How do you get a computer to do what you want? The easiest way to tell the computer what you want it to do is to communicate with it through a programming language. The user types in phrases from a programming language into the computer, then a compiler or translator (a program that understands both the programming language and the computer's language) translates this code into something that the computer can understand and then execute. Programming languages essentially simplify the set of instructions that the programmer has to work with. Lisp is an example of a programming language. Others include C++, Basic, and Java.

How do you get a computer to do what you want? The easiest way to tell the computer what you want it to do is to communicate with it through a programming language. The user types in phrases from a programming language into the computer, then a compiler or translator (a program that understands both the programming language and the computer's language) translates this code into something that the computer can understand and then execute. Programming languages essentially simplify the set of instructions that the programmer has to work with. Lisp is an example of a programming language. Others include C++, Basic, and Java.