Introduction to Computer Programming | What is it? Programming Language Types

Summary

This video script provides a comprehensive introduction to computer programming and the different types of programming languages. It begins by explaining what a computer is and how it requires instructions, called programs, to perform tasks. The script then delves into the various levels of programming languages, starting with machine-level languages that use binary code, progressing to assembly-level languages with mnemonic codes, and finally exploring high-level languages that are more human-readable. The concepts of compilers and interpreters, which convert high-level languages into machine-readable code, are also discussed. Overall, the script aims to provide a solid foundation for understanding the fundamental principles of programming languages and how they enable communication with computers.

Takeaways

• 😀 A computer is a general-purpose machine that performs computational tasks by following programmed instructions (programs) written by programmers.
• 🤖 Computers can only understand binary language (0s and 1s) at the hardware level, which is known as machine language.
• 📝 Machine-level programming is difficult and requires extensive knowledge of computer architecture and hardware.
• 📖 Assembly-level programming uses mnemonic codes instead of binary, making it more human-readable but still architecture-dependent.
• 💻 High-level programming languages (e.g., Java, Python) are designed to be more user-friendly and closer to human language.
• 🔄 High-level programs need to be converted to machine language using compilers (compilation method) or interpreters (interpretation method).
• ⚡ Compiled languages (e.g., C, C++) convert the entire program to machine code before execution, while interpreted languages (e.g., Python) convert and execute line by line.
• 🌐 Middle-level languages (e.g., C, C++) allow programmers to access computer memory and data directly, combining features of high-level and low-level languages.
• 🏃‍♀️ Machine language executes the fastest, followed by assembly language, and then high-level languages.
• 🧠 High-level languages are easier to learn and allow more people to write programs, leading to the creation of numerous applications.

Q & A

What is a computer?

A computer is a general-purpose machine capable of performing many computational tasks, including billions or trillions of calculations within a fraction of a second.

Why do computers need programs?

Computers require programs to perform tasks because they cannot do anything on their own. Programs contain step-by-step instructions for the computer to execute a specific task.

What is the role of a programmer?

A programmer writes the instructions or programs that a computer follows to perform specific tasks.

What are system programs?

System programs manage the computer hardware resources.

What are application programs?

Application programs provide specific functionality to users, such as word processing, web browsing, and media playback.

What is a programming language?

A programming language is a set of instructions written in a specific syntax that a computer can understand and execute to perform tasks.

What is binary language?

Binary language is the basic language of computers, consisting only of 0s and 1s. Computers interpret these binary signals to perform operations.

What are the types of programming languages?

Programming languages are categorized into machine level languages, assembly level languages, high level languages, and middle level languages.

What is the difference between compiled and interpreted languages?

Compiled languages are converted entirely from the source code into machine language by a compiler before execution. Interpreted languages are translated and executed line by line at runtime by an interpreter.

What are examples of high-level, compiled, and interpreted programming languages?

High-level languages include Java, C#, and Python. Examples of compiled languages are C and C++. Python is an example of an interpreted language.

Outlines

00:00

👨‍💻 Introduction to Computers, Programming, and Programming Languages

This paragraph introduces the concept of computers, their computational capabilities, and the need for programs and programmers to provide instructions for performing specific tasks. It explains that computers contain system programs for managing hardware resources and application programs for providing user functionality. It also highlights the importance of programming languages as a means of communicating with computers.

05:07

🗣️ Communication with Computers: Binary and Machine Language

This paragraph discusses the binary language (0s and 1s) that computers understand at the hardware level. It explains why computers are built to recognize patterns of 0s and 1s (machine language) and how specific operations are defined for each pattern. It introduces the concept of machine-level language, where instructions are represented as combinations of 0s and 1s.

10:13

⬆️ From Lower to Higher-Level Programming Languages

This paragraph explores the evolution of programming languages, starting from machine-level language and assembly-level language (which uses mnemonic codes instead of 0s and 1s). It then introduces higher-level languages, which are more human-readable and easier to learn. The paragraph also discusses the need for compilers and interpreters to convert high-level language code into machine language for execution by computers. It briefly mentions middle-level languages like C and C++, which allow direct memory access and data manipulation.

15:17

✅ Compilation vs. Interpretation: Executing High-Level Language Code

This paragraph delves into the two methods of executing high-level language code: compilation and interpretation. It explains the compilation process, where a compiler converts the entire high-level language program into machine language before execution. It then describes the interpretation process, where an interpreter reads and converts each line of the high-level language program into machine language, executing it immediately. The paragraph also distinguishes between compiled languages (e.g., C, C++) and interpreted languages (e.g., Python).

