Chapter 3

Programming Language

Programming Language

It is a kind of language, which consists of a set of instruction to provide a particular result as output. Categories:

  1. Machine Language:
    Also known as machine code or object code. It is coded in the form of binary and hexadecimal numbers, which a computer can understand.
  2. Assembly Language:
    Also known as assembly code. It is a low-level language, which is often used by microprocessors and consists of symbolic representation of machine code.
  3. High Level Language:
    Also known as HLL. These are user friendly programming languages, like C, C++, JAVA, which are generally used by human operators or programmers to solve a given problem. They require compiling/interpreting.
  4. System Language:
    These languages are designed for writing system software, which requires a different approach when compared with application software.
  5. Scripting Language:
    These are HLL, which do not require any kind of compiling, like JavaScript.

Compiler

Interpreter

Scans the entire program and translates the whole program into machine language. Scans one line at a time. No translation.
It takes more time to analyze the source code. It takes less time to analyze the source code.
Execution time is short. Execution time is long.
Stops only after scanning the whole program. Hence, debugging is hard. Stops, when error is met. Hence, debugging is easy.
Used by C, C++. Used by Python, Ruby.