Welcome to the journey into programming. Let's dive right in!

Programming is the process of explaining to computers what you want them to do. And just like with human languages, there are various languages you can use with computers.

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Makes sense?

One of the most popular languages used for talking to computers is JavaScript.

Here is what a simple statement (think of it like an equivalent of a sentence in human language) in JavaScript looks like.

console.log("Hello, Space Traveler!");

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What do you think this does?

Computers do exactly what you tell them to do and they don't like it when you make mistakes in their language.

A programmer will say use correct syntax when they are trying to say you need to write the program in the right way. So syntax is almost the equivalent of grammar/spelling in human languages.

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With me so far?

You might have noticed that our JavaScript statement ended with a semicolon (;). In JavaScript, semicolons are like periods at the end of sentences - they tell the computer "this statement is complete."

While JavaScript can sometimes work without semicolons, it's a good habit to always include them. Think of semicolons as proper punctuation for your code!

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Can you spot the semicolon in our print statement?

Here is another very common but somewhat strange vocabulary for you to remember. Computer Programmers say you run your code to mean you've delivered your message to the computer and asked it to follow your commands.