Characteristics of high and low level programming languages.

Characteristics of high and low level programming languages.

1. Low Level

   • Assembler
     • An assembler is specific for each machine. Also, not portable.
     • Instructions are written in binary
     • Designed to be understood by a computer.
   • Mnemonics
     • The mnemonic code is easier to understand compared with machine code.
   • Opcode
     • Tells the processor which needs to be completed.
   • Operand
     • Specifies which data needs to be acted upon. It can also look to a place in memory.
   • Machine code
     • This code is in binary and hexadecimal for the computer to understand it.
     • This code is the most complex as there are billions of different ways that the code can look, making it hard to understand to a human.
     • Executable file.

2. Translator

   • Converts high-level programming languages into machine code.
   • One line at a time.
   • Turns the file into .exe (executable)

3. Compiler

   • This translates the source code into machine code all together. This happens only when the program is developed and tested.
   • This gets sorted as an executable file, which can run on a PC as a stand-alone program.
   • Translation can involve several stages and may take a considerable amount of time.

4. Interpreter

   • Allows the programmer to run the source code but only in the interpreter.
   • This translates the source code as the program is running, one line at a time
   • If there are any errors, it could be shown to the user or it could not show the programmer and refuse to run without explanation
   • This is ideal as a programmer to quickly test the program line by line during the development stages