system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: How are coding programs coded?

I'm currently self-learning how to code / program (Python) - but how are these different systems programmed in the first place?
gpt
They use another programming language to code up that one.

And they use another language to make *that* one.

And it goes on further and further back, until at some point they're writing the first text based programming language by putting punch cards in a machine.

But what reads the punch cards?  Go further back and they're programming by flipping switches on a big room sized box.

And what reads those switches?  Go further back, and they've **hard coded** the programming language directly into the computer's construction, like, the specific connections between the vacuum tubes are the programming language.  This, of course, a very, very simple programming language.