Classification of Programming language
Classification of Programming language
The programming language represents a set of instructions compiled along with each other to perform a specific task provided by the CPU (Central Processing Unit). A programming language chiefly focuses on high-level languages such as C, CPP, Pascal, COBOL, ADA, etc.
Every programming language consists of a unique set of keywords and syntax used to create a set of instructions. Hundreds and thousands of programming languages have been developed so far, yet each language has its unique, specific purpose.
These languages may vary in the level of abstraction provided by the hardware components. Many of the programming languages provide less or null abstraction, whereas others provide much higher abstraction.
Depending on the level of abstraction provided by the hardware components, it can be classified into two categories such as:
- High-level language
- Low-level language
1. High-level Programming Language
The high-level programming languages are easy and seem like the English language. They are easy to understand; the statements are readable and pass specific instructions to the computer. The languages are always program-oriented. It is the language that is independent of the machine that it runs on. They have more readability than others, and it is easy to debug, portability is increased, software development is easy in these high-level programming languages. E.g., C, PASCAL, FORTRAN, BASIC, COBOL, etc.
2. Low-level Programming Language
The standard languages and provides no abstraction from the hardware components are categorized under low-level language. It is the language that directly corresponds to a particular machine that it is running on. It is represented in zeros and ones that are used to represent the machine instructions.
The low-level programming languages can be divided into the following two types of languages, such as:
- Machine level languages
- Assembly level languages
Machine Level Languages
Machine-level languages direct the code and the data that run directly on the computing device. The registers are used to store values and intermediate results.
Low-level machine instructions such as addition, subtraction, division, and so on operate on memory or registers. Lack of memory management support will be provided.
It is carried out in the hardware of the machine; hence it is machine-independent. Machine code is generally written in hexadecimal code. These are the languages that are interpreted directly in the hardware.
Assembly Level Language
It is an encoding of the machine code into something readable format. It is mainly used to assign the human-readable names or labels to store the storage locations, jump the targets, and subroutine the starting addresses. It is considered to be isomorphic to the machine language. These are the thin wrapper on a corresponding machine language.
Note: Perl is considered a high-level language and a scripting language, while C is considered a high-level language and system language. Some of the languages are partially visual, but type bits of code are present.
Technical aspects of the languages will consider the linguistic structures, possibility of efficient implementation, expressive features, support for programming models, and other concerns.
We have some other types of languages, which include the following:
- System language: These are the languages designed for low-level tasks, such as memory management and process management.They differ from application to application. They are more concerned with managing a computer system rather than solving general problems in health care, finance, gaming, etc. They are usually responsible for memory management, process management, data transfer, caches, device drivers, etc.
- Scripting language: It is the language that tends to be high-level and is much powerful compared to other languages. The scripting level languages are used for wiring the systems together and applying them at a high level. These languages are generally expensive as they do more work with minimal lines of code and are usually dynamic as the compiler does less work. In contrast, the run time system runs everything and does most of the job.
- Domain-specific language: It is the type of language that is used in particular contexts.
- Visual languages: These are the type of language that are not text-based programs.
- Esoteric language: Languages that are fun and not intended for actual usage. An esoteric level language is intended and is not taken very seriously as we does the other languages. It can be a joke, minimalistic and non-deterministic.