Introduction to Programming

hello again as you know I am Eli the
computer guy over here for every man I
t.com and today’s class is introduction
to programming so programming is we
endure you sit down at a computer youyou
type out a lot of text or such and that
turns into Angry Birds or QuickBooks or
office or an entire operating system if
you are going to be in the technology
field you do not have to be an expert
programmer but you should understand how
to do some programming so so whenever
you think about programming you know
when most people think about programming
again they think about Windows 7 or
office or QuickBooks or these really big
massive programs well in reality like
like with what I use you can create very
small programs in order to do very
specific tasks so right now you know the
videos that you want on everyman IT are
provided to you from a little 15 line
script that I wrote so I wrote this
little 15 line script with some things
called variables in it and whenever you
come to one of our pages that has a
video posted on our page on that little
15 line piece of code runs and you can
watch our videos so what I want you to
understand is you know when you do
programming yes you can create these
massive Windows 7 operating systems etc
etc etc but the reality is is you can
create much smaller programs to do very
specific tasks and that can be very very
useful for you as a technician so so
when I worked back for one of the
enterprise companies we had 200 new
servers that were going in we were
installing 200 new servers for our
server farm well every single one of
those servers needed a little edit to
the registry to allow something to
happen so again I was able to write I
don’t know a 5 or 10 line script that
would literally go out and on every
single server it would automatically
change that little that that registry
key in order for
in order for us to do what we needed to
be done so so when you’re thinking about
programming again don’t always think
about the big stuff there’s a lot of
little things that you can do so in this
class today we’re not going to be you
know going into actually writing
functions and all that kind of stuff
we’re just going to be going over the
basic things that you have to understand
if you are thinking about programming so
we’re going to be talking about things
like programming languages we’re going
to talk about the difference between
compiled and the scripted languages
we’re going to be talking about api’s
and SDKs prototyping pseudocode the
types of programmers so if you’re
interested in becoming a programmer
there are different types of programmers
out there so we’ll talk about that and
then we’ll wrap up with some final
thoughts so this that you know don’t
don’t worry you know you don’t you don’t
have to to put your thinking cap on this
is going to be a very easy class we’re
just going to go do an overview of what
programming is and give you some of the
basic concepts that you have to
understand before you start programming
yourself
so let’s talk about programming
languages so so most people when they
think of programmers they just think
that any programmer can program anything
like programmers are programmers
programmers program yeah that’s kind of
what they think you know if you know how
to do programming you can do anything
well just like every other profession in
technology programming is actually
divided into a lot of different sub
professions or sub careers the reason is
is because basically what programming
does is you as a programmer write out in
a type of code that’s called human
readable so you type out you know if x
equals 2 then print 12 you know you you
type out what you want to have happen
and then the programming language then
it turns that into something that the
computer can do something with so so you
type in what’s called a human readable
language and then the the either the
compiler or the script interpreter turns
that into ones and zeros that the
computers can understand so remember a
computer only understands on and off one
and zero it does not understand if then
loop X equals it doesn’t understand that
it understands on and there stands off
so what you’re doing is you create your
programming something called human
readable and then that gets turned into
ones and zeros now when it gets turned
into ones and zeros different
programming languages allow this to
happen in different ways so if you want
let’s say create a device drivers so
you’re going to create a driver for a
modem you would probably use something
called c-plus that is used for doing
device drivers if you were going to
create a web database application you
would use a programming language called
PHP so this particular language is best
suited for for sending and pulling data
from a database so think about
programming languages the way you would
think about any other program that you
use on the computer
so you would not go and do quickbooks to
write a report you probably even
couldn’t even do it if you wanted to
just like with programming languages you
could not write a device driver with PHP
PHP is used for web-based database
applications that’s all that can be used
for you can’t use it to write device
drivers it simply can’t do that the same
is true you wouldn’t go into word to
draw a picture it’s just not built for
that so when we’re talking about
programming languages again programming
languages are like any other application
you would use on the computer each
programming language is used to do a
specific type of program so PHP is used
for for us a web-based database
applications you can program for flash
so you know all those fancy graphics
that you see on websites there’s a
programming language that allows you to
interact with those things if you wanted
to create an application like QuickBooks
or something like Word you might use a
programming language called a visual
basic or the visual studio if you were
going to be trying to create programs
that are that are cross-platform
you know they can run on Linux and they
can rack we’re on on Mac and they can
