Contains the full lesson along with a supporting toolkit, including teachers’ notes.
Codes are designed the way they are so that human beings can learn to write them. However, a computer cannot understand them so they have to be translated into machine language i.e. a language that computers can understand. This is done in several steps:
1. The code a person writes, like the C++ code shown above, is called the source code. This is known as high level language as it contains words and instructions close to human language. This source code is then processed by a compiler or interpreter into assembly code.
2. This assembly code is known as low level language as it is close to what a computer can understand. It breaks the source code instructions in many simpler ones.
3. The computer’s assembler then converts the assembly code into machine code. The computer can understand this language which it executes as binary i.e. 1’s and 0’s.
This may seem like a complicated process but as computers can only understand instructions given in 1s and 0s (binary).
Using high level languages saves programmers a lot of time. They can write the instructions and understand what is written. Otherwise they would have to type billions of 1’s and 0’s just to run a simple app.
Science and Technology in Action (STA) is proudly supported and partnered by some of Ireland’s leading organisations and is produced in close cooperation with the support services of the Department of Education and Skills and the Irish Science Teachers Association (ISTA).
