COMPUTER LANGUAGE

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The term 'computer language' is a more expansive and alternate term for the more commonly-used term programming language. It includes a wide variety of languages used to communicate with computers. Programming languages are a subset of computer languages, and so are other types of languages.
For example, HTML is a markup language and a computer language, but not traditionally considered a programming language. Machine code is a computer language, can technically be used for programming, and has been (e.g. the original bootstrapper for Altair BASIC), though most would not consider it a programming language.
Computer languages can be divided into two groups: high level languages and low level languages. High level languages are designed to be easier to use, more abstract, and more portable than low level languages. Syntactically correct programs in some languages are then compiled to low level language and executed by the computer. Most modern software is written in a high level language, compiled into object code, and then translated into machine instructions.
Computer languages could also be grouped based on other criteria. Another distinction could be made between human-readable and non human-readable languages. Human-readable languages are designed to be used directly by humans to communicate with the computer. Non human-readable languages, though they can often be partially understandable, are designed to be more compact and easily processed, sacrificing readability to meet these ends.

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Examples

History

Examples

Computer languages include:

★ Programming languages (e.g., C++, assembly language)

★ Scripting languages

★ Specification languages

★ Machine Code (the non human-readable form other languages are translated into, sometimes on the fly)

★ Bytecode (essentially "virtual" machine code - executed by a virtual machine)

★ Query language (e.g., SQL, XQuery)

★ Markup languages (e.g., HTML - typically used for producing documents)

★ Transformation languages (e.g., XSLT)

★ Template processing languages

★ Fourth-generation programming language ("4GL")

★ Hardware description languages

★ Configuration file formats (e.g., INI file)

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History

For history and taxonomy see The Encyclopedia of Programming Languages.