Classificatory Essay - Computer Programming Languages

WHAT COMPUTER PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE LEARN FIRST

By Jaime D. Romero O.


In the contemporary world computers have a jutting place in the society, in fact they are the easiest to find apparatus in our technological civilization. The professions related to computer are very common and diverse; hardware fixing, system analysis and programming are the more common specializations, but the last one has the most fearsome reputation.

Even though programming is the better paid branch of the computer sciences it is the less chosen profession. The big number of languages for computer programming is enough to scare any person interested in learn his/her first computer command language. When people has notice about there are about two thousand and five hundred different computer languages they usually collapse in front of the uncertainty of what language learn first. But this decision is not as difficult as people think. Regardless of their large number, the computer programming languages can be classified in three different kinds: machine language, low level languages and high level languages. Any people who wants to learn programming for first time only has to choose the language that fixes his/her necessities the best.

The first category of computer programming languages is the machine language. This is the oldest computer programming language and still today is the only language that computers can “speak”. This is the language of the Central Processing Unit (CPU) of the computer, which works as the brain in the human body. There are many different models and types of CPUs, and this characteristic lets computers be different among them. Because of this difference among CPUs there is a particular way of programming each CPU and this is what a machine language does.

The machine languages are generally used by those programmers who need to control every single part of the computer directly. This language has the characteristic of being the fastest among the languages in general, because the computer does not need translations due to the programmer is “speaking” in the computer natural language. On the other hand this language is the most difficult to learn. It has not anything in common with the human language and only expert in computer hardware can manage to use it. For that reason beginner programmer usually do not learn this language at first.

The second category is the low level languages. This kind of languages appeared to make easier the process of programming. Different from machine language the high level languages are not designed for a specific CPU, which allows programmer to use this kind of language in any computer. In these languages each instruction is assigned to a code, so instead of using the natural machine’s code the programmer would only need to remember short codes. For this reason the low level languages are more commonly used than the machine language to program the CPUs directly.

The low level languages are commonly used for Computer Designers and Electronic Engineers who have to prove their computer prototypes. These languages are slower than machine language, but the difference in speed is so minimal that humans can not notice it; this characteristic makes this kind of computer languages be very attractive to program the CPU directly, leaving behind the machine language. But this kind of languages needs a special knowledge about the functioning of the operating systems, so the programmers have to be an expert in software in order to do a successful work. As a custom Only Computer Design students and Electronic Engineers trainees learn this kind of languages at first.

The last but not the less important kind of computer programming language is high level languages. The most of computer languages are contained in this kind. They constitute the newest way of computer programming. This kind of languages is thought to be the most similar to the human languages, especially to English. Making a program using this kind of language is like talk to the computer in a human language, for this reason the languages in this kind are well-liked and popular among programmers in general.

The high level languages are used for many kinds of users; students, commercial programmer, scientists and any person who wants to personalize his/her own computers use them. This kind of languages is the slowest and needs several steps to translate the pseudo-human language into the code that computers use, but due to the advances made in software engineering all those steps can be execute just by clicking an icon on the computer screen. Through the using of this group of languages can be program any type of software, and especial knowledge about the computers hardware or software is not needed. The previous fact shows this kind of computer programming languages as the perfect kind of language to be learned for beginners in the art of computer programming.

In conclusion, the computer programming world of today has been filled for a multitude of language, and every programmer has to choose what language learns first. This selection seems to be hard at the beginning, but if the programmer knows what he/she needs the computer language for, the choosing process can be simplified. There are only three kinds of computer languages to choose. If the person is an expert in the architecture of the central processing unit of the computer and wants to control every little part of it, the machine language kind is recommended. If the beginner programmer has some knowledge of computer hardware and software and needs to control the computer in a completely way must choose the low level computer programming language. But if the person has not knowledge about computers hardware and software, or even he/she is and expert in those subject but like a more natural way to program a computer the high level computer language is the best choice.

At the beginning of the computer science there was only a language, and now after around forty years there are more than two thousand, which indicates that more and more languages are going to come in the near future. If you are a beginner programmer or even a completely expert in the art of commanding a computer you do not need to fear of this prediction, because to program a computer is only needed to know one language and the special feature is that you can choose it.