In everything done on earth there are “principles” that guide their operation. A principle is a law, rule or guidelines that need to be followed, or can be desirably followed, or is an inevitable consequence of something, based on the observed nature or the way that a system is constructed. The principles of such a system are understood by its users as the essential characteristics of the system, or reflecting system's designed purpose, and the effective operation. The system will not work properly or will be impossible to operate if any one of the principles was to be ignored.
Programming have rules or principles that guide its operations irrespective of the programming language used in the system development. The rules are many and have changed over the years based on the development of programming languages and the improvements that have been carried out on the versions. Upgrade has been done due to the need for better efficiency of the language and the fact that newer computer machines which the program is expected to run on have improved. There are many considerations in modern computing such as security, higher computing complexity, multi-core processors, parallel and concurrent computing and other related areas which will be discussed briefly in this chapter.
A computer is made up of the following
i) Hardware : The components which makes the computer to work that can be touched physically; these include the system processor, the motherboard, the monitor, the mouse and power connectors.
ii) Software: The virtual component of the computer, coded by programmer(s), unseen by users but they allow the users to interact with the computer.
The software are further divided into two
a) System Software: These are the codes usually developed by computer manufacturers or other program experts that allow the computer to handle its internal operations required to make the computer to work and to also interact with users. System software include booting software, operating system, interpreters, compilers.
b)Application Software: These are code developed by programmers including students programmers that can perform any operations or aid user activities. Complex user activities such as typing, drawing, accounting and internet can only be programmed by experienced programmers. Students can program their class equations and other minor activities that may required a computer program in the place of their work or research. In figure 1.1 a computer programming interface is illustrated.
