Purpose of Programming
Purpose of programming is to make human life better and easier.
It does so because the computer programs can perform a set of tasks once we define them clearly.
Hence we can use a computer to solve our day to day problems by providing it clear instructions rather than solving it by ourself.
This saves a lot of human time and energy so that we can concentrate on other challenging tasks that cannot be automated.
Donald Knuth points out this concept in Knuth:Computer Programming as an Art , among other things, as, "knowledge which we understand so well that we can teach it to a computer; and if we don't fully understand something, it is an art to deal with it."
Everyone should learn how to program regardless of what profession we are doing. With this programming knowledge, we can optimize our task easily and efficiently.
Example
To run a supermarket business, rather than calculating bill manually every time, we can develop a program for billing.
It would operate very fast so that customers need not wait in queue for a long time. We can also handle many customers easily. It increases the productivity.
It would calculate bills with 100% accuracy rate, and we can even make the program generate automatic monthly reports, selling pattern, etc. for improving our business.
The above was an example of business programming. Let us see some day to day examples as well.
Dictionary Program
Instead of carrying a dictionary manually, we use a dictionary program which stores all the words with their meanings so that we can know any word’s meaning from our computer or mobile very easily.
Calculator
Similarly, we use calculators in our mobiles/computers which are programmed to solve complex calculations in no time.
Search Engine
Search engines are another good examples. Google provides us search engine which acts as a face of the internet for us. Internally they read all the websites in the world and tag them so that we get desired information when we search for them from anywhere in the world.
Chat Application
Chat applications use computer networks to send and receive messages via mobile/internet and help us stay in touch with the people anywhere in the world.