Degree Specialization inCOMPUTER PROGRAMMING

Colorado State University-Global Campus.

Things you should know about computer programming. The top 10 states by programming jobs are (number of programming jobs per 100,000 people): Virginia (185.33), Maryland (177.07), Washington 9149.53), Massachusetts (143.78), California (110.22), Colorado (96.42), Delaware (84.26), New York (79.84), Oregon (75.57), and Connecticut (69.55). Here are several famous programmers and their world-changing innovations. Marissa Mayer: developer at Google for 10+ years and became CEO of Yahoo at 37. Mark Zuckerberg: co-founder and CEO of Facebook; one of the world’s youngest billionaires. Mary Lou Jepsen: co-founder of One Laptop Per Child, a non-profit providing children with simple, inexpensive computers. Grace Hooper: helped invent some early programming languages, including COBOL. Steve Wozniak; one of the founders of Apple and inventor of Apple II. Barbara Liskov; one of the first women to each a computer science Ph.D.; laid the foundation for object-oriented programming. Kimberly Bryant: founded Black Girls Code in 2011 to teach young girls of color to code and program. Sergey Brin: created Google, the world’s most popular search engine, with Larry Page. Lori Perine: deputy to the associate director of the White House Office of Science and Tech Policy until 2001. The 2014 median pay for programmers was $77,550 per year and $37.82 per hour (source: O*Net online). Here are some famous programming firsts. First programmable device: The Jacquard Loom, created in 1801, allowed users to insert punch cards to give the machine instructions on how to weave. It was the first programmable device in the modern sense of the term. First programmer: Around 1842 Ada Lovelace wrote the first computer program in the form of a loose algorithm she wrote in her notes, and she often cited as the first programmer as a result. She also posited that computers would one day be able to play chess and music. First programming language: The first programming language was Plankalkul, developed sometime between 1943 and 1945, but it wasn’t actually placed into use until 1998. In the intervening years, many other programming languages came and went. First bug: The first computer bug was a literal bug… which is where we get the term. In 1947, a moth got trapped in the Mark II Alken Relay Calculator, causing a malfunction. The team removed it, and performed the world’s first “debugging.” First Game: The first computer game was Spacewar! in 1961, which saw two spaceships, controlled by opposing players, firing missiles at each other. It took programmer Steve Russell 200 hours to code, and he never profited from his achievement. First graphical OS: Researchers at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center created a bit-mapped interface that made use of a mouse, allowing for the first time the easy navigation and location of files and folders without the need for the complex text commands. First virus: The first computer virus was Brain, released in 1986, which targeted MS-DOS. Its intention was to replace the boot sector of a floppy disk with a copy of the virus, and would announce itself with a message that began, “Welcome to the Dungeon.” It was a benign virus and actually displayed the contact information for its creators, but it paved the way for malicious viruses to come. Programmers use the following six barriers to identify and address problems in the software development cycle. Design: “I do not know what the computer should do.” Selection: “I know what to do, but do not know what to use.” Coordination: “I know what to use, but do not know how to combine what I need.” Usage: “I know what to use, but do not know how to combine what I need.” Understanding: “I thought I knew how to use X, but it does not do what I expected.” Information: I understand what happened, but I cannot check.” Knowledge for programming includes: computers and electronics, English language, and mathematics. Skills for programming include: programming, time management, and quality control. Abilities for programming include: interacting with computers, thinking creatively, and analyzing data.