The concept of looking for more information, however, needs
further unpacking. Programming languages have a lot of the same
characteristics as human languages. If we want to tell someone to do
something, we need to communicate a couple of things:
- who is going to do it (a subject like "Jack")
- what is going to be done (a verb like "threw")
In addition, sometimes we need to communicate two more pieces of
information:
- to what they are going to do something (a direct object like "ball")
- who will receive the effect of that action (an indirect object like "Jane")
When we put these items together, we get a sentence. Consider the
following:
Jack threw the ball to Jane.
We know that the person doing the task is the subject, Jack. What is
being done is 'threw'. What is being thrown (or acted upon) is
'ball'. And the one receiving the effect, or output, of the action is
'Jane'. Computer languages are no different.
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