- Computer program - A computer program is a set of instructions that tell a computer exactly what to do. The instructions might tell the computer to add up a set of numbers, or compare two numbers and make a decision based on the result, or whatever. But a computer program is simply a set of instructions for the computer, like a recipe is a set of instructions for a cook or musical notes are a set of instructions for a musician. The computer follows your instructions exactly and in the process does something useful -- like balancing a checkbook or displaying a game on the screen or implementing a word processor.
- Programming language - In order for a computer to recognize the instructions you give it, those instructions need to be written in a language the computer understands -- a programming language. There are many computer programming languages -- Fortran, Cobol, Basic, Pascal, C, C++, Java, Perl -- just like there are many spoken languages. They all express approximately the same concepts in different ways.
- Compiler - A compiler translates a computer program written in a human-readable computer language (like Java) into a form that a computer can execute. You have probably seen EXE files on your computer. These EXE files are the output of compilers. They contain executables -- machine-readable programs translated from human-readable programs.
A Little Terminology
Keep in mind that I am assuming that you know nothing about programming. Here are several vocabulary terms that will make things understandable:
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