The Importance of Programming Languages

 

Tech Topic Connection: Final blog post

 

                When it comes to the fundamentals of information technology, programming languages are a monumental part of that. To be able to better understand this, we must know what information technology really is. According to (Castagna, 2021) “Information technology (IT) is the use of any computers, storage, networking and other physical devices, infrastructure and processes to create, process, store, secure and exchange all forms of electronic data.” It does not take a programmer to understand that computers rely on programming languages to operate. Now, we do know that the topic of programming languages can dive a lot deeper than just that. When you really think about it, you can consider programming languages as one of the most important fundamentals of information technology. Without programming languages, the world of IT as we know it would be much different.

Most of us have probably heard that computers operate off of 1’s and 0’s but what does that actually mean. “A machine language consists of the numeric codes for the operations that a particular computer can execute directly. The codes are strings of 0s and 1s, or binary digits (“bits”), which are frequently converted both from and to hexadecimal (base 16) for human viewing and modification. (Hemmendinger, 2019). The first computers that rolled out were are much different than what we have today. Thanks to the advancement of programming languages, we have seen massive advancements in information technology in every aspect, this includes everything from mobile applications, to security programs, to websites. As I have stated in a previous post, there are thousands of programming languages that exist today, each having specific uses. With all of these languages, the world of IT will only advance upwards.

Hardware is a major factor in programming languages and how they operate. Programming languages rely on hardware to be able to process, and then be understood by the computer. As we have seen in recent history, computer hardware is rapidly advancing, which in result is able to process these programming languages better and faster. Without the advancement of hardware, programming languages would not be able to advance as well, the 2 almost rely on each other.

Just as hardware is a major factor in programming languages, so is software. Unlike hardware, software is programs that are built within the computer such as the operating system itself or programs that we use such as excel, word, etc. Funny enough, programming languages are what make these programs available to us, but there are also software applications that allow us to utilize/and or learn these programming languages.  An example is Notepad++ which is a software application that acts as an open source code editor which allows you to write code inside of it.

When it comes to things such as database management, programming languages is one of the most important and biggest reasons we have been able to advance as far as we have. A programming language known as SQL. According to (FutureLearn, 2021) “SQL allows you to query the database in a variety of ways, using English-like statements. It’s used on websites for back-end data storage and data processing solutions (for example, Facebook uses SQL).” What this means is that we can take massive datasets that would otherwise be impossible to navigate, manage, and filter, and do that all within minutes. Without SQL database management would be likely impossible in some situations.
                Just as everything computer relates relies on programming language in some way, so does network architecture, management, and security. Cyber security is huge these days, as everything about are lives are practically stored online. Because of this, we need to ensure we are safe. According to (Security, 2023) “Understanding how programming languages for cybersecurity work can help security teams detect various threats to organizations. For instance, web application threats such as SQL injection or cross-site scripting attacks are deployed using languages like SQL and PHP.” With more and more people becoming computer literate and wanting to be a “coder” some of those people will want to use that skill for bad. In this scenario, we must fight fire with fire. What better way to stop computer breaches than with the same way the bad people are. Programming languages not only help fight computer security but they also can spot it well before it happens.

 

 

 

 

Castagna, R. (2021, August). What is Information Technology? Definition and Examples. SearchDataCenter. https://www.techtarget.com/searchdatacenter/definition/IT

Hemmendinger, D. (2019). computer programming language | Types & Examples. In Encyclopædia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/technology/computer-programming-language

FutureLearn. (2021, August 19). What is SQL used for? FutureLearn. https://www.futurelearn.com/info/blog/what-sql-used-for

Security, R. S. I. (2023, February 7). The Top Programming Languages For Cyber Security. RSI Security. https://blog.rsisecurity.com/the-top-programming-languages-for-cyber-security/