Programming Language Basics

What is a Programming Language? “A computer, human-created language used to write instructions for a computer.” “An artificial language that enables people to instruct machines. Computer commands that form procedures by which software programmers design and implement computer software programs.” “A computer tool that allows a programmer to write commands in a format that is more easily understood or remembered by a person, and in such a way that they can be translated into codes that the computer can understand and execute.”

High Level vs. Low Level A high level programming language is one that is easy to learn and similar to English A low level programming language is more difficult to learn but more closely resembles what actually goes on inside a computer

Machine Code At the lowest level, we have machine code which consists of 0’s and 1’s Computers ultimately can only understand machine code Machine code can look something like what you saw in the movie The Matrix

High Level Code On the other hand, high level language code is much easier for us to understand and write Examples of high level programming languages? Java, Visual Basic, C/C++, Turing, Fortran, Pascal

What High Level Code Looks Like in Turing if grade >= 60 then put “You passed!” else put “You failed!” end if

What High Level Code Looks Like in Java if (grade >= 60) { System.out.println(“You passed”); } else { System.out.println(“You failed”); }

The Compiler A compiler is a program that translates high level program code into low level machine code A compiler usually checks your high level code for syntax errors before translating it

compile if (grade >= 60) printf (“You passed!”); else printf (“You failed!”); High level code machine code