Programming Technolgy

Programming Technology 

Exploring the Scratch program was pretty cool to dive into; it was like piecing together a digital puzzle. You drag the colorful blocks, snap them together, and watch your ideas come to life. It is a mix of creativity, logic, solving problems, and a bit of trial and error. I really am struggling with the program; things like understanding the logic and just getting familiar with the logic behind programming can be challenging. Figuring out how to sequence the blocks and make things happen in the right order is going to take practice. Secondly, debugging errors, I understand it is normal to run into errors while coding, and finding and fixing those errors can be a bit tricky. Planning and organizing were third; I didn't know where to begin with so many new tools and words. Including advanced concepts like variables, conditionals, and loops. To overcome these difficulties, all I can really do is keep trying with the program until I get a good grasp of everything. Something I really found helpful was the tutorials provided by the application, which gave me an idea of how the block pieces and tools work together.

From trying out “Scratch,” I have picked up some key insights about programming. 1.) Visual Learning, 2.) Problem-solving, 3.) Creativity, 4.) Attention to detail 5.) Persistence 6.) Collaboration. Scratch’s block-based coding shows how different commands fit together, making it easier to understand programming structures visually. Even the smallest error can affect the program, so it teaches you to be detail-oriented and to review work carefully; debugging teaches persistence as I might need multiple attempts to get the code to work as intended. The comparison of the two activities was different for me; I liked Scratch more because it focuses on simplicity and creativity without worrying too much about complex syntax. From my understanding, machine language is the lowest level of programming; it requires deep knowledge of computer architecture and is extremely tedious and error-prone to work with directly. This is used when you need the utmost performance, like in embedded systems when programming firmware for devices. It is all about speed and being as close to the hardware as possible. Assembly language is a step up from machine language: “Assembly language is a textual human-understandable representation of a machine language's 0's and 1's, as in Add M[5] M[6] M[7]” (ZyBooks, CH.2.9).  Ideal for situations where you need fine-grained control over hardware or when optimizing critical sections of coding. High-level languages like (like Python) are the go-to for general-purpose programming.

I feel like Python would be found the easiest to use in the reading activity. I also think Python is the most popular programming language currently. “Python is a high-level programming language, increasing in popularity due in part to its ease of learning, its freedom of availability, and its powerful high-level data-processing operations” (ZyBooks, Ch. 2.11). Meaning Python has gained immense popularity due to its simplicity, readability, and versatility. It has a large and active community of developers contributing to its extensive library of modules and frameworks. Python is widely used in various domains, such as web development, data analysis, machine learning, and scientific computing. It has user-friendly syntax and a vast ecosystem, which makes it an excellent choice for beginners.