Source code

Computer program code is a text written in any of the programming languages. It is first of all meant to be written and edited by a human. Computer program code is also called source code or software source text.

Source code is transformed into executable processor instructions prior to being executed by a compiler or is directly executed by an interpreter of a programming language.

When writing computer program code, it's important that you stick to the following rules:

• the code must be readable and comprehensible;
• it must be easy to modify and debug;
• there must be as few compiler warnings as possible for this code.

It's first of all humans who need code formatting and accurate editing. The compiler can easily figure out a text like this:

int foo(int N)
{int i=0;for(int y=0;y<N;y++){i+=y*y;}return i;}

But you agree that a human will find it hard to understand what exactly the program does, don't you? And here is a code that does quite the same thing, while being edited in a proper way:

int Sum(int N)
{
  int sum = 0;
  for (int i = 0; i < N; i++)
  {
    sum += i * i;
  }
  return sum;
}

When a software product is being developed by several developers, it's a good practice to follow a single coding standard to make the code clear to others. It will significantly simplify computer program code development and maintenance.

References

• Wikipedia. Source code.

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