system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5:How does a series of 1's and 0's in Binary Code translate to data?

For example, How is the entire game of Halo: Combat Evolved, or any other, just 1's and 0's in a series? How can 1's and 0's be read, if you have to create software to read it, made out of 1's and 0's? How do programming languages translate to binary?
gpt
Technically, yes, everything is stored via 1s and 0s. But it is so much more than that.

Programming has different "tiers" of complexity. Computer hardware at a base level uses 1s and 0s to operate. However HOW it reads the data is a whole monster.

The programmers who built the game most likely used a higher-level programming language, where they can easily interpret the code. An example would be something like "Player.MoveInXDirection(5)", where it is pretty obvious what this does.

The higher level code is then translated into a less complex language, known as an "assembly" language. This language is more generalized, and only contains code that the computer's processor can recognize. That one line of code above could translate into 50 lines of assembly language. However these are not the 1s and 0s you are thinking of. This lower level language is a standard for the processor. An example of this code would be "MOV A B; ADDI B A;" etc.

Once the processor has the assembly language, it THEN translates that into the 1s and 0s. This data is very raw, and moves very fast. The 1s and 0s are used to communicate, store data, and process information.

TL;DR: Programming has different tiers. In between each tier is an interpreter and translator, so that the programmer can use a more "user-friendly" language, and when the code is complete, it will be translated so that the hardware can use it properly.