Difference between revisions of "Programming language"

Revision as of 05:43, 9 September 2015

A programming language is a formal constructed language designed to communicate instructions to a machine, particularly a computer.

(TO DO: expand, organize, cross-reference, illustrate.)

Description

Programming languages can be used to create programs to control the behavior of a machine or to express algorithms.

The earliest programming languages preceded the invention of the digital computer and were used to direct the behavior of machines such as Jacquard looms and player pianos.

Thousands of different programming languages have been created, mainly in the computer field, and many more still are being created every year.

Programming paradigms

Programming paradigms are broad categories of programming languages.

Imperative programming languages require computation to be specified in an imperative form (i.e., as a sequence of operations to perform).

Declarative programming languages specify the desired result is specified, not how to achieve it.

Various other paradigms exist.

Syntax and semantics

The description of a programming language is usually split into two components:

• Syntax (form)
• Semantics (meaning)

Documentation

Some languages are defined by a specification document (for example, the C programming language is specified by an ISO Standard), while other languages (such as Perl) have a dominant implementation that is treated as a reference.

See also

General topics

• Abstract syntax
• Abstract syntax tree
• Computation
• Computer
• Computer program
• Computer programming
• Data
• Information
• Processing (programming language)
• Programming language theory
• Programming paradigm
• Syntax (programming languages)

Partial list of programming languages

• Java (programming language)
• JavaScript
• LibreOffice Basic
• Python (programming language)
• Ruby (programming language)
• PHP

External links

• Programming language