1. Description of Professional Programming Languages and Tools
The computer consists of hardware & software; electronic chips & components (graphics
cards, motherboard, hard-drives, fans, disk drives, circuitry & memory). Software consists
of sequences of instructions, called programs that can be understood by hardware.
The Breakdown
Hardware; currently consists of 4 generations of these
computing levels. Each of these levels indicate the
abstraction between the higher and the lower groups.
The levels are as followed:
Language Translators; translate programs written in source code, into assembly
instructions understood by the computer, as it’s own object code. There are three main
language translators; they are listed below.
Assembler; translates assembly language into machine code.
Compiler- Translates an entire program written in a high-level source code into object code
! ! (+) no translation required run-time
! ! (- ) long program might take a long time to compile before you can play it
Interpreter- Analyses and translates individual lines of code.
! ! (+) Possible to test sections of code during development
! ! (- ) slower to process at run-time
1st Generation
2nd Generation
3rd Generation
4th Generation
Abstraction
High
Low
First gen. is made up from ‘machine code’ also commonly known
as binary; a sequence of ones & zeros (0,0,1,1,0,0,0,1,1,0,1,1).
Second gen. consists of an ‘assembly code’ this is an imperative
language, this means that it is sequential and operates on a one
command at a time basis.
Third gen. involves ‘problem-oriented languages; such as C=
system solutions & PHP= server-side software.
Forth gen. uses a declarative programming language, such as C+
+ & Java(script). These programs declare variables and then
process them if need be.