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The What and Why of Pseudocode

Learn what pseudocode is and how it can help you become a better programmer by planning ahead and thinking about the logic of your program before writing any code.

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[MUSIC] 0:00

Hi, I'm Reggie Williams. 0:09

I hope you've enjoyed your learning so far and are prepared to continue your journey. 0:10

In this workshop, I'll teach you how to write something called pseudocode. 0:14

Pseudocode will help you plan your projects ahead, communicate your ideas to 0:17

teammates, and help you identify logical errors before you write any code. 0:20

Programs contain both logic and syntax. 0:25

Logic is the order in which the program runs, the decisions made within 0:28

the program, and how you structure the different parts of the program. 0:31

Syntax is the actual programming language, the very specific set of words and 0:35

symbols you write to make the program work. 0:39

Each language has its own specific syntax. 0:42

So to create a variable in JavaScript, you write something like this. 0:45

But in C#, it would look like this. 0:48

Both lines of code do the same thing, 0:50

store the value zero into a variable named score. 0:52

The syntax is different, but the logic is the same in both cases. 0:55

Thinking through the logic of a program is often the biggest challenge in 0:59

creating a program. 1:02

And fortunately, using pseudocode, 1:03

you can easily lay out your program's logic before coding. 1:05

Pseudocode is a notation that resembles plain speech to describe the logic of 1:09

your program. 1:12

Here's an example of pseudocode that describes a college admissions program. 1:13

You can see it reads very much like English, no programming syntax required. 1:17

For example, some lines start with verbs like set, input, and output. 1:21

These might be the actions or functions in the program. 1:25

Questions that may lead to different paths or 1:29

conditions begin with words like else or if. 1:32

Keep in mind that pseudocode is meant for humans, not computers. 1:35

It's not real code and won't run on a computer. 1:39

But it does help you describe how the program will run. 1:41

Pseudocode can also be used as comments to document your code. 1:44

One of my favorite practices is writing pseudocode in the text editor as comments 1:48

and then writing my code directly under each line. 1:51

In the next video, I'll teach you some of the basics of writing pseudocode. 1:55

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