run on Windows you might use a
programming language called Java why
because Java allows you to do that so
the main thing that I want you to
understand with these programming
languages is each programming language
is designed to do a certain set of
functions very well so when you are
deciding to write your program basically
what you have to do is you have to
decide what you want your program to do
and then once you’ve figured it out what
you want it to do then you figure out
the language that you need to learn or
you need to use in order to create the
program so so don’t think you know oh
I’m going to learn PHP and then I’m
going to write my own operating system
PHP again it just doesn’t do it and the
main thing with programming language is
to understand is what you’re going to be
doing is you’re going to be taking what
is called human readable code so you
actually type out with a text editor
or one of these compilers you type out
what you want the code to do and then
that compiler or what’s called an
interpreter turns that into ones and
zeros ons and offs that that’s all the
computer cares about so that’s the basic
thing to understand with programming
languages a lot of people get confused
remember just like any other application
a programming language is built to do
specific tasks you would not use
QuickBooks to write a report you would
not use Microsoft Word to draw a picture
it’s just not built that way
same way programming languages PHP web
database applications HTML creating
webpages java creates cross-platform
programs
so the next terms that you should
understand when we’re talking about
programming languages are compiled
programming languages and scripted
programming languages so what does this
mean
well basically compiled programming
languages are the oldest programming
languages and basically what happens is
you write out your code you know if this
happens then do this print this etc etc
etc you then open up a compiler so a
compiler is an application it’s a piece
of software you’ll have on your computer
you then feed the compiler your so
source code so that human readable code
that you’ve just created you feed that
to the compiler the compiler turns that
into ones and zeros that the computer
understands and then it spits out a
program on the other side so an
executable file so you put in all this
text the the compiler turns all that
text into ones and zeros and spits out
an executable program so that program
you can then double click or however you
run it on your computer and it will run
that way it is now a compiled program
that’s what compilers do they turn human
readable text into compile programs then
there are scripting languages with
scripting languages do is you don’t
actually compile the code so you write
out all of your code so you know if this
happens then do this then print this you
write that out you then simply put that
text on to the server or computer that
is going to be running the code you
install something called an interpreter
onto the computer and then that
interpreter read the code and then spits
out the results to whoever is using the
program so if you ever hear of batch
files visual basic script JavaScript PHP
8 tml any of these types of programming
languages you actually sit down at a
text editor you write out all this text
you put that file onto your server then
let’s say let’s say we’re talking about
a PHP program so when I write PHP
programs I write out all the text
literally in notepad I then upload that
to my web server with a file Association
of dot PHP on my web server I have P
HP installed so when somebody goes to my
PHP script that PHP interpreter reads
the file and then does whatever it is
that the file says should happen so the
main thing to understand when you’re
talking about compiled languages or
scripted languages compiled languages
mean you take all that human readable
code you dump it into the compiler it
spits out an executable file so the file
that spits out you know that’s all just
ones and zeros scripted languages
everything remains as text you install
an interpreter onto the computer that is
going to be running in that scripted
language so you install PHP Visual Basic
or windows script host something like
that onto the computer and then when you
run the program that interpreter will
read the code that you’ve given it and
then provide you with the results so so
this is something to understand but
between compiled and scripted computer
languages
now the next terms I’m sure you’ve heard
a lot about you know if you’ve been
following the the technology industry
lately are api’s and SDKs so ap is our
application programming interfaces SDKs
our software development kits what are
these and why are these important to you
well companies let’s say Facebook or
Twitter Tumblr or any of these types of
things they do very specific things and
in order to grow their influence in the
world they want you a ver to be able to
create programs that can can either push
or pull data to their sites so like with
with with Twitter Twitter is the the
most popular one for api’s so you can
create a program that either sends posts
to Twitter so it shows up in Twitter or
polls post from Twitter to show up in
whatever web-based application that you
are creating well the way that your
program can do this is through something
called api’s application programming
interfaces so so what this is is twitter
or facebook or myspace or any of this
you know they have a closed environment
they have a secret sauce when you create
a post onto Twitter you create the post
use hit submit and then it goes off to
Twitter and something happens magic
happens right and then you know it shows
up on on your home page well the thing
is Twitter to prevent hacking and to
prevent problems they don’t want to tell
anybody about the secret sauce they
don’t want to tell anybody how their
program actually works so what they do
is they create what are called a pee
eyes and these are basically points
where your program can connect to their
program and they can exchange data so
