Chapter 2. Building Blocks – Variables, Collections, and Flow Control

One of the coolest things about programming is the way its concepts build on each other. If you've never programmed anything before, even the most basic app can seem very complex. The reality is that if you analyze everything going on in an app down to the ones and zeroes flowing through the processor, it is incredibly complex. However, every aspect of using a computer is an abstraction. When you use an app, the complexity of the programming is abstracted away for you. Learning to program is just a way of going one level deeper to make a computer work for you.

As you learn the basic concepts behind programming, they will become your second nature and this will free your mind to comprehend even more complex concepts. Just as when you first learn to read, sounding out each word is challenging. However, at some point, you reach a level where you glance at a word and you know the meaning instantaneously...