Programming language

Programming language is a formal language comprising a set of instructions that produce various kinds of output. Programming languages are used in computer programming to implement algorithms.

History

The first programming languages predate the modern computer. Initially, they were specific to the hardware that they were developed to control. The first high-level programming language was Fortran, developed in the 1950s by IBM for scientific computing.

Types of Programming Languages

Programming languages can be classified into several types:

• Procedural programming languages are based on the concept of the procedure call. Examples include C, Pascal, and Fortran.

• Object-oriented programming (OOP) languages are designed to support a programming style that uses objects, which are instances of classes, which are themselves instances of metaclasses, and so on. Examples include Java, C++, and Python.

• Functional programming languages define every computation as a mathematical function. Examples include Haskell, Lisp, and Scala.

• Logic programming languages are used primarily for AI and Prolog is the most notable example.

Syntax and Semantics

Every programming language has a unique set of keywords and syntax used to define its instructions. The syntax is the form or type, whereas the semantics is the meaning of that type or form. Each programming language has its own rules for syntax and semantics.

Execution of Programs

Programs written in a high-level language are either directly executed by some kind of interpreter or converted into machine code by a compiler for the CPU to execute.

See Also

• List of programming languages
• Comparison of programming languages
• Programming paradigm
• Compiler
• Interpreter (computing)