1.1. Why study programming

Programming is the process of writing instructions for a computer to follow. Every time we use a computer system, whether that be a phone, a desktop/laptop, a super-computer, or an embedded system like wireless car keys, we interact with software that has been written by programming. Programming is a core skill to learn in order to automate common tasks and is widely used (possibly behind-the-scenes) in everyday tasks.

In an engineering context, programming is widely used for modelling and simulation. That is, making an approximation of something on a computer so that we can try out different options, or see what happens in different situations, without having to actually build the physical thing (which typically takes more time and more money than just simulating it). Programming is also widely used for analyzing large datasets, which would be impractical to do by hand. This could range from just calculating the mean, to programming advanced machine learning analyses.

Programming is thus a very important skill to develop. This applies equally whether you go on to focus on software development, whether you focus on other aspects in engineering but need to analyze datasets coming from experiments, or whether you go on to focus on general office work where repetitive tasks could be automated. You’ll use programming skills in a wide number of courses at the University of Manchester.