Mathematics is an important part of computers, because math is used to write computer codes and programs. The codes are the symbolic arrangement of data (or the instructions) in a computer program, a term often used interchangeably with “software.” The code (also called the source code, or just source) is any series of statements written in some programming language understandable to the user. This source code within a software program is usually contained in several text files.

The program is the sequence of instructions (or computations) that a computer can interpret and execute. In other words, most programs consist of a loadable set of instructions that will determine how the computer reacts to user input when the program is running. The connection between codes and programs is often heard by students studying computer science or working professionals—and even in action movies and television programs, as in, “I need to add more lines of code to the program!”