Why Language Matters
In the beginning, at the birth of computing, there were no programming languages. Programs looked something like this:
00110001 00000000 00000000 00110001 00000001 00000001 00110011 00000001 00000010 01010001 00001011 00000010 00100010 00000010 00001000 01000011 00000001 00000000 01000001 00000001 00000001 00010000 00000010 00000000 01100010 00000000 00000000
That is a program to add the numbers from 1 to 10 together and print out the result
(1 + 2 + ... + 10 = 55). It could run on a very simple, hypothetical machine. To program early computers, it was necessary to set large arrays of switches in the right position, or punch holes in strips of cardboard and feed them to the computer. You can imagine how this was a tedious, error ...
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