What is Pseudocode?

Posted by Jae on Programmers See other posts from Programmers or by Jae
Published on 2012-02-22T10:50:10Z Indexed on 2012/04/05 17:45 UTC
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terminology

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pseudocode

I've seen a lot of mentions of Pseudocode lately, on this site and others. But I don't get it:

What is Pseudocode? For example, the Wikipedia article below says "It uses the structural conventions of a programming language, but is intended for human reading rather than machine reading." Does this mean that it isn't actually used to make programs?
Why is it used?
How is it used?
Is it considered a Programming Language? See the above Wikipedia quote.
Is it commonly known/used?
Anything else...

I honestly don't know where to start with this. I have Googled it and I've seen the Wikipedia article on the topic, but I still don't fully understand what it is.

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