There are two main types of programming languages: s and s. A high-level language is designed to be more user-friendly, allowing programmers to write code using human-readable instructions, such as English words and mathematical symbols. This level of enables greater and promotes ease of coding.
On the other hand, a low-level language is much closer to the computer's hardware and requires programmers to write code that directly interacts with the machine. , for instance, is a low-level language that uses mnemonic instructions to represent machine operations. Each assembly instruction corresponds to a specific instruction, which is the lowest level of programming languages understandable by computers.
To bridge the gap between high-level and low-level languages, we have s and s. A compiler is a software tool that transforms high-level language programs into an equivalent low-level language, known as machine language, which can be executed directly by the computer's hardware. This process, called compilation, allows programs to achieve better performance and , as machine language is highly optimized for execution.
In contrast, an interpreter directly executes high-level language programs without converting them into low-level language. Interpreters are known for their high , allowing the same program to be executed on different operating systems without needing to recompile it. However, interpreted programs generally execute more slowly than compiled programs due to the additional layer of interpretation required at runtime.
Keywords
abstraction | compiler | low-level language | readability | efficiency | assembly language | interpreter | portability | high-level language | machine language |