Intro. to C & Programming

Source Code   plain text written by a programmer in a programming language which can be translated into machine language somehow.

Program   list of instructions in machine language

Compiler   a piece of software that reads source code and outputs (executable binaries) programs

Interpreter   a program that creates machine instructions on-the-fly while reading source code.
  For instance your web browser is an interpreter for HTML CSS and Javascript source code.

Syntax   structural rules of a programming language (e.g. 'punctuation')

Directives   instructions for the compiler that don’t get built into the final program

Variables   indicate places in memory to store binary data with a readable name. All variables are classified into data types to indicate how the binary is interpreted.

Operators   indicate logic, arithmetic, comparison or storage operations. Ex: = + - * / & |

Flow Control   conditional logic to make decisions based on true and false (boolean) logic. Flow control mainly exists as branches (either do this or that) or loops (repeat this).

Functions   useful sequences of instructions can be packaged into subroutines so they can be reused easily. This is named for similarity to functions as defined in mathematics.

Data Structures   Many individual pieces of data (variables) can be packaged into larger structures.