Kids Can Program Too!

Sample from PART ONE:
Where Do Hardware and Software Live?
Where Do Hardware and Software Live?
In order to understand what programming is all about, you have to understand the environment in which it is used. First, let us take a "virtual tour" of the inside of a computer, visiting the hardware components. Then, the software will be thrown in to show what it is supposed to do with the hardware.

What you will learn in this section:
  • What is the difference between hardware and software
  • What are the main parts of the computer's hardware
  • How does the software make the hardware work

You may have heard a technician, trying to fix a "misbehaving" computer, mumbling, "This is a software problem, not a hardware problem." What does it mean? Which "part" of the computer was the technician referring to?

In that particular case, he was "blaming" an invisible part of the computer - its software. But his mention of the visible part - the hardware - is significant too. Just as you learned in school that a person has both physical (skeleton, muscles) and mental (mind, behavior) parts, a computer has a hardware part and a software part. And just like a person, for a computer to function properly both parts must work together. The division of responsibilities between software and hardware is also somewhat similar to that between the physical and the mental - the hardware is where the software "lives", but it's the software that tells the hardware what to do.

Programming is the skill of creating software. But the software depends on the hardware for its existence, so you need to understand what the hardware is and how it relates to the software. To achieve that, let's take a look inside a computer and identify where exactly the software resides and how it accomplishes its tasks of controlling the hardware.

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