What is a Programming Language?

Before answering this question, I would like to ask this — how you manage to talk with your friends and family members? Through a language, right? Be it English, Hindi, Arabic, Russian, … it doesn’t matter what’s your mother tongue, the only thing that matters is you need a language to communicate your thoughts and ideas. The only condition is both the parties must agree with a common language to communicate. If you and your friend can speak and understand Russian, then communication becomes easier. So, clearly a language bridges the gap between two parties.

Now, think of a computer. There is a high chance that you ask a lot of things to your computer to do on daily basis. For example, you may ask your computer to do add two numbers, or create a spreadsheet, or visit a webpage. You make your computer to perform all these tasks on click of buttons. That’s your way of communicating with the computer. You open an app, click some buttons (or maybe type some text), and voilla! the job is done.

For example, if you want to visit a website, you open your browser, type in the URL of the webpage (example: www.facebook.com) and press enter. The website will open after a few seconds, and the job of visiting a website is done. In short, you are communicating with your computer and making it do some work for you through an interface without knowing much about the internal workings of the computer. But, honestly, there is no real fun in this and possibly you are not utilizing the full power of your computer. There is a lot more that you can do with your computer, if you know the language through which you can speak to it. The language to talk to your computer is what is called a programming language.

Why should I learn a programming language?

At this point you might be thinking, what’s so special about a programming language? If I can solve my problems through click of buttons, then why do I need to learn one? The reason is simple — it gives you more power.

What do I mean this? Let’s me give you an example to make you better understanding this.

Every morning you may open your computer, check some emails, reply to them, and even open your favourite playlist alongside. You do this manually every morning, but what if you do all this with just a single click of a button? That’s powerful. Think of it like this way — clicking a button is like ordering a food from a restaurant. You have limited food options to choose from and you are at the mercy of the restaurant to provide you the food the way they want. It can be good or bad, who knows. But, learning a programming language is like becoming a chef. You will have the ability to prepare food of your choice, of your liking, and there are unlimited possibilities. That’s powerful.

With a programming language, you can build your own tools and automate your life the way you want. Maybe you need a budget tracker application to track your expenses, but no application in the market is meeting your expectations. Or the ones which are good comes with the price tag which you are not willing to pay. What you do? Will you drop the idea of tracking budget every month? Ofcourse not. The solution is a programming language. You can build your own application, be it desktop, mobile or web.

Also, there is the possibility that you always forget to wish your loved ones on their birthdays. Why not create an application which automatically send wishes without your intervention. This is the power of a programming language, it makes your life easier and let you focus on things which are non-trivial and that needs your attention.

I hope I have motivated you enough to learn a programming language? If not, then leave a comment below to let me know if you need more examples. I would try my best to provide some more real-life examples 😁

Or if you have suggestions related to the quality of the articles, do share your valuable feedback through comment and I will try to resolve those as early as possible.