Computer language
In computer science, computer languages are systems of communication with a computer. Such languages are used to create computer code or program code, the set of instructions forming a computer program which is executed by the computer. It is one of two components of the software which runs on computer hardware, the other being the data.
Computers can only execute the machine code instructions which are part of their instruction set. Because these instructions are difficult for humans to read, and writing complex programs in machine code or other low-level programming languages is a time-consuming task, most programmers write their source code in a high-level programming language. This source code is translated into machine code by a compiler or interpreter, so that the computer can execute it to perform its tasks. A compiler produces object code which is usually in machine language, but may also be in an intermediate language which is at a lower level than the source. A runtime system is often used to execute object code by linking it with commonly used libraries. Bytecode is a lower level of source which is designed for more efficient interpretation by interpreters.
Types of computer languages
- Construction language, a general category that includes configuration, toolkit and programming languages
- Command language, a language used to control the tasks of the computer itself, such as starting other programs
- Configuration language, a language used to write configuration files
- Programming language, a formal language designed to communicate instructions to a machine, particularly a computer
- Assembly language, a language closely related to one or a family of machine languages, and which uses mnemonics to ease writing
- Scripting language, a programming language for a special run-time environment that automates the execution of tasks; the tasks could alternatively be executed one-by-one by a human operator
- Machine language or machine code, a set of instructions executed directly by a computer's central processing unit
- Markup language, a grammar for annotating a document in a way that is syntactically distinguishable from the text, such as HTML
- Modeling language, a formal language used to express information or knowledge, often for use in computer system design
- Hardware description language, used to model integrated circuits
- Page description language, describes the appearance of a printed page in a higher level than an actual output bitmap
- Query language, a language used to make queries in databases and information systems
- Simulation language, a language used to describe simulations
- Style sheet language, a computer language that expresses the presentation of structured documents, such as CSS
See also
- Data serialization
- Natural language processing, the use of computers to process text or speech in human language
- General-purpose language, a computer language that is broadly applicable across application domains, and lacks specialized features for a particular domain
- List of programming languages
- Execution (computing)