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It's breaking apart a more complex idea, a more complex task, into its

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smallest individual instructions and then using a programming language to

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write those instructions.

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Now, of course if you have never programmed, it's not clear right now what those

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instructions might be.

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You know it's probably not turn right and turn left.

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So what are those basic fundamental instruction you give a computer?

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Well, they are often very basic. They are things like add two numbers

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together, or display a letter on the screen, check to see if the user just hit

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the spacebar, change the color of one individual pixel. But as with driving

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directions, you string together enough computer instructions that will get

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you very far indeed.

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So when it might seem difficult to see how you get from basic examples you see

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when beginning programming to complex games or applications, well that's what

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you get when you have a hundred people writing these instructions for sixty

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hours a week for several years, combined with the ability of the computer to

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process them mind-bogglingly fast, means that we could, if we wanted to, write

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the set of instructions that could calculate every single individual pixel on

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the screen thirty times a second.

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Now think about that level of speed and think about why your instructions better

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be right. Because getting them wrong is like giving wrong directions to your

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friend when her car only has two speeds: 0 and 5000 miles an hour.

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You get those directions wrong, and the next call you get is her asking why she

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followed your instructions to the letter, but her car is now in the middle of a

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forest crashed into a tree.

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Computers will do exactly what you tell them, so the instructions you give

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them better make sense.

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In programming languages we write these instructions by writing what are called statements.

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Statements in programming languages are kind of like sentences in English.

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They use words, numbers, and punctuation to express one thought, one individual piece.

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Most programming statements are pretty short, just a few words.

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Now, exactly what words, numbers, and punctuation you use depends on the

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programming language.

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Some languages want each of your statements to end with a semicolon, like ending

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a sentence in English with a period, and others don't. You just go to the next

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line and start writing the next statement.

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Some languages are all uppercase, some languages are all lowercase, some

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languages just don't care.

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Now, understanding the rules of each language is understanding the syntax of a

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programming language.

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So programming is the ability to take this idea in your head, break it apart

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into its individual pieces, and know how to write those pieces in the programming

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language you are using at the time, writing your statements in the right order,

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using the right syntax. But what language?

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Well, sometimes you get to pick a language and sometimes it's kind of picked for you.

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We will talk about that in a moment.