Test Your Programming Language Knowledge

Programming Languages: A Brief Overview

• Programming languages are systems of notation for writing computer programs.

• Programming languages are usually split into syntax (form) and semantics (meaning).

• Some languages are defined by a specification document while others have a dominant implementation that is treated as a reference.

• Programming language theory studies the design, implementation, analysis, characterization, and classification of programming languages.

• Programming languages differ from natural languages in that they allow humans to communicate instructions to machines.

• Programming languages usually contain abstractions for defining and manipulating data structures or controlling the flow of execution.

• Early computers were programmed without the help of a stored program, by modifying their circuitry or setting banks of physical controls.

• High-level programming languages were developed in the 1950s.

• The period from the 1960s to the late 1970s brought the development of the major language paradigms now in use.

• The 1980s were years of relative consolidation, and the functional languages community moved to standardize ML and Lisp.

• Programming language evolution continues, in both industry and research.

• Programming languages have syntax and semantics, and their semantics define how and when program constructs should produce a program behavior.Overview of Programming Languages

• Programming languages are used to write computer programs and have syntactic form separate from their semantics.

• A type system defines how a programming language classifies values and expressions into types, and how they interact.

• Typed languages define types of data to which an operation is applicable; untyped languages allow any operation to be performed on any data.

• Static typing determines types prior to execution, while dynamic typing determines type-safety at runtime.

• Weak typing allows a value of one type to be treated as another, while strong typing prevents program faults.

• A language's core library is conventionally made available by all implementations of the language.

• Programming languages have been designed from scratch, altered to meet new needs, and combined with other languages.

• A programming language specification is an artifact that the language users and the implementors can use to agree upon whether a piece of source code is a valid program in that language.

• An implementation of a programming language provides a way to write programs in that language and execute them on one or more configurations of hardware and software.

• Proprietary programming languages are commonly domain-specific languages or internal scripting languages for a single product.

• A programming language provides a structured mechanism for defining pieces of data and operations on that data.

• Determining which is the most widely used programming language is difficult, and various methods of measuring language popularity have been proposed.Overview of Programming Languages

• Programming languages can be divided into dialects, flavors, and implementations that don't change the intrinsic nature of the language.

• There is no overarching classification scheme for programming languages, and a given programming language usually has multiple predecessor languages.

• Languages can be classified by programming paradigm and intended domain of use, with general-purpose programming languages distinguished from domain-specific programming languages.

• Programming paradigms include imperative programming, declarative programming, procedural programming, object-oriented programming, functional programming, and logic programming.

• Programming languages can also be classified by their purpose, such as general-purpose, system programming languages, scripting languages, domain-specific languages, or concurrent/distributed languages.

• Some general-purpose languages were designed largely with educational goals.

• A programming language may also be classified by factors unrelated to the programming paradigm, such as whether it uses English language keywords or is deliberately esoteric.

• Lisp dialects are considered to be those languages that use basic S-expression syntax and Lisp-like semantics.

• It can be difficult for an inexperienced programmer to find the right documentation for a programming language with several dialects.

• Java is both an object-oriented and concurrent language, while Python is an object-oriented scripting language.

• A dialect of a programming language or a data exchange language is a variation or extension of the language that does not change its intrinsic nature.

• Implementors may deviate from the standard to make a new dialect if they consider the standards insufficient, inadequate, or illegitimate.