Programming Languages

• Low level languages sit close to a computer's instruction set, which is the set of instructions the computer understands.
• Two types of low level languages are (alphabetically) Assembly Language & Machine Code
• Assembly language sits between machine code and high-level languages in terms of ease of use. While high-level languages use statements to form instructions, assembly language uses mnemonics (short abbreviations). - bbc bitesize
• Machine code An instruction set relates to a specific processor and is written in machine code. The central processing unit (CPU) understands machine code directly and can act upon the instructions. A program written in machine code consists of 0s and 1s only. - bbc bitesize
• Mnemonics are short abbreviations that correspond to machine code instructions.
• High level languages are written closer to human language and are comprised of english-like statements (such as print if input) to form instructions.
• High level languages are easier to understand and debug as they are written closer to human language but they take longer to execute as translation is required. They are also not hardware specific.
• There are two types of translators for high level languages, interpreters and compilers.