Keywords

💡Computer Programming

Computer programming is the process of designing and building an executable computer program to accomplish a specific computing result. In the video, it's described as writing step-by-step instructions for the computer to perform a task. These instructions, known as a program, enable the computer to execute various tasks, from simple calculations to complex operations like running applications.

💡Programming Languages

Programming languages are formal languages comprising a set of instructions that produce various kinds of output. They are used in computer programming to implement algorithms. The video emphasizes the importance of programming languages as the medium through which humans communicate instructions to computers. It further explores different types of programming languages, highlighting their roles and applications.

💡Binary Language

Binary language, consisting of only 0s and 1s, represents the most fundamental level of communication with a computer. The video explains how computers are built to understand this binary language, enabling them to perform operations based on the binary patterns they receive. This concept underscores the foundational role of binary language in computing and programming.

💡Machine Level Language

Machine level language, also known as machine code, is the lowest level of programming language, directly understood by the computer's hardware. The video highlights the challenges of using machine level language, such as the need for detailed knowledge of the computer's architecture and the difficulty in writing and debugging programs due to its binary nature.

💡Assembly Level Language

Assembly level language is a step above machine code, providing a more readable form of programming using mnemonic codes. The video discusses assembly language as a bridge between machine code and high-level languages, offering a more human-readable format but still requiring a conversion process (assembling) to machine code for execution.

💡High Level Languages

High level languages are programming languages that are more abstracted from the hardware, designed to be easy for humans to read and write. The video describes these languages as closer to human language, making programming more accessible to a wider range of people. Examples include Python, Java, and C++.

💡Compiler

A compiler is a program that translates code written in a high-level programming language into machine code. The video explains the compilation process, where the compiler converts the entire program at once, allowing the computer to execute it. This is contrasted with interpretation, highlighting the different approaches to running high-level code on computers.

💡Interpreter

An interpreter directly executes instructions written in a programming or scripting language without previously converting them to machine code. The video outlines the interpretation method, where the interpreter processes and executes each line of code sequentially. This approach allows for immediate execution but can be slower than compiled languages.

💡Middle Level Languages

Middle level languages, such as C and C++, offer a balance between low-level hardware control and high-level abstraction. The video mentions these languages as providing the features of high-level languages while still allowing programmers to manipulate memory and data directly, similar to lower-level languages.

💡System Programs vs Application Programs

The video differentiates between system programs, which manage computer hardware resources, and application programs, which provide specific functionality to users, like web browsers and media players. This distinction highlights the diverse range of software developed through programming to fulfill various computational tasks and user needs.

Highlights

A computer is a general purpose machine that can perform many computational tasks and billions or trillions of calculations within a fraction of second.

For a computer to do something, one has to give it instructions, which are called a program.

The person who writes the instructions or program is called a programmer.

System programs manage computer hardware resources, while application programs provide specific functionality to the user, such as Notepad, web browsers, music players, and video players.

The language in which instructions are written is called a programming language.

Computers can only understand binary language, which has two values: 0 and 1.

The binary language is easy to create at the hardware level, which is why computers are built to understand it.

The first type of programming language is the machine level language, which consists of instructions in the form of 0s and 1s.

The problem with machine level language is that one needs to know everything about the computer to program in it, making it difficult to learn.

Assembly level language uses mnemonic or symbolic codes instead of 0s and 1s, making it more human-readable and easier to code than machine level language.

Code written in assembly level language needs to be converted to machine level language using a program called an assembler.

High-level languages are designed to be easy for beginners to learn and are close to human-readable language.

Programs written in high-level languages need to be converted to machine level language using either a compiler or an interpreter.

The compilation method converts the entire high-level language program to machine language before execution.

The interpretation method converts and executes each line of the high-level language program immediately, one line at a time.

Transcripts

Hi this is Anil from learning lad and in this video we are going to talk about the

computer, computer programming and the types of programming languages.

