What Is Programming Language And Why It Is Needed

Introduction

As we know that if you need to communicate with you need a specific language to communicate.

For example, if you need to communicate with two persons, one person knows Hindi and the other person knows Telugu in this case you need to identify the common language between them to communicate with each other. At that time you hear to know that both of them can able to understand and speak in English. So that you can communicate with them by using the English language.

Similarly, some specific languages are needed to communicate with computers, and those languages are called programming languages.

A programming language is a set of instructions written in a specific language to perform a specific task. It is mainly used to develop desktop applications, operating systems, websites, mobile applications, etc.

Types of programming languages

The programming languages are broadly classified into three types,

• Low-level language
• High-level language
• Middle-level language

Low-level language

• It is machine-dependent.
• It works based on the binary number 0’s and 1’s.
• The processor runs low-level programs directly without the need of a compiler or interpreter so the program written in low-level language can be run very fast.

Low-level language is further divided into two parts

1) Machine Language

• Machine language is also called machine code or object code.
• Machine language is easier to read because it is normally displayed in binary or hexadecimal form (base 16) form.
• It does not require a translator to convert the programs because computers directly understand the machine language programs.

2) Assembly Language

• Assembly language is designed for specific processors.
• It represents the set of instructions in a symbolic and human-understandable form.
• It uses an assembler to convert the assembly language to machine language.

High-level programming language

• High-level programming language (HLL) is designed for developing user-friendly software programs and websites.
• This programming language requires a compiler or interpreter to translate the program into machine language (execute the program).

Example: Python, Java, JavaScript, PHP, C#, C++, etc.

A high-level language is further divided into three parts -

1) Procedural Oriented programming language

• Procedural Oriented Programming (POP) language is derived from structured programming and based upon the procedure call concept.
• It divides a program into small procedures called routines or functions.

Example: C, FORTRAN, Basic, Pascal, etc.

2) Object-Oriented Programming language

• Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) language is based upon the objects.
• In this programming language, programs are divided into small parts called objects.
• It is used to implement real-world entities like inheritance, polymorphism, abstraction, etc in the program to make the program reusable, efficient, and easy to use.

Example: C++, Java, Python, C#, etc.

3) Natural language

• Natural language is a part of human languages such as English, Russian, German, and Japanese.
• It is used by machines to understand, manipulate, and interpret human language.

Middle-level programming language

• Middle-level programming language lies between the low-level programming language and the high-level programming language.
• It is also known as the intermediate programming language and pseudo-language.
• A middle-level programming language's advantages are that it supports the features of high-level programming, it is a user-friendly language, and is closely related to machine language and human language.

Example: C, C++, language

Conclusion

The major need for the programming language is to communicate with the computers and also the programming languages are used to develop an application for performing a specific task, automating things, etc.