Computer Programming

Essay by PaperNerd ContributorUniversity, Bachelor's December 2001

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As baby-boomers begin to retire and the younger generation of citizens are required to fill up the job market, jobs must adapt to suit the interests of more a youthful workforce. Already, most new jobs now require some degree of computer literacy, as software like word-processing, email, web-browsing and business applications becomes a staple in our lives. It has become a large economical force creating this software in recent years, and the youth, who have embraced this new technology, are fully open to these positions. Computer programmers are so in demand, that there are not enough qualified workers to fill the open positions. They have certainly become a dominant force in industry.

Computer programmers write, test, and maintain the detailed instructions, called programs or software that computers must follow to perform their functions. This generally involves the typing of different commands and sequences in particular computer languages. Computer languages can have long and complex commands and operations, or be very basic.

A basic language, Turing, which I learned in Computer Science class this year, is not hard to master with practice. A simple program which displays "Hello"� on the screen has the command of in Turing. Java, Visual Basic and C++ are other more difficult computer languages used in today's modern software.

Programmers often are grouped into two broad types: applications programmers and systems programmers. Applications programmers usually focus on business, engineering, or science. They write software to handle a specific job, such as a program to track inventory, within an organization. They may also revise existing packaged software. Systems programmers, on the other hand, maintain and control computer systems software, such as operating systems, networked systems and database systems. The stereotype of computer programmers being "nerds"�, is in fact generally true. Although some work may be in correlation with...