SOFTWARE

SOFTWARE

1. High level language

   • Designed to reassemble a natural language such as English. Easier for people to understand. Likely to be fewer errors due to the ease of use.
   • It uses commands that perform complex instructions. Can not be executed bu a CPU - Requires translation into machine code.
   • Examples: Python, scratch

2. Low level language

   • Uses the instruction set of a CPU. Does not resemble natural language. Is hard for people to understand and read.
   • Harder to find and correct errors. Executed directly by CPU, so can be made extremely efficient.
   • Examples: Little man computer Assembly, machine code

3. Assemblers

   • Translate assembly language to machine code. Each operator and operand is replaced with its binary equivalent

4. Compilers and Interpreters

   • Translate high level code to machine code. Complex translation - each line of high level code can require many machine code intructions.

5. Compilers

   • Translate high level code all at once to produce a machine code file. This machine code file can be distribute and executed on compatible computers.
   • Programs can be distributed without releasing the source code - harder for competitors to copy their code. Machine code files are fast to execute

6. Interpreters

   • Do not create an executable file - they execute the source code by translating and executing one line at a time. The source code is distributed and executed by the user. Execution is slower, as the translation must take place before each line can run
   • Programs will run on any computer with the interpreter, no need to compile multiple versions. Easier to find runtime errors, as the location of the error can be shown.