Language
People write algorithms, but some other agent will execute them … so they must be expressed in some language
English and other natural languages are poor choices
- Ambiguous -- multiple interpretations of an utterance
“Her lasagna is not very hot”
- Imprecise -- exact meanings have not been assigned to all words and sentences: all deliberate speed
- Recipes try: stir is not a synonym for fold or beat
Programming languages are formal notations specifically designed for specifying algorithms
Visual Basic is the language we’ll use