Introduction to  Software  Programming

 

We have heard the word programming, many times, on TV, in the internet, and on magazines, and other media. What is really programming ? Programming is the science of writing a logic, in a particular way, so as to accomplish a task, or to enable a function. The machine which is used to translate and execute this logic, is known as a 'computer'.

 

Think about it as a plan, to be executed in a machine, to achieve a particular purpose. The big plan could consist of a series of small plans, which are translated into a language, that is understandable by the machine. Usually, it is a computer. And then the computer executes it, and gives out its result. It is basically a series of logic, executed in a machine, like a computer, to get certain results, or to do a certain function.

           

There are many programming languages, in the software world. There were early languages, like Basic, Fortran, Cobol, C, Pascal, and many more. They were structured, and had their own rules, operators and labels. The labels were  known as keywords. For instance, in the programming language C, you have operators, keywords, and identifiers.

One would write statements of logic, using them, and create the program.

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To transform a series of  logic, one had to use the rules, operators and keywords of the programming language, and put it  in a format, that could be executed in the computer. This format is known as a program. One would execute the program in a computer, to get their desired results, or to perform an action.

 

Now that we know, what is a programming language, let us explore what are the types of programming languages.

We have two types of programming languages. Low level programming languages and high level programming languages.

 

We have the lowest level of programming, which is machine language. This language uses binary notation, as the means of a programming language. Now as we know, binary numbers, are of the base 2, and consists of 0 and 1. The machine language consists of commands, which are made up of strings of binary. This language has built in directives, which consist of the strings of binary, which control the components of the computer, and also the peripherals that are attached to it.

 

There is a language above the machine language. This language is known as assembly language. In this language, we use hexadecimal numbers, also known as hex codes, to program. These hex codes are converted into machine language binary strings, which are executed in the computer. 

 

Next we come the high level languages, like, Basic, Fortran, Cobol, C, Pascal, Java and C++.  These languages, are programmed in the English language, using statements. These statements consist of constants, variables, operators, and keywords.

These statements, weave a logic, with data or without it, to achieve a result. These languages also have a scope for data types, and work with large amounts of data using their own defined data structures. The data may be of type numeric, or non numeric.

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