Defining Programming Language

A programming language is used to write computer  programs including applications, utilities, and systems programs. Before the Java and C# programming languages appeared, computer programs were either compiled or interpreted.   A compiled program is written as a series of humanly understandable computer instructions that can be read by a  compiler  and  linker  and translated into  machine code  so that a computer can understand and run it. Fortran, Pascal, Assembly Language, C, and C programming languages are almost always compiled in this way. Other programs, such as Basic, JavaScript, and VBScript, are interpreted. The differences between compiled and interpreted languages  can be confusing. Compiling a Program The development of a compiled program follows these basic steps: Write or edit the programCompile the program into machine code files that are specific to the target machineLink the machine code files into a runnable program (known as an EXE file)Debug or run the program Interpreting a Program Interpreting a program is a much faster process thats helpful for novice programmers when editing and testing their code. These programs run slower than compiled programs. The steps to interpret a program are: Write or edit the programDebug or run the program using an interpreter program Java and C# Both Java and C# are semi-compiled.  Compiling Java generates bytecode that is later interpreted by a Java virtual machine. As a result, the code is compiled in a two-stage process.   C# is compiled into Common Intermediate Language, which is then run by the Common Language Runtime part of the .NET framework, an environment that supports just-in-time compilation. The speed of C# and Java is almost as fast as  a true compiled language. As far as speed goes, C, C, and C# all are sufficiently speedy for games and operating systems. Programs on a Computer From the moment you turn on your computer, it is running programs, carrying out instructions, testing  RAM and accessing the operating system on its drive. Each and every operation that your computer performs has instructions that someone had to write in a programming language. For example, the Windows 10 operating system has roughly 50 million lines of code. These had to be created, compiled and tested; a long and complex task. Programming Languages Now In Use Top programming languages for PCs are Java and C with C# close behind and C holding its own. Apple products use Objective-C and Swift programming languages. There are hundreds of small programming languages out there, but other popular programming languages include: PythonPHPPerlRubyGoRustScala There have been many attempts to automate the process of writing and testing programming languages by having computers write computer programs, but the complexity is such that, for now, humans still write and test computer programs. The Future for Programming Languages Computer programmers tend to use programming languages they know. As a result, the old tried-and-true languages have hung around for a long time. With the popularity of mobile devices, developers may be more open to learning new programming languages. Apple developed Swift to eventually replace Objective-C, and Google developed Go to be more efficient than C. Adoption of these new programs has been slow, but steady.