Fundamentals of Syntax

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Let’s talk about the fundamentals of syntax. Language has structure and set of rules. We call this syntax.

Your key takeaways are:

Our languages are
- comprised of a set of rules
- forgiving because we can reason and infer meaning
Computers
- are not smart
- cannot reason or infer
Software languages
- have a stringent set of rules
- rules are unique to that language
- each knows how to convert the code into machine code

Study Notes

Language has structure and a set of rules. We call this syntax.

What is syntax?

Per Merriam Webster: “the way in which words are put together to form phrases, clauses, or sentences”

Imagine a software program that has to interpret many different styles of communication?

Hello, my name is Tonya.
Hello, I’m Tonya.
Heya, Tonya’s my name.
Yo, T’s in the house.

Diverse Languages, Stringent Rules

While our natural language rules is very forgiving, software languages have rules that are not forgiving.

Remember: Computers only know what you tell them to do (they are not smart!):

They cannot reason
They cannot infer that although you said “Yo,” it means the same as “Hello”
They cannot determine what is the end of a command line unless you declare “hey this is the end of this command”
They need stringent rules in order to do their work

Each programming language can have its own set of rules, its own syntax. Why? Because that language then knows how to convert code into the 1s and 0s.

Language	Code
Python	print “Hello World”
Ruby	puts “Hello World”
C#	System.Console.Write(“Hello World”);
C	printf(“Hello World”);
Java	System.out.println(“Hello World”);
PHP	echo ‘Hello World’;
JavaScript	document.write(“Hello World”);
LISP	(PRINT (LIST ‘HELLO ‘WORLD)))
Pascal	writeIn(‘Hello World’);
VisualBasic	MessageBox(“Hello World”);

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Episode #4
18:34 Runtime

Syntax Basicsfree

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Before you do this episode, go watch the Fundamentals of Syntax. Seriously, do it now. This episode will help you to understand what it is and why we need syntax. Your natural language needs a set of rules in order for you and me to understand one another. We put sentences together based upon those rules. For example, if I said: “Tonya woman engineer” would you know what I was talking about or the context of what I meant? Not necessarily. Why? Because it’s not a complete sentence. It’s just words. We need to understand the basic rules of language […]

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Whoever says that coding is hard, just smack them.