Faculty of translation methods of language teaching and educational technology course paper

Programming is the process of writing a program using a computer language. A program is a set of instructions which a computer uses to do a specific task (e.g. a solution to a Maths problem).
The only language a PC can directly execute is machine code, which consists of 1s and 0s. This language is difficult to write, so we use symbolic languages that are easier to understand. For example, assembly languages use abbreviations such as ADD, SUB, MPY to represent instructions. The program is then translated into machine code by software called an assembler.
Machine code and assembly languages are called low-level languages because they are closer to the hardware.
High-level languages, however, are closer to human languages; they use forms resembling English, which makes programming easier. The program is translated into machine code by software called a compiler. Some examples are:
● FORTRAN - used for scientific and mathematical applications
● COBOL - popular for business applications
● BASIC - used as a teaching language; Visual BASIC is now used to create Windows applications
● C - used to write system software, graphics and commercial programs
● Java - designed to run on the Web; Java applets are small programs that run automatically on web pages and let you watch animated characters, and play music and games.
The languages used to create Web documents are called markup languages; they use instructions (markups) to format and link text files. Examples are:
● HTML - the code used to create Web pages
● VoiceXML - it makes Internet content accessible via speech recognition and phone. Instead of using a web browser on a PC, you use a telephone to access voice-equipped websites. You just dialthe phone number of the website and then give spoken instructions, commands, and get the required information
Differences in computer languages is a topic that many people are not familiar with. I was one of those kinds of people before I started researching on this topic. There many different computer languages and each one of them are similar in some ways, but are also different in other ways, such as: program syntax, the format of the language, and the limitations of the language.
Most computer programmers start programming in languages such as turbo pascal or one of the various types of basic. Turbo pascal, Basic, and Fortran are some of the oldest computer languages. Many of today’s modern languages have been a result of one of these three languages, but are greatly improved. Both turbo pascal and basic are languages that are easy to understand and the syntax is very easy and straightforward.
In Basic when printing to the screen you simply type the word ‘print’, in turbo pascal you would type ‘writeln’. These are very simple commands that the computer executes. To execute a line of code in a language such as C, or C++, you would have to type in much more sophisticated lines of code that are much more confusing than the previous two.
The format and layout of the various languages are very diverse between some,
and between others are somewhat similar. When programming in Basic the user has to type in line numbers before each new line of code. In an updated version of Basic called QBasic, numbers are optional. Turbo pascal does not allow the user to input numbers, it has preset commands that seperate each part of the program. This is similar to QBasic, but is much more sophisticated. Instead of using the command gosub in Basic, the user would make a procedure call.
Another new language is C. C is a spinoff of turbo pascal but is capable of doing
more things than turbo. The format and layout are similar, but the syntax is much more complex than turbo is. When C first came out, there were many major flaws in the language so a new version had to be put out, C++. The main addition from C to C++ is the concept of classes and templates. Many other small flaws were fixed when this new version of C came out also.
Many of the languages have different limitations on the tasks that they came
perform. The newer the language, the more things you can do. Things that are being accomplished today, were thought to have been impossible 20 years ago. Despite the differences between the many languages I have mentioned, and the others that I have not, the limitations are starting to go higher and higher as technology improves.
This is a subject that one could write on and on about the minute differences between the many languages. After researching these main languages I found out that there are just as many simmilarities between languages as there are differences.

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