1.6. Programming Languages as tools, programming paradigms, types of languages

1.6 PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES AS TOOLS, PROGRAMMING PARADIGMS, TYPES OF LANGUAGES

1.6.1 Programming Languages as tools

·       Programming is the Communication Bridge between the human and machine. Programming language is a tool used by software developers to create, debug and maintain the programs and applications.

·       The most basic tools are a source code editor and a compiler or interpreter, which are used ubiquitously and continuously.

·       There are Programming tools like assemblers, compilers and linkers which translate a program from a programmer into the executable format of computer i.e. into bits and bytes

1.6.2 Programming paradigms

·       Paradigm is a typical example or pattern of something; pattern or model or style. In a simple language we can say that a paradigm is the set of all word forms. Paradigms provide us the information about how to execute new theories and ideas.

·       The concept Programming paradigms is fundamental once in software Engineering. It is basically a style of thinking, a style of expressing your algorithms, problems and solutions construct of language. Every paradigm is a bunch of constructs of language and can be used to achieve the goal. Paradigm is a way of doing something like programming, but not a concrete thing like language.

1.6.2 Types of Languages

Programming languages:

·       A programming language is an Artificial language and designed to communicate instructions to the machine and that instructions control the behavior of machine

·       At present, thousands of programming languages have been implemented. The programming languages are divided into two languages: Low level and High level.

·       Low level language which the machine understands. They are of two types are Assembly language and Machine language.

·       High level languages are more user friendly and closer to human language. They are of two types Imperative and Declarative. Procedural, Object oriented and Parallel processing are imperative languages, Logic, Functional and Database languages are declarative languages. 

 

·       Let's understand one by one types of languages

·       High level->Imperative->Procedural Programming Language

The procedural programming language is used to execute a sequence of instructions which gives required output. Typically, this type of programming language uses multiple variables, heavy loops and other elements.

·       High level->Imperative->Object Oriented Language

This programming language thinks of the world as a group of objects that have internal data and external data. The aim of this programming language is to think about the collection of objects that offer services to solve a specific problem. One of the main principles of object-oriented programming language is encapsulation that means everything will be inside the object.

·       High level->Imperative->Parallel processing language

Parallel processing is used for developing high performance systems and solving large problems in many application areas. They are used as powerful tools in scientific research, information management, and engineering applications. Parallel programming languages are also called concurrent languages means algorithms with a set of concurrent actions, mapped onto different computing elements.

·       High level->Declarative->Logic

Logic Programming Language does not tell the computer how to do but imposes the restrictions on what it must consider while doing.

·       High level->Declarative->Functional

Functional programming language typically uses stored data rather than recursive functions. Functional languages are usually easier to figure out the   abstract issues.

·       High level->Declarative->Database

Database Languages are used to create and maintain databases on computer.There are large numbers of database languages like Oracle, My SQL, MS Access, dBase, FoxPro etc. SQL-Structured Query Language is used in Oracle and MS Access and they are categorized as data definition language (DDL), data control language (DCL) and data manipulation language (DML).

·       Low level->Machine language

Low level programming language provides little or no abstraction of programming concepts. Machine languages are directly executable on the computing hardware without any compiler or interpreter. They are very efficient and used to write Operating system OS/Firmware but it is difficult to understand since it consists of only Zero(0)  and One(1)s.

·       Low level->Assembly language

Assembly language is little easier than machine language because it uses numbers, symbols and abbreviations like ADD, SUB to describe the instructions.