Why do we Program?

Computers want to be helpful

Computers are built to do things for us
- Designed and wired so that it has one question: what do you want to do next?
But, we need to speak their language to describe what we want done.
Computer users just have to pick which programs (instructions) they want to use out of the different program someone else put in the computer.
A programmer’s job is to serve the user and act as an intermediary between the hardware and the user
- The hardware of a computer itself isn’t that intelligent

Professional programmers trying to sell software also need to imagine what the world might want
iPhone apps are a market
- but the app stores are also places where software can be built and exchanged
They have over 3 billion downloads
Many programmers have left their jobs to be full-time iPhone app developers
Programmers know the ways of their program

To get some task done
- Example: clean up survey data
To produce something for others to use - a programming job
- Example: Fix a performance problem in the Sakai software
- Or adding a guestbook to a website
For professional programmers, the motivation may be to build something for everyone else to use
The main difference between writing code for someone and writing code for yourself is the rigor
Program: a sequence of stored instructions
- The computer itself at the lowest level of hardware is not that smart, but there’s a lot of flexibility in terms of giving it the right instructions.

An example of a program for humans is the macarena!
- You do the dance moves at the correct beat of the music
Human beings can operate in an error filled world
- We can automatically fix errors in text or speech based on what we know
Computers can not operate in an error filled world
- So programs have to be perfect

One thing that computers are good but humans are bad at is text analysis
- This is something we delegate to computers