To communicate to others, we use natural language such as Hindi and English. In the same way, computer programming language are used to communicate with a computer. Except machine language, all programming language have their own syntax, vocabulary and symbols. Syntaxes of statements vary in different programming language. A program is a set of instructions/statements that are arranged in a sequence and instruct the computer for solving a problem. The process of writing a program using a particular programming language is called programming.

A software is the computerised instructions that operate the computer, execute particular functions or tasks, and manipulate the data. For software (the instructions) to perform various functions, it must be programmed. That is, the instructions need to be written in a programming language that the computer can understand. Without a program, a computer is useless.

All the programming language are broadly classified into two categories : Low-Level Languages and High - Level Language. 

A language in which each instruction or statement is directly translated into a single machine code is known as low-level language. A program written in a low-level language is tough to write, understand and edit as it is a series of 0s and 1s only. Beside the program is machine dependent. In other words, it is not portable.

To overcome the difficulties associated with the low-level language, high-level or procedure oriented language have been developed. An instructions in a high-level language resemble an English sentence or Mathematical expression. programming in a high-level language does not require precise knowledge of the architecture of a computer which is to be used. A high-level program is highly portable. In other words, a program written in a high-level language will run on any computer which has a compiler for that language. Some of the high-level language are BASIC, FORTRAN, PASCAL, COBOL, C, C++, etc.


A program that translates a high-level language program into a machine language program is called a compiler. It reads an entire program and then translates it.

An interpreter is also a program which translates a high-level language program statement into its equivalent machine language program statement. It reads one statement at a time, translate it into machine codes, executes it and then goes to the next statement of the program.

A compiler is fast and more powerful than an interpreter.

A brief introduction to some of the high-level language is given below:

BASIC

It stands for Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instructions Code. It is a very simple and easy language for beginners. It is suitable for scientific calculations.

FORTRAN

FORTRAN stands for FORmula TRANslation. It is  a powerful language for scientific and engineering computations.

COBOL

It stands for COmmon Business Oriented Language. It is best suited for business data processing.

PASCAL

This language has been named in honour of Blaize Pascal, a great mathematical and inventor. PASCAL is a multipurpose language suitable for both scientific and business applications.

C

C language was developed by Dennis Ritchie in 1972 at Bell Laboratories. At present, this is one of the most popular programming language. This is mainly used to develop system software.