A computer is a device that can be instructed to carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations automatically

A device that computes

the process of scheduling something

answering the question: what's the programme?

the process of scheduling computations on the computer

Computer programming is the process of designing and building an executable computer program for accomplishing a specific computing task.

It's a distinct chunk of instructions you provide to the computer that it understands to achieve some desired outcome

A computer program is a collection of instructions that performs a specific task when executed by a computer.

Without your input in the form of computer programs, the computer is a dumb device that doesn't do anything

Computers are great servants - they will do anything you want them to do without complaining and they will do it correctly

We're not fluent in 0s and 1s, so we need to translate our thoughts into binary code

They understand the language of zeroes and ones

That is one bit of information - which doesn't seem like much but it can be combined with other bits to convey more information

As its core, a computer is an electronic device that understands whether when the circuit is open and an electric current is not flowing (0) or when the circuit is closed and the current is flowing (1)

It listens to 0s and 1s coming its way, uses its special circuits to extract information from those 0s and 1s into some operation(s) it needs to perform, and then outputs an electrical signal to its connected components to perform those actions (and repeat)!

We create Programming Languages so that we can write instructions in natural language that gets converted to 0s and 1s by interpreters

Higher information density and easier to read, share and problem solve

Just as with human languages, there are many different programming languages but they achieve the same purpose: help us communicate logical and arithmetic instructions with the computer

a process or set of rules to be followed in calculations or other problem-solving operations

It's a recipe to solve a problem - has to be scalable, precise and re-usable

Things weren't always so straight-forward

There's a long and very interesting history of computers and computing

Charles Babbage

Father of computers

Conceptualised the first, general purpose mechanical computer - The Analytical Engine in 1837

Ada Lovelace

First to recognise the full potential of a "computing machine"

One of the first computer programmers

John von Neumann

"The last representative of the great mathematicians"

Described a computer architecture in which the data and the program are both stored in the computer's memory in the same address space

Alan Turing

Father of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence

Formalisation of the concepts of algorithm and computation with the Turing machine, which can be considered a model of a general-purpose computer.

John Mauchly &
J. Presper Eckert 

Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer

Earliest electronic general-purpose computers

You have more computing power in your phone than NASA used to get to the moon

The Sky is the Limit

Most information is available on the internet for free if you're willing to put in the time and effort to learn

While the industry is losing its hard requirement for a college education, it certainly helps

Software engineering is the application of engineering to the development of software in a systematic method.

You should choose Software Engineering if you’re more interested in the hands-on approach, and if you want to learn the overall life cycle of how software is built and maintained.

Computer science is the study of processes that interact with data and that can be represented as data in the form of programs.

You should choose Computer Science if you like math, logic, or if you want to get into a specialized field in CS such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, security or graphics.