Programming Language

Programming language, or computer programming language, is a formal set of signs constructed for creating software and coding software applications. A programming language defines a set of lexical, syntactic and semantic rules that determines the appearance of the program and the actions that the executor (usually a computer) will perform while under its control.

High-Level Language (HLL) is a programming language like C++, Perl, or PHP that allows programmers to write programs in special coding standards, which later on must be translated into a set of machine commands. The process is called compilation and all the high level programming languages are the compiled ones.

Low-Level Language is a set of machine codes, which can be directly executed by the hardware.

How low Level PL works:

The computer code written in the source programming language is transformed into the target language via a compiler.

A compiler is a type of translator for computing devices.

Most compilers translate the program from a high-level programming language into machine code, which can be directly executed by the processor. Typically, this code is also oriented to execution in a specific operating system (OS) environment, because it uses the capabilities of the OS.

Examples of programming languages

There are more than a hundred popular languages.

Some well-known examples are:

C is a compiled general-purpose programming language developed in 1969-1973 by Bell Labs employee Dennis Ritchie. It was originally developed for the implementation of the UNIX operating system, but was later transferred to many other platforms. According to the design of the language, its structure is closely matched to typical machine instructions, so it is used in projects for which the assembler language was inherent, including both in operating systems and in various software applications for a variety of devices - from supercomputers to embedded systems. The C programming language had a significant impact on the software development industry, and its syntax became the basis for programming languages such as C ++, C #, Java and Objective-C.

C ++ is a compiled, statically typed general-purpose programming language. It is widely used for software development, being one of the most popular programming languages. Its scope includes the creation of operating systems, a variety of applications, device drivers, apps for embedded systems, high-performance servers, and entertainment apps (games). There are many implementations of the C ++ language, both free and commercial for various platforms.

Objective-C is a compiled object-oriented programming language used by Apple, built on the C language and the Smalltalk paradigms. The Objective-C compiler is available on most major platforms. The language is used primarily for Mac OS X (Cocoa) and GNUstep - implementations of the object-oriented OpenStep interface. Also the language is used for iOS (Cocoa Touch).

Swift is an open multi-paradigm (supporting both object-oriented and functional programming) general-purpose programming language. Created by Apple primarily for iOS app development on macOS. Swift works with Cocoa and Cocoa Touch frameworks and is compatible with Apple's core code base written in Objective-C. Swift was conceived as an easier to read and error-proof programming language than the previous Objective-C.

The development of programming languages leads to formation of language families. Each branch of languages, belonged to the same family has slightly different features and functionality, demonstrating at the same time, the same general approach and lots of similarities in programming principles and semantics standards.