Pseudo-code does not favor any one of the several hundred programming languages that exist today, but instead uses the most universally understood programming language constructs, that anyone conversant with contemporary programming languages should be able to understand. Let's go through the algorithm line by line, so that we understand the pseudo-code. We're simply saying here that what follows the first line is an algorithm and we're giving it the name, ComputeSum. We capitalize the names of algorithms , but not the keyword algorithm. The next line is a comment.
Any text following two slashes is interpreted to be a comment.
Int declares two variables , n1 and n2. Associated with each, at any time during the course of executing the algorithm, is some integer value. We refer to the names, n1 and n2, as identifiers . In this case the control structure specifies a selection. If the expression between the if and then is to true, then the statements following it and up to the else are executed, after which the next statement to be executed is the one following the endif.