Characteristics of high level and low level programming languages.

Characteristics of high level and low level programming languages.

1. Assembly code

   • Assembly code is abbreviations used for programmers to understand write machine code without confusion
   • Is still difficult for programmers and coders to understand yet it is easier than trying to understand machine code
   • Assembly code is not very portable however as each CPU family has its own assembly code which means a assembler has to be used to translate the assembly code into machine code.
   • The pros of using assembly code is that it uses less space than high level language it is also runs faster when running machine code

2. High level language

   • High level language is portable across different computers as the coding language only requires the software where as machine code for example is only select to a family of CPU's
     • IDE tools- These tools include an editor which is used to edit code as well auto complete, another tool includes debugger this tool is used to find syntax errors.

3. Machine code

   • Machine code is the lowest level of the programming languages as it is simply bits in binary that corresponds with a certain action, machine code is when instructing a CPU to preform an action
   • Being the simplest form of programming this is the hardest type of programming to understand as it is a series of 1's and 0's which can be translated in to hexadecimal which is still increasingly hard to understand
   • Machine code is compiled of different parts, the "operation code" which tells the processor what function it wants to preform and the "memory address"

4. Compiler- Is used once the program has been finished AFTER testing and developed as it converts the code in one go into machine code transferring it into an Executable file (.exe).

   • Interpreter- Is used to translate code whilst its still being tested and developed as the interpreter converts each line at a time as it identifies the codes errors and informs the user.
     • Opcode = the instruction to the processor Operand =the value of the change