Class 7 Computer Science Chapter 1 Programming Language

If you want to communicate with other persons then you must know his language otherwise, it is not possible to communicate with each other. Therefore, a language is a system of communication. Similarly, a computer language is a mode of communication between the human and the computer. With the help of a Computer language, a programmer lets a computer do what he wants it to do. All natural languages like (English, Hindi, French etc.) use a standard set of vocabularies for the purpose of communication. These vocabularies are understood by everyone who use that particular language.

Although computer can be programmed to understand many different computer languages with the help of translator (known as compiler/interpreter), there is only one language understood by the computer without using translation program. This language is called machine language or the machine code of the computer and is written as series of 0’s and 1’s (known as Binary number).
This is not very easy language to learn because it is difficult to read and understand the number system as we are not familiar with this.

This is also known as symbolic language. In this language, we use certain symbols for the operations to be done. For example ‘ADD’ is used to do the addition. It is easier to remember such symbols instead of remembering the sequence of 0’s and 1’s. These symbols (ADD, SUB etc.) are known as mnemonics.
A symbolic program written by a programmer in assembly language is called a source program. This source program has to be converted into machine language so that this can be understood by the computer. The assembler is the program used to translate the program which is written in assembly language into machine language.

We have already seen that writing of programs in machine language or assembly language requires a deep knowledge of the internal structure of the computer. In order to facilitate the programmers to use computers without the need to know in detail the internal structure of computer, high level languages were developed. High level languages, instead of being machine based, are oriented more towards the problems to be solved. These languages enable the programmer to write instructions using English words and mathematical symbols.

PASCAL
It is a structured language. It is named after the French mathematician Blaise Pascal.
PL/I : Programming Language One
ALGOL : An Algorithmic Language
APL : A Programming Language
LISP : List Processing

C
It is a general purpose language. It was developed by Dennis Ritchie. It is highly suitable for developing system software like Operating Systems. It is also used to develop application software.
C++
It was developed by Bjorne Stroustrup. It is an Object Oriented Programming Language. Every instruction which the programmer writes in a high language is to be translated into machine language. This can be done by COMPILER or INTERPRETER.