Programming Languages

Lecture 12

What is Programming?

The process of telling the computer

what to do

Also known as coding

What is Programming Language?

A vocabulary and set of

grammatical rules for instructing a

computer to perform specific tasks.

Examples of Programming Languages:

Machine Language Assembly Language

(1956-63) LISP (1956) Fortran (1957) COBOL (1959) PL/1(1964) BASIC (1964) Pascal (1970) Smalltalk (1972) C (1972)

Ada(1983) C++ (1983-85) QBasic (1986) Perl (1987) VisualBasic (1991) PowerBuilder Java (1995) JavaScript C# (2001) …

Types of Computer Languages:

There are many types of computer

languages, which can be categorized

into the following four types:-

a) Low-Level Languages

b) High-Level Languages

c) User-Friendly Languages

d) Object-Oriented Languages

Computer Languages:

a) Low-Level Language:

Languages, which computer

can understand directly and are machine

dependent are called Low-Level

Languages.

For Example: Machine

Language & Assembly Language.

Computer Languages:

b) High-Level Language:

The languages, which

computer cannot understand directly and

are not machine dependent are called

High-Level Languages. Some are:-

i. BASIC (Beginners All Purpose Symbolic

Instruction Code)

ii. C etc…

Computer Languages:

c) User-Friendly Languages:

These languages are very

easy to codify and simplest to learn.

Some are:-

i. dBASE

ii. Oracle

iii. MS Access etc…

Computer Languages:

d) Object-Oriented Languages:

The languages which are based on

object oriented programming (OOP) approach are

called as Object-Oriented languages. For example:-

i. Smalltalk

ii. C++

iii. Object COBOL

iv. JAVA

v. Simula etc…

Language Translators:

The software, which converts the codes of other

languages into machine code are called

Language Translator.

Language Translators are categorized into three

types:-

1) Assemblers

2) Interpreters

3) Compilers

Language Translators:

1) Assembler:

Assembler translates the assembly

language code (source program) into machine

language code (object program).

The Microsoft assembler program (MASM) &

Borland Turbo assembler program (TASM) are two

popular assemblers.

Assemblers are used mainly in development of

system software.

Language Translators:

2) Interpreters:

Interpreters translate the

high-level language code into machine

language code, command by command.

They are very slow for executing large

programs, so interpreters are not suitable for

most of applications development.

Language Translators:

3) Compilers:

As contrast to interpreters,

compilers provide faster execution speed. Compilers translate the entire program (source code) into

machine code (object code).

By using linker, the object code is converted into executable code.

Compilers are widely used in translating codes of high level

languages.

As compared to assemblers or interpreters, compilers are

preferred in development of application software.

Reading Material

Programming Languageshttp://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Programming_language

What is Object-Oriented Software?http://catalog.com/softinfo/objects.html