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From: Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid>
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: high-school presentation, suggestions?
Date: Tue, 26 Mar 2024 23:00:18 -0000 (UTC)
Organization: A noiseless patient Spider
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On Thu, 21 Mar 2024 14:57:09 -0300, Johanne Fairchild wrote:

> What is the computer about?

The computer is the “universal machine”. On its own, it doesn’t do very 
much: you have to write programs to tell it what to do. Those programs can 
make it solve any problem for which you can write down the rules of the 
solution--particularly if the rules are so long and complex that no human 
being would have a hope of being able to carry them out manually.

So the computer is about automation of tasks. Nowadays, most people do 
things on computers through point-and-click (or point-and-tap) GUIs. Those 
are great for performing canned tasks, that have already been 
preprogrammed into the app. They are not so good for automating more 
complex sequences built out of those canned tasks. That’s where concepts 
like “scripting” and the “command line” come in.