The Tech Quiz - Season 16

To communicate and give instructions to a computer you need a programming language. When I tried college back in the early eighties, remember this was in Honduras and computers were not yet popular in the USA much less here. Nevertheless our University had computer programming classes. I never took the class, but I do know that the instructions were made in a card, holes were punched in these cards that carried the instructions. I have no idea what language was used, or to what extent this worked, but it was the first time I had an inkling about how people gave instructions to a computer.

Now over time I have come to hear about countless programming languages, just out of my head I can mention BASIC, COBOL, PASCAL, I believe these were some of the first truly universal languages. Then I have heard about JAVA, Javascript, which I am not sure is a full language, PYTHON, C, C+ C++ and a lot of others. I am a complete computer programming ignoramus I know next to nothing. Actually the only one I have ever had any luck with is HTML, I can make a simple web page, but again I think HTML is not considered a programming language.

I am of course curious about all computer languages, but interestingly and even though I have a very logical mind and am extremely good at numbers, i have always failed when I try to learn programming. I would really love to be able to come up with exciting computer propositions but it seems it is beyond my capabilities. so all I can do is admire and enjoy the work of those who happen to be good at programming.

As I said computer programming is beyond me, so to me there is no easy programming languages, all of them are incredibly difficult. Sometimes I find it embarrassing, people whom I have to correct because of simple mathematical mistakes run circles around me when it comes to programming. Apart from my hard headedness regarding programming I also happen to have zero creativity, so I actually am useless as a programmer.

But I do like computers, and can be online for hours at a time, an enjoyable experience I can participate it, thanks to computer programming and those who apply it.

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