What is a Computer Program?

Software development is one of the fastest-growing technologies as it can make work easy in our daily lives. It is the foundation of modern technology. We write a set of programs to form software programs is the basic necessity for building software. Here in this article, we are going to learn about Computer programs including their definitions, terminologies, modes, applications, etc.

What is a Computer Program?

A computer program is nothing but a set of instructions (smallest unit of execution) that are used to execute particular tasks to get particular results. It is required for programmers to learn basic concepts of mathematics to write programs. For different types of tasks, we have to write different programs. The set of instructions used to perform a specific task to obtain a specific result is termed a computer program. The computer program is generated by programmers or software developers. The code is then processed and executed to provide the output of the program.

A computer memory is where programs that allow it to carry out different tasks sequentially are kept. The idea to store programs internally was introduced in the late 1940s by the Hungarian-born mathematician John von Neumann. The first digital computer designed with internal programming capacity was the “Baby,” constructed in Manchester in 1948.

The program is made ready by first understanding the task and then creating its pseudocode i.e. a rough idea and then after finalizing all the conditions for the particular task, a computer program is generated using one of the programming languages.

Computer Program Terminologies

Below are the terminologies related to computer programs:

1. Source Code: It is nothing but code written in High-level language that humans easily understand.
2. Machine code: It is binary code that is easy to understand by computers or machines.
3. Compiler: It is used to translate the source code into machine code all at once.
4. Interpreter: It is used to execute the source code line by line converting it into machine code.
5. Algorithm: It is nothing but a set of instructions to solve a problem.

Modes of Computer Programs

There are 2 modes of computer programs. Let us understand them one by one.

modes of programming

Interactive Mode

In this mode, a computer programmer issued a statement and gets an output at a time. This is useful to write and test only one statement at a time. The output of the code in the interactive mode is influenced by the last command we give. Interactive mode is very convenient for writing very short lines of code.

This mode of development is not recommended to solve big problems because the instructions related to big problem solving are not able to save and we can not retrieve those instructions. Hence to write programs for big problems we must go for batch mode. the disadvantage of interactive mode is that it is not suitable for large programs. The interactive mode doesn’t save the statements. Once we make a program it is for that time itself, we cannot use it in the future. In order to use it in the future, we need to retype all the statements.

Batch Mode

In this mode of program development programmers develop groups or batches of instructions in a single unit and it must be saved with file names with respective programming extensions. Batch processing is a process that is used in many industries to improve efficiency. Batch processing is the execution of a large program or series of programs on large amount of data without any manual intervention. Batch mode programming are commonly used in business and scientific applications where a large number of instructions need to be processed in a specific order.

Once we save the instructions on some file name then we can open and access that file name any time in our project.

Applications of Computer Program

• Communication: Software is created using a set of programs to make communication easy. This software may include Gmail, WhatsApp, etc.
• Entertainment: Programs are designed for interactive entertainment and gaming experiences. These may also include software related to media players.
• Web technology: Computer programs play an important role to build websites as different programs are formed and then linked together to make a website.
• Education: Computer programs are used in the field of education as it helps to create software to conduct online classes and online tests.

FAQs on Computer Program

Q.1: What is a computer program?

Answer:

A computer program is nothing but a set of instructions (smallest unit of execution) that are used to execute particular tasks to get particular results.

Q.2: What is a compiler?

Answer:

Compiler is used to translate the source code into machine code all at once.

Q.3: What is High-Level Programing Language?

Answer:

High-level language is the type of language that is easily understandable by humans and machine is unable to understand that language. For example: C, C++, Java, etc.

Q.4: What is Low-Level Programing Language?

Answer:

Low-level language is the type of language that is easily understandable by machines and complex to understand by humans. Example machine language.