A computer is a general purpose machines which can perform many computational task now the

modern day computers that we have they can perform billions or trillions of calculations

within a fraction of second. now the thing these computer's they can't really do anything

on their own. so for a computer to do something one has to give the instructions to it and

these instructions will contain step by step information to perform a specific task and

these instructions are called as program. now the person who is going to write these

instructions or the program is called as the programmer and here the programmer will write

instructions or the program and the computer will execute that or computer will work on

that instructions

now the computers that we have they contain a lot of programs in them. There are some

programs which will manage the computer hardware resources and they are called as the system

programs and there are some programs which will provide specific functionality to a user

for example the Notepad web browser music player video player and all these types of

programs are called as the application programs.

now we know that we need to give instructions to the computer so that the computer can work

on it now the thing is how we can give the instruction to the computer or in which language

we can give the instructions to the computer. Now since this computer is a machine how we

can communicate with this machine.

now the language in which these instructions are written or the language in which this

program is written is called as the programming language. now there are several types of programming

languages and we are going to see the details about them.

now you guys may probably heard that the computers can only understand the binary language. Now

this binary language has only two values. 0 and 1 so in this binary language whatever

you want to say has to be in the form of this 0 and 1. now here these computer's are built

in such a way that they can understand or they can recognise the pattern of the zeros

and ones and then they can work on it accordingly.

Now why we have built the computers to understand this binary language?

that is because this binary language which has only two values is easy to create in the

hardware level for example if we have a wire and if the current is flowing through this

wire then we can say it is 1 if the current is not flowing then we can say it is zero.

so in general we can say that one stands for something which exists and zero stands for

something which doesn't exist so since this binary language is easy to create in the hardware

level so the computer is built in the hardware level to recognise this pattern of 0 and 1

and while building the computer for a specific pattern of 0 and 1 a specific setup operations

are defined.

so when the computer will see a specific pattern of 0 and 1 it knows what it has to do. so

now the computers can understand this binary language and this binary language with the

computers understand are also called as the machine language.

now let's see the types of programming languages available. now in this modern day we have

a lot of programming languages available. so let's take a look at the types of programming

languages. so the first type of programming language

or the language in which we can communicate with the computer is the language which the

computer understands. now all of you know that this computer's can understand this binary

language or the machine language which is the combination of zeros and ones.

so the first type of programming languages is the machine level language And in this

machine level language we have the instructions in the form of 0 and 1.

so whatever you want to say has to be in the form of zero and one and since the computers

are built in such a way that they can recognise this zeros and ones and perform some specific

operation on that the combination of zeros and ones you know we can communicate with

his computer in this language.

now the problem with this machine level language is in order to program in this machine level

language one has to know everything about the computer. so here the programmer is directly

dealing with the hardware level so he is directly working on the memory and the data.

so the programeer needs to know everything about the computer, computer processor the

computer architecture everything about that he has to know and that's why this machine

level language is a bit difficult to learn and also think about this let's say you want

to write a program in the machine level language or you want to give instructions to the computer

in the machine level language and your program consists of thousand lines. all your instruction

will contain this 0 and 1 and this combination of the zeros and ones. first of all it is

difficult to write the program and also if you make some mistakes in your program then

it is difficult to spot and because of all these, a normal guy can't really learn the

programming easily.

so to solve these kind of problems another type of programming languages were invented

and they are called as the Assembly level language.

in this assembly level language instead of that zeros and ones combination mnemonic the

symbolic codes were introduced for example if the programmer has to write an instruction

let's say he wants to add the numbers 5 and 6.

then in the machine level language it has to be in the form of this zeros and ones.

so let's say this is gonna be the instruction to add the numbers 5 and 6.

so in the machine level language it will look like this but in the Assembly level language

mnemonic codes for used and the programmer could write ADD 5 6.

So a lot of mnemonic or the symbolic codes where used and the programmer could write

the program in this way. so it was a lot more human readable format

the programmer can understand the code just by looking at it and it was a lot easier to

code than the machine level language.

so now the thing is the source code of the program written in this assembly level language

by using this mnemonic or the symbol Codes cannot be directly executed in this computer

that is because this computer can only understand the machine language.

so what we have to do is we have to convert the code which is written in the Assembly

level language to machine level language so that the computer can understand it and execute

it. so the program written in the Assembly level

language needs to be converted to the machine level language and to convert that a program

was used and that program is called as the assembler.

so this assembler will convert the code written in the Assembly level language to machine

level language. now this assembly level language was lot more

easy to learn and someone can learn the programming a lot more easily than the machine level language

but this assembly level language also had the same difficulties.

although it was a lot easy to write the programs than the machine level language in assembly

level language if the program size increases then again it is difficult to spot the errors

and also the code written in the Assembly level language was also Computer Architecture

dependent.

