Philip Wolny - Using Computer Science in the Food Industry

CHAPTER ONE

CODING AND THE FOOD INDUSTRY

S omeone unfamiliar with coding might think of it as a complicated and mysterious job. In fact, it is one of the most straightforward. At the very simplest level, code tells computers what to do. Code includes any technical language in which computer programs are written. It provides hardware and software with instructions on how to operate. When you first go online, for example, and see a log-in page for your email, it is dozens, hundreds, and sometimes thousands of written lines of code that make it possible. The same is true for anything that happens onscreen, or any task, however simple, that users perform on any computer, laptop, phone, and any other device you can imagine. Code is working behind the scenes whether something is connected to the internetor another networkor not.

Before someone learns how to program, seeing many lines of code on a screen can be somewhat intimidating. Learning how to code can be a very gradual but fascinating process.

Code is also used to create processes that work automatically, even without screens. For instance, consider the complex instructions that guide a small army of robots working in a food processing plant. On the other end of the spectrum, writing a short program that just splashes a big Happy Birthday! on someones screen is a simpler example.

Different coding languages are used for different purposes. Some are exclusively used for online applications. Others are more specifically designed for use only with smartphones, while still others are used for tasks that may or may not involve a human interacting with a screen at all.

WHAT IS CODE, REALLY?

Many years ago, the first modern computers worked differently from the ones used today. Just as with the development of the internet decades later, the first truly useful and advanced computers were developed by governments for military purposes. This included great advances made by World War IIera Americans and especially British researchers and code breakers (also known as cryptographers) working to translate secret messages sent by their enemies, especially those of Nazi Germany.

The basis for simple computing became known as binary programming. Binary code is essentially a series of 1s and 0s repeated over and over again, combining to create messages and instructions (for example, 10011010). Holes were punched into cards, which were then inserted into early computers. Other computers worked by turning on and off a variety of switches, by connecting and disconnecting different combinations of wires on circuit boards. Soon, words and phrases were incorporated into newer programming languages that powered ever more impressive computers.

LEAPS AND BOUNDS

In the 1980s, computer languages had grown more advancedas a result, so had computers themselves. Where once many lines of code were used to run a computer as big as a basement to do a very simple task, computers in the 1980s were now far more complex, smaller, and affordable to many more consumers. Technology from the 1980s and 1990s improved by leaps and bounds. Software used to run the computers themselvescalled operating systemsarrived, too, such as Microsofts Windows, and later, Apples operating system, macOS.