What is programming?
A gentle introduction to giving computers instructions.
Imagine a huge pile of biology work
Imagine a scientist with 10,000 DNA sequences to check. Each one must be analyzed the same way. Doing that by hand would take days — and humans make mistakes when we repeat the same task.
The computer is very different. It is incredibly fast and never gets bored. But it needs something humans don't: precise, step-by-step instructions.
That exact set of instructions, written in a language the computer can understand, is called a program. When you write a program, you are describing a task once — and the computer will repeat it patiently, as many times as you want.
Writing those instructions is called programming. You don't need to be a math genius. You need to be clear and patient — and it's helpful to be curious about biology.
A program is a set of instructions. A computer follows them exactly, in order, very quickly.
Which of these best describes a program?