Coding and programming means writing instructions in a language with a specific syntax, so a machine can carry them out. The guide asks about the uses and forms of coding — not about learning to code.
A human decision becoming a machine action, and the question of who is allowed into the pipeline.
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The uses that matter in this course
- Building applications — the visible software people use.
- Automating a process — turning a task somebody did into a task nobody does.
- Analysing data — most analysis is written as code, not clicked in a spreadsheet.
- Controlling devices — from a thermostat to a drone.
- Creating other algorithms — machine-learning code writes models nobody wrote by hand.
Automation is not neutral: Turning a task into code moves a judgement from a person who could make an exception into a rule that cannot. That is the single most useful sentence you can carry out of this micro.
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Whether the code can be read by anyone decides who can check what a system does. That is a question about power, and the exam treats it as one.
Open source
- Anyone can read, change and share it
- Errors can be found by anyone who looks
- A community can keep it alive after a company loses interest
- Nobody is obliged to fix anything
Closed source
- Only the owner can read or change it
- Errors are found only by whoever is paid to look
- It dies when the company decides
- Someone is accountable, and can be sued
Real-world examples you can name
Precision agriculture and the right to repair — memorandum of understanding with US farmers January 2023
Tractors guided by GPS apply seed and spray field by field, cutting inputs. Because the software is locked, farmers could not repair their own machines; after years of pressure the manufacturer agreed to make tools and manuals available.
Who it affected: Farmers whose harvest window does not wait for an authorized technician.
The EU Artificial Intelligence Act — agreed December 2023; entered into force August 2024, phased to 2027
The first broad law to regulate AI by risk. Some uses are banned outright, such as untargeted scraping of facial images and social scoring by public authorities; high-risk uses in areas like hiring and education carry duties for data quality, documentation and human oversight.
Who it affected: Anyone deploying AI systems in the EU, and users subject to those systems.
How this is tested — you have to explain a benefit of a way of building software, or judge who should be able to see it. It comes up two ways:
Paper 1 — structured question
- Part b: explain an advantage of open-source development
- Part c: evaluate who should be able to inspect a system
Paper 2 — source-based question
- Q2: explain a claim a source makes about software
- Q4: synthesise sources on control of a system
The trap: “open source means free”: Open source is about the right to read and change the code. Price is a separate question, and plenty of open-source software is sold.
Explain one advantage of developing a tool as open source.
Model answer plan
See the mark-by-mark plan — for / against / judgement, with marking guidance — in study mode.
Suggest two ways a government could make an automated decision system easier to hold to account.
Model answer plan
See the mark-by-mark plan — for / against / judgement, with marking guidance — in study mode.