Computer programming is one of the most in-demand skills one can acquire, and there are a lot of jobs whose primary requirement is programming.
If you really want to be a professional programmer who can easily be hired by many of the tech giants like Facebook, TikTok, Google, Apple, and so on then you need to familiarize yourself with the basic programming terms.
This article intends to familiarize you with the 16 complicated programming terms that you should know to make you stand out as a developer.
Also read: 25 VS Code Productivity Tips and Speed Hacks
What is Object Oriented Programming
Object-oriented programming (OOP) is a computer programming paradigm or model that is centered around objects rather than functions.
Unlike tools and frameworks that come and go, Object-oriented programming (OOP) has been around since the 70s and is very relevant today.
The reason is, OOP is not a programming language, tool, or framework, it’s a style of programming or programming paradigm.
There are several programming languages that support Object-oriented paradigms such as C#, C++, Java, Ruby, JavaScript, Python, and more.
It may surprise you that most of the well-known frameworks that you might be using are actually designed with Object-oriented programming concepts.
If you want to be a serious developer then you need to learn and understand Object-oriented programming.
In this category, we are going to learn and understand the four pillars of object-oriented programming.
What is Inheritance in OOP
Inheritance is a mechanism that allows one class to inherit the attributes and methods of another class. It’s similar to how a child inherits certain attributes from each of their parents.
The class that inherits the attributes and methods from the parent class is the child class.
Also, the class whose attributes and methods are inherited is known as the parent class.
Inheritance is a mechanism that allows a developer to create a new class that reuses the attributes and methods of their parent class.
What is Abstraction in OOP
Abstraction is an important concept in computer science that allows programmers to hide the implementation details or internal details of a function and only expose a simpler interface.
The main goal of abstraction is to hide complexity by filtering out all the unnecessary implementations of data and exposing a simpler interface for users to interact with.
Abstraction can be achieved with classes. A class has private, protected and public identifiers to limit the scope of its variables and methods.
One of the benefits of Abstraction is it reduces the impact of change meaning when we make changes to private properties or methods, none of those changes will leak to the outside.
What is Polymorphism in OOP
Poly means Many, and morphism means Form.
In object-oriented programming, Polymorphism is a technique that allows developers to eliminate long if and else or switch and case statements.
Polymorphism is one of the core pillars of object-oriented programming that gives a function, object, or variable the ability to take multiple forms.
What is Encapsulation in OOP
This principle states that all related variables and functions that operate on those variables should be kept in a well-defined class or object.
Encapsulation is actually achieved when the implementation and state of each object are kept in a class.
So the object manages its own state privately and other objects can’t have direct access to that state but can only call a list of methods the object makes available publicly.
A class is a blueprint from which objects can be created. A class allows developers to create an object that has both variables and methods.
In computer science, a class is an example of encapsulation since it comprises data and methods that are bonded together in a single unit.
What are Web Technologies | Networking
Web technologies refer to the various tools, libraries, frameworks, and techniques that are used in the process of communication between different types of devices on the internet.
Web technologies can be grouped into different sections namely:
- Web browser
- Web server
- World Wide Web (WWW)
- Web pages
- Web development
What is Server-Side Scripting | Backend
A script is a series of instructions that has to be executed on another program or application.
Server-side scripting refers to the programs and operations that are running on a server or remote machine.
All scripting languages are programming languages but not all programming languages are scripting languages.
Server-side scripting languages run on a web server and are used to dynamically generate web pages containing data from a database.
When a client sends a request to the server, the server responds by sending data via HTTP.
Examples of server-side scripting languages are Node.js, Python, PHP, Ruby, ASP.NET, Perl, and Java.
What is Client-Side Scripting | Frontend
Client-side scripts are executed by the browser. Client-side or Frontend developers use their programming skills to create the visual part of a web application.
Client-side developers are responsible for creating the visual part of the website that users can interact with.
In the past, building a website was an easy task since you only needed to create a static website with HTML and CSS and then include some lines of JavaScript to make it dynamic.
Now, frontend development is becoming challenging due to the rapid releases of frontend frameworks (React JS, Vue JS, AngularJS, and more) and libraries.
Common client-side languages are HTML(Hypertext Markup Language), CSS(Cascading Style Sheets), JavaScript, and VBScript.
What is a Web Development Framework
A Web Development Framework is a software framework designed to simplify the process of building web applications.
The goal of frameworks is to prevent developers from writing redundant code and automating the common activities involved in building web applications.
Some people might say you don’t need a JavaScript framework and whether you are a new developer or have 20 years of experience it can be difficult to choose which framework you want to use.
There is no absolute best frontend framework and the only way to find out is to build a project with all of them.
You can build the same application with 10 different JavaScript frameworks including Angular, React, Vue, Svelte, Lit, Stencil, Solid, Alpine, Mithril, and Vanilla JS.
In the process, you will learn the downside of each of these frameworks so you can make the best choice for your next project.
