Qualifications For Programming

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31215, 12 November 1966, Page 5

Qualifications For Programming

SCIENCE and industry are crying out for recruits for an elite corps of technicians without which scientific development would rumble to a halt within a matter of hours. For comunters can design cars, send men into space, and calculate a nation’s balance of payments—so long as someone tells them what to do and how to do it. In other words, a computer needs a boss.

Could you give a computer its orders? People with the special aptitude for computer

programming often have little formal academic training. More important is a gift for reducing complex problems to their basic components and finding a solution, and a flair for puzzles and games like chess and bridge. By 1970 it is estimated that the world will need at least 500,000 programmers—four times the present number—if scientific development is to continue at its present pace. A computer can add, subtract, multiply and divide. It can compare values, and as a result of what it finds out, “store” the information. It can manipulate a vast amount of data very quickly. For you to divide 10,564,096,111,088 by .000107 would take several minutes, but today’s computers could calculate the answer in a billionth of a second.

But the computer could not compute unless someone first told it what to do and how to do it.

And when the, problem involves, say, calculating the orbit of a lunar probe, the instructions which tell the computer what to do can be very involved. For a start, think of a simple thing you do every day, like brushing your teeth. Try to reckon all of the little motions involved in accomplishing this task. Get out the toothbrush. Get the toothpaste. Put the toothpaste on the brush. Put the cap on the

toothpaste tube. Wet the brush. Rub brush up and down on all teeth, front, right, left then the back. Rinse teeth. Rinse brush. Put away the toothbrush. Put away the paste.

Sub-actions

That’s a list of several major actions. But they all need “sub-actions,” such as raising your arm, bending your arm, closing your fingers, moving your wrist several ways to brush. List your actions as you brush your teeth tonight, and you will see how complicated it is to “programme” brushing your teeth. When we perform the task, we find it pretty easy, for the “computer”—that’s our brain—has been programmed to perform each of these actions when given the signal. We’ve been taught what logical sequence of actions to follow for the best results, and these instructions are locked in memory. For a programmer to place the instructions in a computer’s “memory” so that the machine can make the proper moves when told to do so, he must first define a situation in terms of what needs to be done.

This requires that he analyse the situation in terms of how the computer can be used in solving it. He must know the capabil-

ities of the computer, the procedures and operations which it is capable of performing and the type of results it can produce. When the procedure for solving the problem has been established, the programmer must then lay out the logical steps the computer is to take in reaching a solution.

Now these instructions must be coded so that the data will be in a form the computer can accept.

This is a fairly simple procedure, for most coding is but an abbreviation of the programmers’s own vocabulary. Certain programme languages even allow the computer itself to translate the instructions into the necessary codes, working from information already stored in its files.

Check Tests

Finally, after the programmer has prepared his machine instructions and has entered them into the computer, he must test his determinations to make sure his analysis is right, and that his programme produces accurate results.

If it does not work properly, he must make corrections. He must go back through his preliminary blueprint and coding precedures. Of all these Intricate actions, the most important are to analyse the problem accurately and then to chart a logical sequence of actions

leading to the right solution. A programmer’s qualifications vary from assignment to assignment. In general, academic background is less important than an aptitude for reducing complex problems to their component parts and perceiving the easiest solution.

Like A Jig-Saw

Programming a well-under-stood procedure, such as a pay roll for example, requires less training than programming for a moon shot. ' Programming is like doing an enormous space-age jigsaw puzzle—the parts must not only fit into place but in a precise sequence.

If you could fit these pieces together, then you may be one of tomorrow’s people who will give computers their marching orders.