In the modern world, information technology has become an important assistant in the daily life of a person. When we need to find some information, we already habitually take out a smartphone or sit down at a computer and clarify this information via the Internet using search engines and other services. Check the evolution of computer programming in the article below.
Programming languages and where are they used
The growth of the production of computer equipment, the development of information networks, the creation of new information technologies leads to significant changes in all spheres of society: in production, science, education, medicine, etc. Humanity learned to use the simplest devices for counting thousands of years ago.
The need to determine the number of items used in barter turned out to be the most necessary. One of the simplest solutions was the use of the weight equivalent of the exchanged items, which did not require an accurate calculation of the number of its components. For these purposes, the simplest balancing scales were used, which thus became one of the first devices for the quantitative determination of mass.
A special system by which data is organized in a program is a system of programming language types; the development and study of type systems is known as type theory. Languages can be classified as systems with static typing and languages with dynamic typing. The constructions of different programming languages, which are similar in content, differ mainly in the way they are written. That is, they have a similar content (semantics), but a different sequence of components (syntax) and different keywords (vocabulary).
The evolution of programming languages: its main generations
The result of programming is not abstract, but a very real existing product (application), and this undoubtedly brings programming closer to engineering. During the creation of a software product, in addition to the main goal – the implementation of the algorithm, it is often necessary to optimize the efficiency of its work. Mathematics, engineering and programming go hand in hand today. The evolution of programming languages led to the fact that the concept of an algorithmic language was replaced by the concept of a programming language, which further dissolved in the implementation environment (broadcast environment, execution system, set of standard libraries).
Since the creation of the first programmable machines, thousands of programming languages have been invented, and every year, their number is replenished with new ones. Some languages can be used only by a small number of their creators, and others become known to millions of people. In the development of programming languages, experts note five generations, which gradually improve their characteristics and become more and more accessible to the user:
- The languages of the first generation include machine-dependent languages.
- The second generation is characterized by the creation of assembly-type programming languages.
- The third generation begins with the appearance of the first high-level language for solving engineering, technical, and scientific tasks.
- The languages of the fourth generation are parallel programming languages, which, unlike all previously created tools, are primarily focused on the creation of system and application software for computing environments of non-traditional parallel architecture.
- Natural programming languages currently being developed will be the fifth generation and will allow a non-professional user to define the necessary procedures for processing information using language suggestions that are very close to natural and do not require special syntax.