Conceptual programming (Score 1)

Another old-timer viewpoint here. (I learned to program on a PDP 11/40 with VT-52 terminals. We were excited when we got VT-100s.) I had classes in programming that just went over what you mentioned, starting with syntax. But one of my classes was on computer systems analysis. We used a book by Shelly and Cashman. I think the book was Business Systems Analysis and Design but I am not certain of the title. That class taught me more about programming than the programming classes did. It focused on concepts. The first one being: "What do you want to get from this program? Why are you doing this? What are you trying to accomplish?" Then we looked at what our inputs needed to be to get the outcome we wanted. "Is all the necessary input available? Do we need to gather more data? Is there too much data and do we need to narrow our scope? Is the data in a form we can use or do we need to manipulate it?" After the output was determined and the inputs examined, then we could select the language and sometimes even the platform to write our program in. After each of us got a clear picture of output, input, and platform, we all used our individual preferences to plan our programs before starting to write them. I favored flowcharting, but we were free to use any planning method we wanted to, we just had to plan before we wrote. We were also reminded that there was no guarantee that we would be the person who would be maintaining this code in the future, so as we wrote our code, we had to keep it easy to read and put in copious comments. I hope this helps. It has helped me for many, many years.