High-Level Language

Abstract

All the programs we have written in the last six chapters have been in symbolic assembly language. Whilst assembly-level software is a quantum step up from pure machine-level code (see page 198) nevertheless there is still a one-to-one relationship between machine and assembly-level instructions. This means that the programmer is forced to think in terms of the MCU’s internal structure — that is of registers and memory — rather than in terms of the problem algorithm Although most assemblers have a macro facility, whereby several machine-level instructions can be grouped to form pseudo high-level instructions, this is only tinkering with the difficulty. What is this difficulty with machine-oriented language? In order to improve the effectiveness, quality and reusability of a program, the coding language should be independent of the underlying processor’s architecture and should have a syntax more oriented to problem-solving.