Summary

Computer programming is composing/authoring of a process/procedure for doing something, in great detail.

    proc-ess / Noun:
    A series of actions or steps taken to achieve an end. 

    pro-ce-dure / Noun:
    A series of actions conducted in a certain order or manner.
   

Since computers do not understand English and it would be impossible for a human to write a large program as a series of binary numbers that the computer can understand, we need something in between.  High-level programming languages currently fit in this category.  Given a programming language that you have chosen, you then follow its rules for composing statements (or expressions) that get the computer to do what you want.
Because a computer is simply a very fast manipulator of bits (ones and zeros), through the the power of abstraction, computer scientists have layered levels of object representation and functionality, one on top of another.  We have now been working on refining and extending these layers for over half of a century.  Table 1.6 should give you a feel for where we stand with computer programming languages today.
In the next lesson you'll start to write programs in Logo!

Application-Specific Language(4GL) Examples: Mathematica, SQL

High-Level Language Examples: Logo, Python

Low-Level Language Example: C

Assembler Language Example: Intel X86

Machine Language Example: Intel X86

Table 1.6