M1: History of Programming Languages

Significant steps in evolution of programming languages

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Terms in this set (64)

Significant steps in evolution of programming languages

1. Machine-Level Language
2. High-Level Imperative Language
3. Structured-Imperative Language
4. Declarative Language
5. Object-Oriented Language

Machine-Level Language

unstructured imperative language

least abstract

no nesting
each line has at most one operator

control flow via conditional or unconditional goto like instructions

all higher-level languages must eventually be translated to

closest to hardware

Ex of Machine-Level Languages

Machine Language
Assembly Language

Machine Language

pure binary numeric code

Assembly Language

symbolic equivalent to machine language

Nesting occurred via two historical events

Higher-Level Imperative Language

Structured Imperative Language

Higher-Level Imperative Language

FORTRAN introduced nested expressions representing mathematical formulas

-no nesting in FORTRAN prior

Structured Imperative Language

ALGOL allowed fully nested statements

- program without goto-statements

-goto statements were not removed until 1998 (30 years)

Declarative Language

define the program

most abstract

rely on recursion and higher-order functions