Got into C++? Cool. Let’s understand the essential components of the language to get into the basics of coding quickly.
In C++, we’ve various components that help us execute our code successfully. You need to understand these terms before going further into coding. You’ll undoubtedly encounter these terms in every step of every programming language; irrespective of your programming level, these terms will always be there with you as these are the core concepts of every programming language.
Programming Language
Programming language is simply a language that acts as a communication medium between humans and computer devices. We provide the instructions to the computer to perform the operations we want the computer to perform for us.
Programming Language has some rules, semantics, and specific features varying from our programming language. We must follow all these rules to avoid errors and warnings, which will allow us to successfully execute the program, resulting in the success of our computer’s operation.
However, communicating with computer devices is not very easy. Even computer languages have complications (lol, even programming languages face it). Computer Programming is very logical and very strict towards its rules and semantics. It begins from the basics, and the concepts and the logic continue to build and become challenging as the level increases.
Libraries
Programming Libraries are the existing files containing codes, functions, and solutions written by the developers to help the current programmers to bypass the hassle of programming from scratch. You can also refer to it as “the shortcut” to boost the developers’ productivity and speed—for Example, The Standard Library in C++ (We’ll discuss that later).
Instead of learning about existing libraries, programmers focus on creating their libraries. A self-developed library makes it easier for them to use the same code/function in another code and avoid re-writing code as they’ll directly import it from the library.
Syntax
The Syntax is simply the parts of speech of the programming language. The Syntax is the set of rules to be followed by correct statements that make sense to the computer (compiler) while programming.
The Syntax combines four main components, i.e., Keywords, Identifiers, Operators & Punctuations. We’ll study each topic in detail later. These four components combined are known as the Syntax of the programming language.
Compiler
A compiler is a computer program that translates the Programming Language to the Machine Language (0’s and 1’s) to make it understand the instruction sent by the programmer and perform it.
A compiler is the core program in any programming language. It checks the source code and reports the errors and warnings if there is something wrong with any program’s Syntax, logic, and running environment. With the error-checking and the code translation, they also check the semantics and give suggestions to improve the program’s source code, which will help the program’s efficiency, save the no of lines, save system resources, etc.
Computer Program
The final output of the programming code you’ve written is known as the computer program. The efforts you’ve given to create the logic, following the Syntax and semantics, the functions imported from libraries, and the time you’ve spent combining them all to the output.
The Computer Program is the only reason to code, as it is the core output and the result for which we have the sown the seed (source-code) so far.
The compiler processes and generates it from the source code to execute and follow users’ instructions. It can only run when the compiler passes no errors during compilation.
Follow-Up
These were the core components of the programming, irrespective of any high-level programming language. The Beginners (especially the geeky ones) must know about it to connect the concepts when the code comes into action, and the tutorial progresses towards the advancements of code. The beginners shall also understand these terms, so they’ll be aware of what’s going on when they get a real-life reference or an error referring to these terms.
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