Programming language

Programming language

A programming language is a way to represent in a reproducible way actions the programmer intends the computing system to perform. The program written in a programming language typically has to be translated into a code the central processing unit CPU can understand and execute. The programming language allows to define data structures and combine them with logic applied to them. Generally a computer language reflects the state of development of the hardware and its processing power.

Programming languages can generally be divided into two categories:

Compiled languages must first be translated by a compiler from human readable source code to an object code. A linker is often applied to this code to assemble it with existing libraries and runtime environments into a form the computer can run.

Interpreted languages rely on an application, the interpreter, that translates the source code into machine code through pre-existing interfaces. For example, an interpreter would read a line such as this: PRINT "Cookies are yummy!" and call the predefined, platform independent function PRINT inside the interpreter itself where the interpreter then executes the platform dependent function call.

• Compiled languages
  • ASSEMBLER
  • ALGOL
  • COBOL
  • FORTRAN
  • BASIC
  • MUMPS
  • PASCAL
  • C
  • C++
  • Visual Basic
  • Basicscript
  • NextStep
  • Java
  • Javascript
• Interpreted languages
  • BASIC
  • APL
  • Basicscript
  • Javascript
  • Pike
  • Ruby
  • TCL/Tk
• Integrated Development Environments
  • Visual Studio
  • CodeWarrior
  • XCode
• Database programming languages
  • SQL
  • PL/SQL
• Fourth generation languages
  • DML
  • SQL

All items come with a short description and a typical way to use the language.