Programmability
Wendy Hui Kyong Chun · The MIT Press eBooks · 2008
This chapter briefly discusses the different conceptions of program and programmability in the digital computer field; the discussion continues with two different grammatical definitions of the term “program,” verb and noun. It also focuses on ENIAC, the first working electronic digital computer. The chapter describes the requirements and the process of programming the analog and digital computer machines along with the works and arguments of various computer scientists. It furthermore states that programming an analog computer is descriptive while programming a digital one is prescriptive. The conclusion explains how the programmability concept affected the world of computers, from quantum computers to biology computing fields like DNA and RNA computing.