so the code return for one type of computer cannot be executed in another type of computer

which has different architecture so again to solve these kind of problems a new types

of languages by invented so that a lot more people can come and write the programs and

that type of programming languages are called as the Higher level languages.

the high level languages are designed in such a way that they are very easy for a beginner

to learn and they were very close to the human readable language for example in this higher

level language one could write the instruction to add 5 and 6 like this.

so this 5 + 6 is a lot more similar to the human language so just by looking at the code

one can understand what we're trying to do and since this higher level languages where

a lot more easy to learn many people started learning computer programming and started

creating lot more programs.

now again the thing is the program written in the higher level language cannot be directly

executed in the computer that is because the computer can only understand the machine language

which can contain 0 and 1 but the higher level language is very close to the human languages.

so we have to convert the program which is written in the high level language to machine

language which the computers can understand and execute. so for this high level languages

there are two ways in which we can convert the source code from high level language to

machine level language and execute it and the two methods which were used to convert

the high level language program to machine level language one was the compilation method

where a program called compiler was used.

this is the compilation method another method is called as the interpretation and for this

interpretation method another type of program called as interpreter was used and we will

see the details of this compilation and interpretation method a bit later but here just remember

that although these are two different methods what they do is they convert the program which

is written in the high level language to machine level language which the computers can understand

and execute.

now here this machine level language and the Assembly level language they are called as

the lower level languages. because while writing the programs in this

machine and assembly level language the programmers could easily access the computer memory and

directly work with the data. but with the most of this high level languages the programmers

can't directly access the memory and the work with data.

but there are some languages in the high level language type which allow the programmer to

work with the Computer memory and the data and they are called as the middle level languages

and this middle level languages they provide all the features of the higher level languages

and also they allow the programmer to work with the Computer memory and data directly

and since this languages provide the feature of the lower level language and also the high

level language they are called as the middle level languages and we have the languages

like C and C plus plus are these are all the middle level languages because allow the programmer

to work with the Computer memory and data and also they provide all the features of

this high level language and in the high level languages we have Java C Sharp python etc.

this machine level language which is very close to the machine or you know this language

the computer directly understands, it executes much faster than all these languages.

so the execution speed of this machine language is very high and after this machine level

language we have the Assembly languages and their execution speed is better than the high

level languages but a bit slower than the machine level language and then we have the

high level languages.

so now as I said before in this high level languages we can convert the code from higher

level language to machine code in two different ways one is the compilation method another

one is interpretation method.

let's see this compilation and interpretation method in detail.

so first see the compilation. so in the compilation method a program called

compiler is used and this compiler Will take the high level language program and it will

convert that to the machine language and this process is called as the compilation method

and here what happens is this compiler will read the high level language program let's

say this is high level language program it will read this program and it will convert

that to the machine language. it will convert this entire program into machine language

and then this machine language code will be executed.

so the thing is compiler will convert entire program which is written in the high level

language to machine level language and then that machine level language code will be executed.

now let's take a look at this interpretation method so here also we will be converting

the program written in the high level language to the machine level language and then executing

that. and for that purpose we will be using a program called as the interpreter and this

process is called as the interpretation.

so the process of converting the high level language program to machine language by using

the program interpreter is called as the interpretation method now here what happens is lets say this

is the source code or the programs written in the high level language and this interpreter

what it does is first it will read the first line of this source code or the program which

is in the high level language and then it will convert that to the machine code and

then it will execute it immediately and after that it will go to the next line of the high

level language program it will read that it will convert that code and then it will execute

it immediately and then it will go to the third line and then again it will convert

that code and then it will execute it.

so in the compilation process the entire program which was written in the high level language

was read first then it was converted to machine level language and then that entire program

was executed at once but with the interpretation method the interpreter will read the program

which is in the high level language line by line it and it will convert and execute each

line immediately at a time. and this is how the compiler and interpreter work.

now there are many languages in the high level language type and in that languages some follow

the compilation method and some follow the interpretation method.

the languages which follow the compilation method are called as the compiled languages

and for example we have C C + + etc these are all the compiled languages where the compilation

method is used to convert the program iwhich is written in these languages to the machine

language and the higher level languages which follow the interpretation method are called

as the interpreted languages for example we have Python and this Python is an interpreted

language.

All right. this is it guys this is about the computers computer programming types of programming

languages compilation and the interpretation method and I really hope that you have learn

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