- Like anything new when you set out to program
you find yourself surrounded with strange and
potentially weird terms and fancied jargon.
In this movie I review those terms as well as present
an overview of the entire programming process.
While I'm certain that you're eager to get started with
writing code and you may have already viewed a later
movie in this course it's important to know a few
key terms and programming concepts.
Programming is where you create software, software
controls hardware, which is the physical part of
an electronic device such as a computer, phone,
tablet, gaming console, microcontroller or some other gizmo.
Those instructions take the form of a programming language.
For this course that language is the C programming
language which was developed back in the early 1970s.
That's pretty old and in fact over time the C
programming language has been considered
the Latin of programming languages.
Unlike Latin, C isn't dead, lots of C programming
still goes on despite newer and fancier programming
languages coming along but like Latin, C is the foundation
upon which many other programming languages are built.
If you know C you can more easily
learn those other languages.
In a later movie I'll talk about the programming
language's syntax and other rules.
But for now know that the code you write is called source
code, it's a plain text file that contains the programming
language, all formatted and pretty and written properly.
The file is saved with a .c filename extension.
To create source code you use a text editor, any text editor
can do although some editors offer helpful features like
color coding, line numbers, syntax checking and other tools.
The source code is then compiled into object code.
The program that creates the
object code is called a compiler.
The traditional name of the C language compiler is CC,
which stands for C compiler.
The compiler reads the source code file
and generates an object code file.
Object code files have a .o filename extension and
they use the same filename as the original source code file.
The next step is called linking.
It's often forgotten because modern compilers both
compile and link, but linking is really a separate step.
The linker takes the object code file and
combines it with C language libraries.
The libraries are the work horse of the language.
They contain routines, functions that control
whatever device you're programming.
If all goes well, the end result is a program file.
You can then test run the program to make sure
that it works the way you want it to.
And if not you start the cycle all over again.
Edit, compile and link, test run.
All of these tools, the editor, compiler and linker
originated at the command prompt or terminal.
You can still find them there too, I do a lot of
coding at the command prompt because it's quick.
More common, however, is to use an IDE or
Integrated Development Environment.
An IDE combines the tools for editing,
compiling, linking and running.
It also adds tools for debugging, creating complex
programs, graphical tools and other features.
Beneath it all, however, is the humble command
line compiler and linker and the process is the same.
Edit, compile and link, run.
Although in practice you're going to do a lot of
repeating and re-working before you get things just right.