Programs

It is important to understand the relationships among a programming language, a program, and a computer. To do this, let's work by analogy.

From this point of view, programming is the process of writing down instructions so that some process can be repeated over and over again in the future.

For example, Julia Child might discover a new way to make crepes. She writes down the recipe in English, and in the future any competent cook with the right equipment can read the recipe and prepare a crepe. Here, Julia Child is the programmer, her programming language is English, the program is a recipe for crepes, and the computer is a cook with proper utensils.

In the second example, Beethoven composes a piano sonata. Unless he writes it down, it will be lost to the ages. So he writes down the sonata using musical notation, and thereafter any sufficiently skilled pianist with a properly tuned piano can perform the sonata. Here, Beethoven is the programmer, he is programming in musical notation, the program is the score for his sonata, and the computer is a pianist with a piano.

Notice the common thread here. The program is the means of communicating instructions between the programmer (who invents the instructions) and the computer (which carries out the instructions).