INTRODUCTION TO PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES or WHAT ARE PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES

Introduction

Computer Programming        

Today, most people don't need to know how a computer works. Most people can simply turn on a computer or a mobile phone and point at some little graphical object on the display, click a button or swipe a finger or two, and the computer does something. An example would be to get weather information from the net and display it. How to interact with a computer program is all the average person needs to know..

Basically, writing software (computer programs) involves describing processes, procedures; it involves the authoring of algorithms. Computer programming involves developing lists of instructions - the source code representation of software The stuff that these instructions manipulate are different types of objects, e.g., numbers, words, images, sounds, etc... Creating a computer program can be like composing music, like designing a house, like creating lots of stuff. It has been argued that in its current state it is an art, not engineering.

Programming Languages

Almost all of the computer programming these

days is done with high-level programming languages. There are lots of them and some
quite old. COBOL, FORTRAN, and Lisp were devised in the 1950's. As you will see, high-level languages make it easier to describe the pieces of the program you are creating. They help by letting you concentrate on what you are trying to do rather than on how you represent it in a specific computer architecture. They abstract away the specifics of the microprocessor in your computer. And, all high-level languages come with large sets of common stuff you need to do, called libraries.

                                     
                                                            Posted by Sampath Raja