'Coding is about computer-languages' - is that true? It's like saying 'Communication is about spelling and grammar'. I could write perfect spelling and grammar and still be vague.
The origin of the word 'code' suggests a 'systematic representation' to reduce ambiguity. Like a 'code of conduct'. Coding is about the attitude of reducing ambiguity, more than 'knowing a language'.
Even when we talk to humans, an intention to bring clarity is more important than knowing the complete dictionary. In fact, simple and unambiguous communication requires deep understanding and heavy persistence.
Simple and unambiguous? For who?
Let's explore code written for computers. It turns out that computers are so dumb, their languages have severely restricted vocabularies.
Code written for a computer looks like this:
10001011 1000101 11110100 10000011 11000000 00000010 10001001 01000101 11110100
It's a piece of code that adds two to something, when it's run on an Intel processor. No matter what language we use, it needs to be translated to this kind of binary in order to run.
For a human, it's hard to know what this piece is doing. So there is a better vocabulary:
a += 2 does the job in most languages like C, C#, Java, Python, etc.
A translation-chain ultimately makes this into binary.
The binary is for the computer. Anything else is for human consumption
You can see why a += 2 still misses the point -
it does not convey the significance of what's being incremented.
How about a better name?
count += 2
Good. So we are counting something. But what are we counting? How about:
customers += 2
Ok, we are counting customers. Maybe they are entering a store.
But why 2? How about giving this code a meaningful name:
def customerCoupleEntered():
customers += 2While this is python code,
it ultimately translates to the same binary and does the same job.
It's a little clearer now, that the
2 is to count a customer-couple as two people.
Notice how it's bridging our intention and the binary that 'runs' that intention. When the code is close to our intention, the chances of mistakes are minimized.
However, this code is defective. Before looking at defects in the code, we need to be sure about our intention.