Programming code tells the computer to do something, but what makes the code actually mean anything to the computer?

Question

Programming code tells the computer to do something, but what makes the code actually mean anything to the computer?

In: Engineering

Answer 1

The actual answer is [arithmetic logic unit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arithmetic_logic_unit) (ALU). That’s the thing that follows the instructions, making them meaningful.

It’s a circuit that maps code numbers (instructions) to simple operations like sum, subtract, compare, store on memory, load from memory. With a sequence of enough of these simple operations, the computer can do all the other complex operations it does.

Edit: you can actually make a computer with very few instructions (like [one](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_instruction_set_computer)), but that’s hard to program in general. Modern computers have many instructions that make it easier on the programmers. And then you can also make programming languages on top of that with commands that translate to multiple instructions.