High-level and Low-level Languages Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

High-level and Low-level Languages - Essay Example The programming languages that are very similar to machine code (such as 0s and 1s) are acknowledged as low-level programming languages. Basically, in these languages the program instructions are written in binary form. In addition, low-level programming languages offer the programmer a high level control over hardware however they require a deep knowledge of the internal structure of the hardware to be used. These programming languages are not normally used by the programmers because it is very difficult to learn and understand them. High-level Languages The programming languages that are very similar to the human languages (e.g. like English language) are acknowledged as the high-level languages. The examples of high-level languages are FORTRAN, COBOL, BASIC, PASCAL, C++ etc. These languages are similar to the English language. In other words, it is relatively easy to understand the code written in high level programming languages. In these languages, program instructions are written using English words, for instance print, input, square etc. However, each high-level programming language has its own rules or grammar for writing program instructions. These rules are called syntax of the language. In addition, the program written in high-level language must be translated to machine code before they are executed on the computer. For this purpose, each high-level language has its own translator program, which converts the code of that source language into the computer understandable form. Advantages of High-Level Languages There are many advantages of high-level programming languages. Some of the most important advantages are outlined below: (ninja craze, 2012; Lee, 2000) Easy to Learn In view of the fact that the high level programming languages are similar to human languages thus they are very easy to learn as compared to low-level languages. The instructions written for the program are similar to English like statements. Easy to understand The program written in high-level language by one programmer can easily be understood by another programmer or person because the program instructions are similar to the English language statements. In this way, if a software application has been developed using a high level programming language can be modified by another programmer later on. Easy to write programs In a high-level languag