What is programming?

Before I talk (more) about programming and what I do for fun and profit, the question should be asked:

What is computer programming?

Back "in the day", I wrote in Assembly for speed and compactness, and in C for complexity. I, and the people I knew, looked down on people who though that putting numbers in a spreadsheet (in Lotus 1-2-3) were "programming".

But, if you look at computers today and what is being done with them, the real answer becomes "whatever is written that controls the operation of a computer". So, writing in C, or Assembly, or Java, or Cobol, or even writing a web page is programming, but posting on your blog (or Slashdot or Digg or ... is not.

But, this also leads into the next question "What is a computer?", which is the subject of my next post on Wednesday.