Programming Languages of Computer - Computer Software, Computer Awareness | Famous Books for UPSC Exam (Summary & Tests) PDF Download

Programming Languages of Computer

What is programming language?

Coded language used by programmers to write instructions that a computer can understand to do what the programmer or the computer user wants.

High level language

High level languages are designed to be used by the the programmer. Their programming style and context is easier to learn and implement, and the entire code generally focuses on the specific program to be created.

High-level language doesn’t require addressing hardware constraints to a greater extent when developing a program. However, every single program written in a high level language must be interpreted into machine language before being executed by the computer. The main advantage of high-level languages over low-level languages is that they are easier to read, write, and maintain.

BASIC, C/C++ and Java are popular examples of high-level languages.

Advantage of high-level language:

• Easier to learn and understand.
• Less time to write program.
• Easier to maintain.

Disadvantage of high-level language

• It takes more time to execute the program.
• Difficult in debugging if proper code is not available.
• Inability to perform all operations because cannot manipulate bits and registers.

Machine Level Language

Machine level language is a machine language that a computer can understand directly without any difficulty. It is made up of series of 1’s and 0’s. The order of the bits serves as a code specifying what the computer should do.

Advantages

• Computer directly understands the code written in this language therefore execution speed is fast and  use of primary memory.

Disadvantages

• Difficult to learn and program.
• The program becomes very lengthy and difficult to locate the errors.
• difficult to debug.

Programs written in machine language in one machine cannot be easily transferred to other machines.

Assembly Language 

Assembly language is the language that permits the use of mnemonics for each instructing that the machine can do. The program written in assembly language must be transmitted to machine understandable form, which is done by assembler because computer cannot understand mnemonics codes(alphabetic codes) such as ADD for addition, SUB for subtraction etc. The program written by the programmer in assembly language is called a source program. The program, which is obtained after being converted into machine language, is called object program. It is also machine-oriented language ie. Designed for specific make and model of  a computer.

Advantages

• Simple to understand and use when compared to machine level language.
• Less time is required  to write the program
• Program debugging is easier .

Disadvantages

• It is machine dependent i.e. each design of machine has a different assembly language.
• Assembly level language is too difficult to understand than the high level language.
• Coding in this language is time-consuming.