Writing pseudocode

It's really easy for people to get stuck.…They want to write a program and they start off looking at a blank text file and…they're thinking so much about syntax and case sensitivity and curly braces and…all the thousand other things to remember,…that it is very easy to now, actually know, how do I start typing?…Well, step one is don't.…Step one is instead get away from the computer, grab a piece of paper or find a…whiteboard and start writing what's called pseudocode instead.…Now pseudocode is not a language.…

It's the term for writing your computer instructions in plain English to the…point where it's readable by anyone who understands the problem, whether they…come program or not.…Let me show you a few examples.…On a whiteboard or paper I might just write something like this. Ask user for email address.…If email address matches accepted pattern, add them to email list, else…show error message.…Something like this.…Pseudocode doesn't have formal rules, but this would be quite common to see.…

Now where I'd said, ask user for email address, I could've said get email…