Programming Languages

Chen Weixiang @ Jul 06, 2016 | TAG: Programming

This article introduces the programming language overview.

Overview

A programming language is a formal computer language or constructed language designed to communicate instructions to a machine, particularly a computer. Programming languages can be used to create programs to control the behavior of a machine or to express algorithms.

Types of Programming Languages

According to Classifying Programming Languages, different languages have different purposes, so it makes sense to talk about different kinds, or types, of languages. Some types are:

  • Machine languages - interpreted directly in hardware
  • Assembly languages - thin wrappers over a corresponding machine language
  • High-level languages - anything machine-independent
  • System languages - designed for writing low-level tasks, like memory and process management
  • Scripting languages - generally extremely high-level and powerful
  • Domain-specific languages - used in highly special-purpose areas only
  • Visual languages - non-text based
  • Esoteric languages - not really intended to be used

These types are not mutually exclusive: Perl is both high-level and scripting; C is considered both high-level and system.

Learning Programming Languages

Here is a list of programming languages I’d like to learn:

References