Programming Language

 Programming Language

    

    As we know, computers can do almost limitless tasks, and at the beginning of it all is programming to which there are several different languages that computers use to accomplish these tasks.  A computer, as a machine does not understand human language, however it does understand what is known as machine language.  Machine language is what you would call binary which is a series of ones and zeroes that a computer decodes and organizes into tangible content, these ones and zeroes can be thought of as on and off to you and me, one being on and zero off, we use on and off because the machine language is transmitted as electrical waves and transmitted in pulses that the computer may sense and begin to read. (Frank Vahid, 2019)

     While machine language may be fine for computers to understand, it's all Greek to us. The human brain does not function in a way that can translate these digits quickly or efficiently and would take hours to input even the most basic of commands, which is why computer designers came up with a language known as assembly language.  Assembly language is a textual human-understandable representation of a machine language (Frank Vahid, 2019), which takes command inputs such as input, output, stop, and add, then is put into a program called an assembler which takes the commands and executes it as written by the programmer.  This language allowed computer programmers to write programs with greater ease and speed as it was a more tangible model for the human brain to comprehend. (Frank Vahid, 2019)

     Finally, we come to high level language, which is the type of programming language most used today.  High level language includes C++, Javascript, and Python, which can take more complex commands and execute greater commands than an assembler, while giving the programmer more access with superior efficiency and speed. High level language, like the assembler program is run through a program called a compiler which automatically translates the high-level commands into assembly language so that the machine may understand what the programmer is asking of it. (Frank Vahid, 2019) This high-level language has swiftly moved the world of computer programming forward and allowed us the ability to enhance our ability at a rate we couldn't fathom even 30 years ago, and we don't see signs of it slowing down any time soon.

References

Frank Vahid, S. L. (2019). Computing Technology for All. zyBooks.