Program concepts

Now, as we start working upon our practical approach to automation, we need to understand the basics of what a program is and how to write one.

Simply explained, a program is a set of instructions that is passed to the system to perform a specific task. This set of instructions is based upon real-life challenges and tasks that need to be accomplished in an automated method. Small sets of programs can be combined to create an application that can be installed, deployed, and configured for individual or organizational requirements. Some of the key concepts and programming techniques that we will discuss from this point onward will be PowerShell and Python. These are the two most popular scripting languages that are used to create quick, effective, and result-oriented automation.

These are some of the key concepts that I would like to introduce while creating a program:

• Variables
• Data types
• Decision makers
• Loops
• Arrays
• Functions
• Best practices