Activities

For now, you can start thinking more deeply about how the programs you have used are likely to be working, and about the kinds of things you may be interested in building in the future.

• Pick a program that you are familiar with, and describe the digital reality that is presented within that software. What things do you imagine exist within that software?
• What would you like to build? Describe a program that you would like to create, and then think about the things you imagine might exist within it.

In your group, discuss the following:

• Share your thoughts on the things (abstractions) that you thought may exist within some of the programs you engage with daily.
• Discuss the projects you hope to work on.
• What strategies will you employ to help you engage with the abstract elements that exist within programming?

Wrap Up

This book is about learning to program, which is really learning to create digital realities that exist and operate within a computer. Computers are complicated machines, but we can rise above that due to abstraction.

Before we continue this journey, we need to take a brief tour of the tools and skills you will need to use your computer like a computing professional.