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A '''program''' is the expression, in either [[assembly language]] or a higher-level [[programming language]], of the steps needed to accomplish a particular computational goal.

A program will include:

* [[expression]]s to perform arithmetical and/or logical computations
* direction to move data from one place to another
* [[control flow]] directives, including [[conditional branch]]es and [[subroutine]] calls

Programs will be converted from their original human-readable [[source code]] to [[object code]] (by tools such as [[assembly language|assembler]]s and [[compiler]]s), and loaded into the [[main memory]] of the computer, from where the [[Central Processing Unit|CPU]] will fetch the individual [[instruction]]s of the program, and execute them.

In the context of early [[computing device]]s, it must be emphasized that a program is a specified series of elementary steps, which are stored in some mechanism from which they are fed into the device, not simply the ability to make physical changes to the device to change what calculation it performs - even if those changes are instantiated in something that was added to the device for that exact purpose, like the [[plug-board]]s of the [[ENIAC]]. Such 'customizability' is better referred to as 'configurability', and ''not'' 'programmability'.

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[[Category: Basics‎]]