What is Software?

Purpose of this blog

The purpose of this blog is to teach you as much as possible about software development without knowing anything from the beginning and end up being on your way to know as much as me. I find the way I were taught in school was not very efficient and there were a lot of things that you should know before going out into the work place, some of which are not taught in school. I hope to address these issues with this blog. But, this will absolutely not be a substitute for any university courses or programmes. My main focus will be on basic real world knowledge of software development.

What is Software?

In its most basic form, software is a collection of instructions that tells the CPU (Central Processing Unit) what to do. Each instruction is represented by certain length of bits. A bit is a value that can only be 0 or 1. The number of bits required for each instruction depends on the kind of CPU you are using; a typical desktop CPU can run 32 bit and 64 bit instructions. More simply put, every instruction is a numerical value that each correspond to a certain logical operation which the CPU can run; like adding two numbers together or compare one number to another. The main purpose of software is to automate logical operations that we otherwise would have to do manually. It's used everywhere - door openers, phones, cars, air planes... the list is long.

What does it mean to write code?

Back in the day people used to write code in a language called assembler, which is a direct translation of machine code (as in instructions) into more human readable names. When you have enough of instructions, you have a program. Even though a few people still use assembler, it's not common.

What languages do people use today?

There is a lot of different languages, such as:

Java

C#

JavaScript

Python

C++

SQL

etc...

All of these have different uses, benefits and shortcomings. The truth is that if you want to become a valuable developer you need to learn several languages and be able to learn new ones as demand requires it. Luckily most languages are very similar in basic syntax. Though, you do not need to worry about that just now. The reason we have any other language than assembler is to make it more efficient to write programs. Simplifying things is very important in every profession. It's what allows us to make profits and that's what makes it possible to enjoy all the good things from life. Without profits we'd still be living in caves!

What tools do I need to start coding?

Typically you write your code in an IDE (Integrated Development Environment), which basically is a program that helps you with a lot of things involved in developing software. The most important part is the compiler which basically translates your high level language (such as C#, Java...) into machine code that you then can execute (run). It also helps you to arrange the different files that makes up your project. The IDE will also help you in real time with syntax errors, sometimes you forget minor details required for your code to compile. These error messages can be cryptic to understand for a beginner, but you will learn to understand them with experience.

What is the next blog post going to be about?

We will start coding using C# .NET and Visual Studio Community 2015.

/*

    Strength comes from within.

*/

Your First Program

In this tutorial you will be using the programming language C# (pronounced C sharp), the .NET (pronounced dot net) framework and an IDE called Visual Studio Community 2015 which is free. Simply google for it, download and install it. I have chosen the dark color theme because it is easier for the eyes and I have changed a few other colors.

Once installed and launched we will begin by creating a new solution, which is merely a container for one or more projects.

Step 0 - Select File -> New -> Project...

Step 1 - Select Templates -> Visual C# -> Windows -> 'Console Application' and name the solution 'HelloWorldApplication'.

As you can see below on the left side you should now have a solution called 'HelloWorldApplication' which contains a project also called 'HelloWorldApplication'. A solution and project is simply two different levels of abstractions. On the right side you can see a auto generated snippet of code which I will explain step by step.



At the top (row 1 to 5) you can see a few statements starting with 'using', these indicate that this file has access to certain functionality. A statement is the same as an action that the compilation will translate into machine code.

Then at row 7 you can see 'namespace HelloWorldApplication' which is a logical container for the 'class Program' declared at row 9 to 14. In C# curly brackets (or braces) '{}' are to indicate the limitation of a certain container. The character '{' is referred to as the opening bracket and '}' the closing bracket; there is must always be the same number of opening and closing brackets or the program will not compile. The reason you have namespaces is so that if someone creates a class of the same name there will not be a conflict between them.

To explain the class declaration... In the real world, you'll often find many individual objects all of the same kind. A bicycle company creates thousands of bikes each identical to each other, but still unique. Each bicycle was built from the same blueprint and therefore contains the same components. In object-oriented terms, we say that a bicycle is an instance object (or instance for short) of the class Bicycle. A class is the blueprint from which individual objects are created.

In our case, it is a very simple class called Program which contains a simple method called 'Main'. This method is also static which means that it can be called for without creating an object of the class it belongs to. The 'void' term is an indication of the return type, which means that when the method has finished executing its statements it is will not return any value. The '(string[] args)' part indicates the input parameter to this method; the parameter is called 'args' and 'string[]' is the type this parameter has. Each program must have a method of this kind 'static void Main(string[] args)', this is where the program starts to execute. A 'string' is just plain text and the '[]' square brackets indicate that it is an array of strings, which makes string[] a 'list' of 'texts'. This args variable could for example be used to initiate an application with different settings.

By tradition we will add one simple line of code like below, which makes this a "Hello World" application.



The semicolon at the end is required because it marks the end of that statement. You could put several statements at the same row if you really wanted to as long as you end each one with a semicolon, but it would make it more difficult to read. As we will see in future blog posts there are multiple ways of writing the same code.

If this is your first time programming I would imagine you might feel a bit overwhelmed with all the details, do not worry about not understanding everything completely, it will become clear as you continue. Also, there is no shame in trying out the same things multiple times.

When you run the program using this button , you will probably see a fast flash of a console application running and then disappearing. This is because the program starts running, prints "Hello World!" in the console (cmd.exe) and finishes, which means the console application closes. It is all it does and nothing more, there is nothing that would keep the program running.

To actually see the text in the console, one way is to use a 'break point' which is important feature of the 'debugger'. You can see a break point to the left below. You add one simply by left clicking in that area.



Now, simply run the program again. The program should pause running at the break point.



You should have a console application running on your task bar like so:


You can now 'Continue' or 'Stop' the application. 
'Continue' makes the program continue running as if you never paused it with the break point while 'Stop' makes it quit execution immediately.

Congratulations! You have just created your first program!

What is the next blog post going to be about?

Object Oriented Programming (OOP)

/*
  Good ideas don't require force.
*/