Learning to Program

Your Computer Is Stupid

Computers can play chess—and even beat chess grand masters every time. Computers can find the cheapest flight to wherever you want to fly and identify the shortest route with the least traffic to wherever you want to drive. Computers are pretty impressive. So now is probably the best time to bring up a rather awkward subject: Computers are pretty stupid. They really don’t understand anything about the commands they are executing. They are also very obedient. They will do whatever we tell them to do, with two conditions:

1. They must be capable of executing the instructions. For instance, just because you tell a computer to make you a sandwich doesn’t mean you’re going to get a sandwich. Most computers just can’t make ...