Computer Programming language can be divided into two types i.e. Low-level Language, and High-level Language.
#1) Low-level Language
- Hardware dependent
- Difficult to understand
Low-level Language can be further divided into two categories,
- Machine Language: Machine dependent, difficult to modify or program, For Example, every CPU has its machine language. The code written in machine language is the instructions that the processors use.
- Assembly Language: Each computer’s microprocessor that is responsible for arithmetic, logical and control activities needs instructions for accomplishing such tasks and these instructions are in assembly language. The use of assembly language is in device drivers, low-level embedded systems, and real-time systems.
#2) High-level Language
- Independent of hardware
- Their codes are very simple and developers can read, write and debug as they are similar to English like statements.
High-level Language can be further divided into three categories.
- Procedural Language: Code in the procedural language is a sequential step by step procedure, that gives information like what to do and how to do. Languages such as Fortran, Cobol, Basic, C, and Pascal are a few examples of procedural language.
- Non-procedural Language: Code in non-procedural language specify what to do, but does not specify how to do. SQL, Prolog, LISP are a few examples of non-procedural language.
- Object-oriented Language: Use of objects in the programming language, where the code is used to manipulate the data. C++, Java, Ruby, and Python are a few examples of Object-oriented language.
Basic Operations Of A Programming Environment
Five basic elements or operations of programming are listed below:
- Input: Data can be input using the keyboard, touch screen, text editor, etc. For Example, to book a flight, the user can enter his login credentials and then select a departure date and return date, the number of seats, starting place and destination place, Name of Airlines, etc, from desktop, laptop or mobile device.
- Output: Once authenticated, and upon receiving the request to book the tickets with the mandatory inputs, a confirmation of booking for the selected date and destination will be displayed on the screen, and a copy of the tickets and invoice information is sent to the user’s registered email id and mobile number.
- Arithmetic: In case of flight booking, update of the number of seats booked and those seats need some mathematical calculations, further name of the passenger, no. of seats reserved, date of journey, journey start date, and starting place, destination place, etc. should be filled into the airlines server database system.
- Conditional: It is required to test if a condition is satisfied or not, based on the condition, the program may execute the function with parameters else it will not get executed.
- Looping: It is required to repeat /perform the task until the condition holds. Types of loops can be While loop, Do-while loop, For loop.
For Example,
for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++) {System.out.println(i);} |
Necessary Prerequisites/Skills Required For Programming
#1) Self Reliance: To succeed in coding, you should develop a confidence in yourself, control your impatience, frustration and should refrain from being dependent on someone else to help you in solving your technical problems, rather you should be self-reliant and keep faith on your capabilities, monitor your efforts and remain optimistic and perseverant in learning.
#2) Language: It is an individual’s choice to decide which programming languages he/she should learn. A programming language should be selected based on its acceptance in the various domains in software industries. Object-oriented languages like Python and Java, which are free & open-source are widely accepted and used by Google, Yahoo, and NASA.
Java script is another scripting language, a client-side scripting language, but knowing JavaScript will highly benefit web-based application developers. Non-procedural language like SQL is mandatory as it is acceptable by all the back end databases.
#3) Logic: As a developer or tester, to excel in the programming language, one must always have conditional and logical thinking. It can be improved as we improve our muscles, there are a few sites where one can prepare and improve logical thinking and prepare for programming language.