Computer Languages

Over the years, computer languages have been evolved from Low-Level to High-Level Languages. In the earliest days of computers, only Binary Language was used to write programs. The computer languages are classified as follows:

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Machine Language (low level language)

Low-Level language is the only language which can be understood by the computer. Low-level language is also known as Machine Language. The machine language contains only two symbols 1 & 0. All the instructions of machine language are written in the form of binary numbers 1's & 0's. A computer can directly understand the machine language.

Assembly Language (middle level language)

Middle-level language is a computer language in which the instructions are created using symbols such as letters, digits and special characters. Assembly language is an example of middle-level language. In assembly language, we use predefined words called mnemonics. Binary code instructions in low-level language are replaced with mnemonics and operands in middle-level language. But the computer cannot understand mnemonics, so we use a translator called Assembler to translate mnemonics into machine language.

Assembler is a translator which takes assembly code as input and produces machine code as output. That means, the computer cannot understand middle-level language, so it needs to be translated into a low-level language to make it understandable by the computer. Assembler is used to translate middle-level language into low-level language.

g++ -S main.cpp -o main.s

High Level Language

High-level language is a computer language which can be understood by the users. The high-level language is very similar to human languages and has a set of grammar rules that are used to make instructions more easily. Every high-level language has a set of predefined words known as Keywords and a set of rules known as Syntax to create instructions. The high-level language is easier to understand for the users but the computer can not understand it. High-level language needs to be converted into the low-level language to make it understandable by the computer. We use Compiler or interpreter to convert high-level language to low-level language.

Languages like FORTRAN,C, C++, JAVA, Python, etc., are examples of high-level languages. All these programming languages use human-understandable language like English to write program instructions. These instructions are converted to low-level language by the compiler or interperter so that it can be understood by the computer.

g++ main.cpp