basically any of these api’s that are
created you can interact with if they’re
not created you can’t get behind their
wall so basically like that like Twitter
you can do a basic program that would
say you know write or print the last
post from Eli computer guy and so you
would write out a
of code that would basically say get
last post from Eli computer guy and
print on my particular website so what
happens is you can interact with those
those api’s have called application
programming interfaces you don’t get
into their secret sauce you can simply
push and pull certain data the main
thing to understand with these api’s is
is one the vendor you know Facebook
Twitter whatever can change these api’s
anytime they want so Twitter has done
this a couple of times to everybody
chagrin the other thing is like I say
you have to play by their rules so
whether you’re dealing with Google or
Twitter etc they will come up with their
rulebook and they will tell you how you
can interact with those api’s and those
are the only ways that you can interact
with with whatever it is that they’re
doing the next thing is SDKs or software
development kits a lot like api’s but
basically so we have these new devices
coming out iPhones iPads I this I that
zooms whatever basically what SDKs are
or are there kits that allow you to be
able to program for the device that
you’re trying to program for so they
come with a lot of special tools they
come with things like what are called
emulators so emulators are kind of like
like fake devices so you can have a like
a little Android phone pop up on your
computer and you can create a program
for that little fake Android phone to
make sure that it works properly you
know if I push this button what will
happen so these software development
kits basically what they do is they
package all the information and all the
tools that you need in order to program
for a device and they well they either
give it to you or they sell it to you
depending on who you’re dealing with
sometimes like for the Android system
the SDKs are completely free for other
systems they’re they’re gonna cost you
quite a bit of money but basically the
the SDKs software development kits are
kits that allow you to program for
particular devices so again api’s SDKs
at this point you don’t have to worry
about them a lot but it’s good to
understand
so the next thing I want to talk about
is the first step in the programming
process so you’ve thought about what
program you want to create let’s say you
want to create some kind of web
application well after you’ve thought
that you want to start creating some web
application you are going to want to do
prototyping so what prototyping is is
where you sit down and on plain old
pieces of paper or with something a
program like Visio or such you sit there
and you actually sketch out what you
want the program to do so basically
let’s say where we have a program that
we want to collect people’s email
addresses you know it’s kind of like you
know with everyman IT comm here we have
a little newsletter link if you want our
newsletter you put in the email address
you click Submit and that submits the
data into our database so if we’re going
to prototype this on a piece of paper or
on a whiteboard we would simply you know
draw out and we would say okay I want to
have a box and I want the box to have an
email address you know place for
somebody put an email address and above
it it’ll say email and below it it will
say submit and I write it out like I say
on a piece of paper or on a whiteboard
like this then if this is what’s going
to happen then I would write out here
and I would just put for you know when
you hit submit that then goes into the
database and that’s all you do basically
with prototyping you literally on a
piece of paper write out or draw out how
you want this application to work and
you write it out so that later you can
have an idea of how you were actually
going to be programming this thing the
biggest problem with programming is that
most people don’t understand what they
actually want to do so so they get you
know they they sit down and they write
half a program and they find out that
that what they written isn’t going to
end up doing what they want to do so
they scrap that and then they write
another half a program then find out
that’s not what they want to do so they
scrap that we’re in another program
basically the first thing that you want
to do
is do prototyping where you draw
everything out so that you understand
what you want this application do like I
say even even this little email thing
here this can probably take five or six
pages just to write out how everything
is going to work so for this let’s say
this is this is the the submit the email
so they put in their email address you
hit submit and it goes to the database
well then if we have a report section so
let’s say I want an admin page and then
under that I would have a report button
and if I click the report button that
would have to go to the database and
then that would have to print out a
report with all the email addresses in
it basically this can get really
confusing and we’re going to go into
this more as we actually start creating
programs but the main thing to
understand is all prototyping is is on a
whiteboard or a piece of paper you
actually just simply draw out there’s
there’s no complicated stuff here you
simply draw out how you want this
program to work
so once we’ve drawn out the prototype of
how we want our little program to work
we need to start working on something
called pseudocode so what is pseudocode
pseudocode is when you simply write out
longhand how you want the program to
function how you want different
operations to happen so let’s say we’re
talking about this newsletter program
again so we have this text box and we
have the submit button right so
basically if we’re going to write
pseudocode for the submit button so we
want to say when I click the submit
button what do I want to have happen so
we would say when I click Submit email
