Chapter1: Introduction to Programming

 Evolution of Programming Languages,

 The compilation process
 Object, source, and executable code
 Fundamentals of Algorithms
 Flowcharts

1. What is language?
It is the way through which we communicate with humans i.e., using symbols, signs, or by any means.

2. What is computer language?

It is the formal or the programming language through which we communicate with computers.
Programming language is considered as the set of commands and instructions that we give to the machines
to perform a particular task
E.g., If want to add two numbers, we have to provide a computer or machine with the set of instructions or
commands to add two numbers.

3. Types of programming languages?

All computer programming languages are divided into two main categories:
1. Low-Level Programming languages are machine-dependent programming languages. The processor
runs low-level programming directly without the need of a compiler or interpreter, so the programs
written in low-level language can be run very fast.
Low-level language is further divided into two parts –
I. Machine Language: Machine language is a type of low-level programming language. It is
also called machine code or object code. Machine language is easier to read because it is
normally displayed in binary or hexadecimal form (base 16) form.
The advantage of machine language: is that it helps the programmer to execute the programs
faster than the high-level programming language.
II. Assembly Language: Assembly language is also a type of low-level programming language
that is designed for specific processors. It represents the set of instructions in a symbolic and
human-understandable form. It uses an assembler to convert the assembly language to
machine language.
The advantage of assembly language is that it requires less memory and less execution time
to execute a program
2. High-Level Languages are programming languages written in human-readable languages like
English. It is designed for developing user-friendly software programs and websites.
This programming language requires a compiler or interpreter to translate the program into machine
language
The main advantage of a high-level language is that it is easy to read, write, and maintain.
For eg: High-level programming language includes Python, Java, JavaScript, PHP, C#, C++,
Objective C, Cobol, Perl, Pascal, LISP, FORTRAN, and Swift programming language.
A high-level language is further divided into three parts –
I. Procedural Oriented programming language
Procedural Oriented Programming (POP) language is derived from structured
programming and based upon the procedure call concept. It divides a program into small
procedures called routines or functions.
Procedural Oriented Programming language follows a Top-down approach.
The advantage of POP language is that it helps programmers to easily track the program
flow and code can be reused in different parts of the program.
Example: C, FORTRAN, Basic, Pascal, etc.
 II. Object-Oriented Programming language
Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) language is based on objects. In
this programming language, programs are divided into small parts called objects. It
is used to implement real-world entities like inheritance, polymorphism, abstraction, etc
in the program to make the program reusable, efficient, and easy to use.
Object-Oriented Programming language follows a bottom-up approach.
The main advantage of object-oriented programming is that OOP is faster and easier to
execute, maintain, modify, as well as debug.
Example: C++, Java, Python, C#, etc.

4. Evolution of programming language?

1883: The Journey starts from here…!!

 In the early days, Charles Babbage had made the device, but he was confused about how to give
instructions to the machine, and then Ada Lovelace wrote the instructions for the analytical
engine
 The device was made by Charles Babbage and the code was written by Ada Lovelace for
computing Bernoulli’s number.

1949: Assembly Language

 becomes the first widely-used programming language type that makes use of symbols instead of
binary code

1952: Autocode
 becomes the first compiled computer programming language developed by Alick Glennie.
COBOL and FORTRAN are the languages referred to as Autocode

1957: FORTRAN
 Developed by John Backus and IBM
 Fortran is considered the first high-level language, designed for numeric computation and scientific
computing

1958: ALGOL
 ALGOL stands for ALGOrithmic Language.
 eg, C++, and JAVA.
 It was also the first language to implement the nested function and has a simple syntax than
FORTRAN.

1959: COBOL
  It stands for COmmon Business-Oriented Language.
 In 1997, 80% of the world’s business ran on Cobol.

1964: BASIC
 It stands for beginner’s All-purpose symbolic instruction code.
 In 1991 Microsoft released Visual Basic, an updated version of Basic
 The first microcomputer version of Basic was co-written by Bill Gates,

1972: C
 It is a general-purpose, procedural programming language and the most popular programming
language till date.
 All the code that was previously written in assembly language gets replaced by the C language.
 C is the mother of almost all higher-level programming languages like C#, D, Go, Java,
JavaScript, Limbo, LPC, Perl, PHP, Python, and Unix’s C shell.
Some other programming languages are: -
YEAR OF RELEASE PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES FACTS
1972 SQL SQL was developed at IBM by Donald D. Chamberlin and Raymond F. Boyce. The
earlier name was SEQUEL (Structured English Query Language).
1978 MATLAB It stands for MATrix LABoratory. It is used for matrix manipulation,
implementation of an algorithm, and creation of a user interface.
1983 Objective-C, C++
C++ is the fastest high-level programming language.
Earlier, Apple Inc uses Objective-C to make applications.
1991 Python The language is very easy to understand. Famous language among data scientists and
analysts.
1995 JAVA, PHP, JavaScript
JAVA is everywhere. JAVA is a platform-independent language.
PHP is a scripting language mainly used in web programming for connecting databases.
JavaScript enables interactive web pages. JS is the most popular programming language. JS is famous for
building a web application. It makes our page interactive.
2000 C# C#(C-sharp) is mainly used for making games. Unity engine uses C# for making amazing
games for all platforms
2009 GO GO language is developed in Google by Robert Griesemer, Rob Pike, and Ken
Thompson.
2011 Kotlin Kotlin is developed by JetBrains. It is used for making an android application.
2014 Swift Swift language is developed by Apple Inc. It is a general-purpose programming
language.