What is a computer program?

A computer program is a set of instructions that a programmer writes to tell a
computer how to carry out a certain task. The instructions, however, must be in a
language that the computer understands. Computers only understand binary language
i.e. that composed of 1’s and 0’s. This is a low level language and very hard to
program in. So humans invented higher level languages such as C++ or Pascal to
make the job easier. As you will see, these languages are nearly like English but you
don’t have the freedom to write what you like – there are still rules you have to
follow.
To convert a program in C++ to a binary or executable file that the computer can
understand we use a compiler. The compiler which I recommend using for this guide
is Borland’s command line compiler.