Читать книгу Getting a Coding Job For Dummies - Никхил Абрахам - Страница 5

Computer code consists of a set of statements (like sentences in English); each statement directs the computer to perform a single step or instruction. Each step is precise and followed to the letter. For example, if you’re in a restaurant and ask a waiter to direct you to the restroom, he might say, “head to the back, and try the middle door.” To a computer, these directions are vague and therefore unusable. Instead, if the waiter gave instructions to you as if you were a computer program, he might say, “From this table, walk northeast for 40 paces. Then turn right 90 degrees, walk 5 paces, turn left 90 degrees, and walk 5 paces. Open the door directly in front of you, and enter the restroom.”

One rough way to measure a program’s complexity is to count its statements or lines of code. Basic applications such as Pong have 5,000 lines of code, while more complex applications such as Facebook currently have over 10 million lines of code. Whether few or many lines of code, the computer follows each instruction exactly and effortlessly, never tiring like the waiter might when asked for the 100th time for the location of the restroom.

Figure 1-1 shows lines of code from the popular game Pong. Don’t worry about trying to understand what every single line does.

Figure 1-1: Computer code from the game Pong.

Be careful when using the number of lines of code as a measure of a program’s complexity. Just like when writing in English, 100 well-written lines of code can perform the same functionality as 1,000 poorly written lines of code.

This book describes the ins and outs of careers in coding but will not teach you a programming language. In Part III, you can read about the different ways you can learn to code: by yourself, in a coding boot camp, in college, and on the job.