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Chapter: About
this Guide
About this Guide
An Introduction
to Programming with Processing is a guide to creating
interactive software with the programming language, Processing. The
main focus of
the documentation is to give the reader an understanding of the
programming language, Processing and also to give the reader the
knowledge to apply
an understanding gained from reading this documentation to learning
other
similar high level programming languages.
Chapter: Hardware
and Software Theory
Hardware and Software
Theory
What is programming?
A software program is a set of instructions issued to a computer via
source code. Source code is data that usually resembles a text document
which is
typed in a
specific programming language that is somewhere between a language that
computers can process efficiently and humans can understand. The task
of
creating source code is known as programming.
Human readable source code on the left and machine code on the right.
Although source code does not make sense at first glance to someone new
to
programming, when compared to it's equivalent in machine code it
definitely looks more
appealing.
Chapter: How does
Programming Relate to Hardware and Software
How does
programming relate to hardware and
software?
Before we get into the process of creating software programs, lets
first examine the relationship between a software program and a
computer.
One of the fundamental functions of a computer is it's ability to
control electrical energy and ultimately transform that energy into
another form of energy such as light, sound or motion. We use software
to communicate with a computer, which will determine the various paths
that the electrical energy will take, in order to achieve the goal we
have stipulated through programming.
Computers are designed to react to electrical energy, this energy can
be of a high or low voltage and forms the basic premise of all the
complex interactions that exists between humans and computers. These
high and low voltages of electrical energy are relayed within the
circuitry of a computer in very short intervals that allow us to
distinguish one from the other and will eventually be sequenced
together to form a protocol for communicating with computers.
This protocol of communication we represent with two numerical digits a
1 and a 0, which to a computer equates to a high and a low voltage. We
refer to this form of representation as Binary Code. Of course, this
representation means nothing to a computer as it is only reacting to
the electrical energy that is being relayed within it's circuitry. But
to us using a 1 and 0 as a form of representation creates a means for
every simple to complex interaction we have with computers through
software.
By combining various sequences of 1's and 0's (and ultimately sequences
of high and low voltages) followed by more sequences of 1's and 0's
arranged in similar or different patterns the effect of a continuous
flow of energy is created that results in light or sound or one of the
many other capabilities of a computer. The fact that this flow of
electrical energy is broken up into smaller chunks means that each
chunk can be made up of a different sequence of 1's and 0's which could
be used to create the impression of a change or variation which could
finally be perceived as an image moving in an animation or the
diaphragm of a speaker vibrating at different amplitudes which, for
example, we ultimately perceive as the sound of our favorite track.
Although useful, representing data in this way can become quite
cumbersome and error prone. If developing software meant having to
learn endless sequences of binary code, becoming a programmer would be
a very daunting task. This is, however, not the case as we can use a 1
and a 0 to represent a high and a low voltage we can use a sequence of
1's and 0's to represent more complex ideas such as a larger number
like 155 which can be translated into binary as 10011011. This form of
representation can furthermore be extended to include typographic
characters, which in themselves can be strung together in sequences to
create words, which can in themselves be strung together to issue
commands to a computer through programming. We refer to this process as
abstraction.
Programming in it's simplest form is the process of creating and
modifying a series of 1's and 0's that influences the path of the
electrical current, by means of abstraction.
At some point everything that a computer processes (including our own
interactions with it) has to exist in binary code representations.
However, it's important to remember that binary code is simply just a
human representation, for determining a sequence of high and low
voltages, that we use to make the complexities that occur within a
computer more understandable to us.
As I mentioned earlier, a computer does not really care about what form
of representation we use, however this process of representing data
certainly does make it a lot easier to communicate with computers.
We interface
with computers via
software which allows us to work in an individual capacity, whenever
applicable, in fields that would previously have required teams of
people working together.
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