FUNDAMENTAL OF COMPUTING

Assignment Number 01 Prepared for: Mujtaba Memon Student Name: Maaz Saleem Student ID: 15124

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HISTORY OF PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES

An overview of Programming Languages.

Early History (1940)

The concept of programming languages is even older than todays modern computer. It is hard to point to a programming language as being the first. For example; the jacquard loom (mechanical loom) which was invented in 1801 used holes in punched cards (stiff papers containing digital information represented by the absence or presence of holes) to help create textures and patterns automatically. Within 9 months period, the design of the analytical machine (worlds first computer program) was proposed by Englsih mathematician Charles Babbage. It was incorporated w/ Arithmetic Login Unit (ALU) which performs arithmetic and logical operations. ALU is the basic component of CPU and even the simplest microprocessors possess one to maintain time. The control flow is the order in which the functions of a program are executed. However, it was never constructed due to conflicts b/w Babbage & his chief engineer 7 low fundings. It was a successor to difference engine which was an automatic mechanical calculator. The turing machine is a device that alters, edits and move (data or text) on a strip in accordance with the table of rules. First Computers (Past 14 9 0s ) The slow speed and less storage capacity compelled the programmers to write hand writer assembly languages, low-level programming language is a programming language that provides little or no abstraction from a computer's instruction set architecture. An instruction set, or instruction set architecture (ISA), is all about programming with (little or no abstraction). The process with which data and programs are brought closer to their actual meanings which is called semantics by

FIRST THREE MODERN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES WERE; ForTRAN (FORMULA TRANSLATOR), LISP (List Processor), COBOL (Common business oriented language) , ensued by algol 60 (Algorithmic language)

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different representations while skipping the details is called abstraction. Implementation is basically the execution of an idea or a plan. The step by step procedure for calculation is called Algorithm. It was undoubtedly the most successful of the four high level programming languages out of its 4 contemporaries. It consolidated many ideas circulating at the time and featured two key language innovations: Code Block: Grouping of a section of code Lexical Scoping : a block could have its own private variables, procedures and functions, invisible to code outside that block. A scope is the context within a computer program in which a variable name or other identifier is valid and can be used, or within which a declaration has effect. A variable is a storage location and an associated symbolic name which contains some known or unknown quantity or information, a value. It was an extended subset of Algol. Algol 68's many little-used language features (e.g. concurrent and parallel blocks) and its complex system of syntactic shortcuts and automatic type coercions defame it with implementers. Many other languages also appeared after ALGOL which included the PASCAL. Some of the famous programming languages include; C++ C++ an advance version of C language is a multi paradigm compiled language devolped by Bjarne Stroustrup. It tries to bring together the backwardness of C and object orientation on the same ground which helps in difficult areas. Inspite of its old age it is still use to create games and apps. Strengths: Speed Weaknesses: C++ an old objected oriented language is considered clumsier than Java. Java Java an object-oriented programming language make use of a compiler and was first released by Sun Microsystems in 1995. Java is a well organized language for two reasons: 1. Executable on different machine by the use of JVM (Java virtual machine). 2. Strong library of refunctionable components of software.

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PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES GENERATION

Programming languages have been classified into several programming language generations based on the increasing power of programming styles. "High-level language" refers to the higher level of abstraction from machine language. It was eventually realized that programming in assembly language required a great deal of intellectual effort and was error-prone. In computer science, a low-level programming language more machine friendly rather than being programmer friendly. This is either the machine code or assembly language. The word "low means that the abstraction between the language and machine language is quiet low; because of this, low-level languages are sometimes described as being "close to the hardware." First-generation programming language is a machine friendly programming language. There were no compilers or assemblers in first generation programming languages. All the instructions were entered through the front panel switches of the devices.

The biggest advantage of using first generation programming language is that the codes written by the user function and perform extremely fast as they are directly operated by the device. However, the codes are difficult to understand and write and in case an error occurs its extremely hard to edit it. For example, assembly code is a first generation language. Second-generation programming languages, is a category of assembly languages. They have the following features. The programmer reads and writes the code, there is a compiler or an assembler which converts the language into machine readable version through a process called Assembly. For example, COBOL and FORTRAN are the second generation languages.

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Third-generation programming language (3GL) is infact an advanced generation or the successor of second generation languages with its basic aim to make the programming language much more user-friendly. They are also called High level languages. For example, C, C++, C#, Java, Basic and Delphi are the third generation language.