address and text box should be added to
the email database so basically all we
do is rewrite out like that like I said
like this in longhand we write out what
we want this what we want to have happen
when we click Submit when I click the
submit button the email address and the
tax book should be added to the email
database this does two things for us one
it makes us start thinking about the
process that we want to have happen
before we actually get into the code
actually writing out the code and it
allows us to decide what programming
language we’re going to be using so if
this is going to be a web based
application going to and do it database
I can say we will probably be using the
PHP programming language you know if I
write all this out I know it’s not gonna
be Java Script I know it’s not going to
be HTML we’re gonna get into that later
but basically by writing the pseudocode
I can say okay the programming language
is I’m going to need is PHP the other
thing again as we go into the more
advanced topics with doing programming
is by writing this out before we’re
worried about the programming in the
language it’s easier to understand the
logical ideas of what are going
to be happening in this process so when
you write it out like I say you can
think you can simply think about what
you want to have happen and you’re not
actually thinking about code right now
so this is very important so basically
the next step in the process what you do
the first thing is you you think about
what you want to create you come up with
an idea hey I wish I could get people’s
email addresses then you create
prototyping where you actually you know
like I say on a whiteboard or pieces of
paper you draw out what you want to have
happen then after that for each thing
that you want to have happen you would
then write pseudocode and pseudocode
like I say is just you just write out
longhand what you want to have happen
now past this is where we’ll get into
actual classes on programming so we’ll
have classes on PHP and JavaScript in
HTML so past this is then where you turn
this idea into an actual program into an
actual application so this is as far as
we’re gonna go today like I say more
advanced classes we’re going to talk
about more but these these are very very
important steps like I say too many
people don’t spend enough time on
prototyping too many people don’t spend
enough time on pseudocode and if you
don’t write out what you want to have
happen then it’s really really difficult
to actually program this stuff later
as to the final subject we’re going to
talk about today are the types of
programmers out there because like I say
you know everybody when they come into
the the technology field of the computer
field they say you know I want to do
computers you know I want to do
programming and they don’t realize that
there are a lot of sub professions in
the technology field so you know if
you’re gonna come into computers
you know IT information technology like
I do well you can fix computers or you
could fix servers or you could do
networking or you do telephone systems
or you do surveillance systems or you
know there’s a whole bunch of stuff that
all requires its own skill set the same
is true with programmers a programmer is
not a programmer they all program but
they all do different things so the
first type of programmer and probably
the easiest one for you to get into is
what is called a web programmer so so
when you go to a website and all these
kind of fancy stuff happens on the
website that is something that a web
programmer does so basically web
programmers program applications that
run on the web
things like grabbing people’s email
addresses you know presenting websites
in a certain way that kind of stuff this
type of thing you can learn at home and
you can actually produce real
professional stuff like so you’re just
just right out of your house with no
real professional training you just get
a few books you understand how all of it
works and you can go out there and you
can start and become your own web
programmer the next type of programmer
is more like the programmer programmer
the the programmers that you would be
thinking about these people you know
would be creating things like device
drivers very complicated programs so
basically with a web programmer you can
create a web program in a couple of
hours maybe a week maybe two weeks you
know if you just sit down and do it it
usually does not take that long for most
web programs programmer programmers if
you’re creating things like device
drivers for a modem or for a video card
you’re creating applications like
Quickbook Microsoft Office those things
take a lot of time so programmers are
the guys that just stand or sit in front
of a monitor for eight to ten hours a
day
drinking their jolt colas and just just
writing code so so those are the people
like the the real serious programmers
you know that’s what they’re like they
would be learning programming languages
like C plus C sharp Java etc then beyond
programmers that are the highest level
of what are called software engineers so
you know when you’re creating one little
program that takes a lot of skill and it
takes a lot of energy well when you
create massive pieces of software you
actually need a lot of engineering you
need project management skills in order
to make this happen so software
engineers will be working on like these
large cluster computers things like that
so this is basically just just a simple
idea to give you that there are
different types of programmers again you
have the web programmers you can learn
this stuff at home you can create
professional stuff you know out of your
bedroom on your laptop computer
there’s programmer programmers for this
you probably need a college education
you know she’d go off and get a computer
science degree this will allow you to
create the programs that you’re used to
thinking about again device drivers
QuickBooks that kind of stuff and then
there’s the software engineer software
engineers create big programs I mean
programs a spawn span you know multiple
