Is computer programming a career I would like to persue?

Chapter 1

What is computer programming?

A program is basically a set of directions to a given destination. Say your friend asks you, "where do u Live". You reply, "Down the street until the first right, go right there and it is the second house on the left." You have just given a program and you are the programmer for giving those directions. My Mentor said, "Computer programming is the act of translating an algorithm into a language that a computer can understand. An algorithm is a set of instructions for acomplishing a task. In practice programmers often take a human problem, develop an algorithm to solve it and then program that algorithm."

Many people see computer programming as a hard subject and think that it requires a lot of brains and that they need to go to school for a lot of years. Later into the chapters, we will get into what is a computer language, what are the salaries of programmers, what you need to do to become a programmer, the many methods and tools, and all the technologies that can be related to computer programming. How programming works is not a dictionary of jargon.(Appleman). Planning a program is like planning a house. (Smiley).

There are a lot of things that can be programmable like microwaves, video cassette recorders. Most spreadsheets, word processors, and communications programs already contain built-in macro programming lanuages.(appleman). Programming skills are becoming more and more important. Even if you never write your own programs, today s computer applications are designed to be more programmable by you, the user. So in

basic words, programming is the process by which computer software is created. You do not need to know a great deal about a computer s hardware in order to write software.

Chapter 2

What education is needed to become a computer Programmer?

Where you want to be on the programmers level depends upon the amount of education that u give urself on the fied of computer programming. Someone can become a programmer straight out of high school making average porgrammer income and keep that as a living. If you want to be on the high level, earning the big bucks, you need to go to a trade school or a college. The coarses computer sciences and mathmatics will help the most in the journey to becoming a programmer. Whatever route you take in learning to computer program you are going to still have to read up on current programming languages. New technologies are constantly arissing and when a program needs to be written for this technology, someone is going to have to learn the new way to do it. Books, books and more books are going to be read by the programmer over the years so they can keep there programming skills up and level with the rest of the programmers out there in the world. They do have trade classes out there that are like 18 month schools, and they get there degree and are off into the programming world in no time. College routes take a few more years of school but they will provide you with the brains to