What is CPU | Task Scheduling?
Alternatively referred to as a processor, central processor, or central processing unit, A CPU is the brain of a computing device.
A CPU handles and executes all the instructions it receives from the software and hardware of the computing device.
The CPU comprises of two primary components:
- ALU (Arithmetic Logic Unit) – performs mathematical and logical operations.
- CU (Control Unit) – controls all the porcessors operations.
What is a Process in the CPU
A process or running process is an instance of a program running on your computer.
Another way to define this is, a process is a set or list of instructions that the computer CPU has to execute.
Whenever you open a program, an instance of that program is created and that instance is called a process which is a series of instructions the processor must execute.
On a Windows machine, you can see all the running processes by opening the Processes tab in the Task Manager.
The process memory is divided into four sections:
- Stack
- Heap
- Text Section
- Data Section
What is a Thread in the CPU
CPU (Central Processing Unit) threads are the virtual components that divide the physical core of a CPU into virtual multiple cores.
Multithreading is a mechanism that allows a CPU to execute many tasks of one process at the same time.
The more threads in a CPU, the higher the performance and the more ability it has to run many processes at once.
The number of threads a CPU has depends on the number of cores in the CPU.
Each CPU can have two threads, thus a CPU with 3 cores will have 6 threads; a CPU with 8 cores will have 16 threads; a CPU with 16 cores will have 32 threads.
What is a thread? A thread is a series of instructions that the CPU must execute.
What is Hyper-threading? Hyper-threading is a technology that allows a CPU to divide its physical cores into virtual cores that are treated as if they are actually physical cores by the operating system, speeding up the execution of a particular application.
Concurrecy
Concurrency is the ability of a processor to execute multiple tasks in an overlapping time period.
When I say overlapping time periods doesn’t mean the tasks execute at the same time, one of the tasks can begin immediately after the preceding one has been completed.
What this means is that the processor is able to switch between the various threads and work on different threads at the same time.
Instead of the processor saying let me complete all the instructions in a particular thread, it can say let me do a little bit of work in thread one then move to thread two to do a little bit of work and come back to thread one.
This mechanism continues until there is no task to be executed in a particular thread.
Parallelism
Parallelism is the ability to execute independent tasks of a program at the exact same time.
An application can divide tasks into smaller subtasks which can be processed in multiple cores at the same time.
This is possible when multiple CPU cores work on threads at the same time. The number of CPU cores you have in your computer determines the number of operations you can do at the same time in parallel.
Aynchronous Programming
Asynchronous programming is a means of parallel programming in which a unit of work runs separately from the main application thread. When the work is complete it notifies the calling thread of its completion, failure, or progress.
In asynchronous programming, we have something known as an event loop.
The event loop is continuously running, it’s capable of knowing when a task has finished; when a task has started; the progress of a task, and scheduling and handling tasks according to that.
Numbering Systems
A numbering system is a way of representing or expressing numbers using a particular set of symbols.
In computer science, there are different types of numbering systems such as:
- The binary number system
- The decimal number system
- The hexadecimal number system
- The octal number system and
Let’s discuss some of them in details
Binary number system
The actual word Binary means the choice between two things. For example, Yes or No is a binary decision if you are answering Yes or No.
In the context of computers, binary refers to a base-2 numbering system used at the hardware level of computers to perform computations.
A base-2 means there are only two digits: a zero (0) and a one (1) which relates to the ON and OFF states of a computing device.
The 0s and 1s in binary represent ON and OFF.
Bit
A bit is a binary digit and can only hold one of two values: 0 or 1.
At the hardware level of computers, we have a bunch of transistors that are either carrying electrical signals or not.
In the context of transistors “0” represents OFF which means no flow of electricity and “1” represents ON which means electricity is allowed to flow.
At the actual computation level, down on the CPU level of a computer, we have a bunch of logic gates.
Logic gates at a super fundamental level take electrical signals and based on the value of those electrical signals (ON or OFF) output another electrical signal.
For example, in an AND Gate you have two electrical signals both having an ON value and the output is ON or 1.
Byte
A byte is a unit of computer storage equal to eight bits, or a series of eight 0s and 1s.
You can think of a byte as one letter. For example, the letter “B” is a byte or eight bits and the word “Blue” is four bytes or 32 bits.
Hexadecimal
Hexadecimal is a base-16 number system in computing used to simplify how binary is represented.
A hex number comprises one of 16 options: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F
When you have a base-16 numbering system, the highest number you have is 15 and the lowest is 0.
Conclusion
So there you have it. As a programmer or developer, it’s important to know the common programming terminologies.
Without knowing the common programming terms, you will only hear gibberish when you are speaking with a professional programmer.
When you ask them to explain the explanation will also sound gibberish.
In this article, we explained some of the most commonly used programming terms in different categories like Object-oriented programming, CPU (Central Processing Unit), Numbering system, and Web technologies.