systems multiple servers you know
clusters of computers etc
so that was a class introduction to
programming so you know if you are
interested if you’re thinking about
doing programming these are the basic
concepts that you need to understand
before you actually jump in to doing
programming you know people want to jump
in and they want to learn PHP or C+ or
or all these different programming
languages before they really understand
what programming is about the main thing
that I want you to understand with
programming is just like every other
fast set of computers or technology
there’s different sub careers of
programmers and the different
programming languages are built to do
different things if you spend a year
learning to do I know C+ programming
that’s not gonna help you create web
database applications it’s simply not
what it’s built for you know you could
spend six months learning PHP but that’s
not gonna help you build device drivers
if that’s what you want to do you know
if you want to create robots PHP isn’t
what’s going to teach you to do that so
every programming language is like an
application that you would use on your
normal computer just like window just
like like word or just like QuickBooks
different programming languages are
built to do specific things you would
not use QuickBooks to try to write a
report for school it’s simply not built
that for that again you would not use
PHP to write a device driver you would
not use C+ to write a web-based
application those programming languages
simply are not built to do those things
we talked about the compiled versus the
scripted languages so compiled is where
you take the source code that human
readable code you shove it into a
compiler and then it spits out this
executable file with ones and zeroes so
it compiles your your source code into a
program versus a scripted language where
your source source code always remains a
text file so you upload a text file to
your server you install the interpreter
onto your server and then the
interpreter reads the code and then
spits out the results so again like I
say on on our web server it has PHP
installed I upload PHP code to the web
server when you come to our website
the interpreter reads the PHP code and
then gives you the results we talked
about SP AP is an SDK is a little bit
application programming interfaces and
software development kits application
programming interfaces are the points
that companies like Twitter Facebook
Yahoo Google give you in order to
connect with their systems so so they
have a whole secret recipe for how
things happen in their systems and they
don’t want you messing around with that
so what they do is they give you these
api’s that allow you to do specific
tasks so if you want to post a post to
Twitter from any different application
that application would connect to
Twitter through an API that will allow
that post to happen if you want to read
posts from Twitter on a different
application that application would go to
that API and then pull the post off of
Twitter the main thing to understand
with these api’s is you get what the
company gives you so Facebook Twitter
has done this a couple of times they can
change these api’s at any time it’s all
up to them they can give you more or
less access basically you know by
flipping a coin it’s all up to them you
don’t get any control over what happens
in their systems then the SDK is again
you’ve probably heard about a lot
nowadays is called software development
kits so if you’re going to be creating
applications like I say for the iPhone
the iPad Android devices zooms whatever
whatever it is you’re going to build
they have SDKs basically these are
packaged programming applications that
allow you to create programs for those
specific devices we then talked about
prototyping so this is the first step in
creating a program no technical skills
required you don’t you don’t need to
know anything other than then how to to
write on a piece of paper
so with prototyping what you do is you
think about what you want your program
to do and then you actually write or
draw that out on pieces of paper or a
whiteboard so you draw it out so you
have an idea of what this thing is
supposed to look like
once you have done the prototype you
then go into pseudocode
so what pseudocode is is you know
anywhere you have little buttons on this
this these prototype paper you would
then say when I click this button this
is what I want to have happen by writing
that pseudocode you start to logically
understand what is supposed to be
happening with your system better
and that allows you to decide what
programming language you are going to be
using and then it’s easier to figure out
logical problems when you’re not
actually writing in the programming
language itself you know when you’re
just writing a free hand after that we
talked about the different types of
programmers you know web programmers
programmers programmer software
engineers again with this just like
programming languages I want you to
understand the career of being a
programmer has different subcategories
you know again programmers are not
programmers you don’t say I want to be a
programmer and then you can do
everything it’s not how it works if you
want to create web database applications
you learn one set of programming if you
want to create robots you learn another
satellite programming if you want to
like start creating artificial
intelligence you know fuzzy logic that
has you know neural networks that has an
entirely different set of programming
you know it takes a lot of time and
energy to learn any one of those sets so
you should understand that you know they
are different career fields so that was
a class introduction to programming
again not too technical or any of that
our next classes are going to start
delving into things like programming in
PHP and JavaScript and HTML and that’s
where you’ll get your hands into the
code but right now you just need to
understand these basic concepts so when
we go to writing code you have an idea
of what you’re doing