Abstract
Programming languages are used to describe algorithms, i.e. sequences of steps that lead to the solution of problems. Programming languages are broadly classified into two groups: low-level languages and high-level languages. Low-level languages are close to machine languages. They demonstrate a strong correspondence between the operations implemented by the language and the operations implemented by the underlying hardware. High-level languages in contrast are closer to human languages. Each statement in a high-level language will be equivalent to many statements of a low-level language. The key advantage offered by high-level languages is therefore abstraction. As the level of abstraction increases the programmer needs to be less and less concerned about the hardware on which a program runs and more and more concerned with the problems of the application. Hence, the trend has been to build more and more abstraction into programming languages.
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Bibliography
Kernighan B.W. and Plauger P.J. (1976). Software Tools. Addison-Wesley, Reading, Mass.
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© 1998 P. Beynon-Davies
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Beynon-Davies, P. (1998). Structured Programming Languages. In: Information Systems Development. Macmillan Computer Science Series. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-14931-5_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-14931-5_8
Publisher Name: Palgrave, London
Print ISBN: 978-0-333-74481-9
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-14931-5
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