What is High Level Language?
Computer languages have a huge importance in the digital world. If you want to create anything such as an application, website, software, or game you need to write it using a coding language, which is most probably a high-level language because they are easier to use and understand by humans. In this article, we will understand what is a high-level language. Its types use, advantages and disadvantages
What is High-Level Language?
High-level languages are programming languages that are used for writing programs or software that can be understood by humans and computers. High-level languages are easier to understand for humans because they use a lot of symbols letters phrases to represent logic and instructions in a program. It contains a high level of abstraction compared to low-level languages.
Characteristics of High-Level Language
- Abstraction: High-level language is the language that hides the complex details of how computers work. This allows users to focus on what the program should do instead of how it will run on the machine or compiler.
- Human-Readable Syntsx: A program written in high-level language contains words and symbols that are easier to understand by humans. This allows users to read and write code in a very simple way.
- Portability: Programs written in a high-level language can be run on different types of computers without any changes. This means we can use the same code on various devices.
- Easy to Use: High-level languages are user-friendly, with clear commands and helpful tools that make writing, and testing code easier.
- Productivity: High-level languages are easy to use, and help programmers write code faster and build features more quickly.
- Automatic Memory Management: These languages take care of memory, so we don’t have to worry about allocating and freeing up memory manually.
- Enhanced Debugging and Error Handling: High-level languages come with tools that make finding and fixing mistakes in our code easier.
- Rich Standard Libraries: They include many pre-written pieces of code that help us handle common tasks, so you don’t have to start from scratch every time.
Examples of Some High-Level Languages
- Python: Used by programmers for various tasks, such as web development, data analysis, artificial intelligence, and scientific computing because it has a very simple syntax and is easy to learn and understand.
- Java: Java is known for its use on multiple platforms, it’s not as easy as Python but it’s used in mobile app development and web applications.
- C++: C++ is very popular and widely used because it has features of both low and high-level languages which makes it suitable for making complex software such as game engines, desktop applications, performance performance-critical applications.
- Ruby: Ruby is used for web development, and web applications it is known for its elegant syntax and awesome frameworks such as Rails.
- JavaScript: Javascript is used with HTML or other languages for making the web design interactive and dynamic. Its library helps create multipurpose web applications.
Execution of High-Level Languages
There are three ways in which high-level languages can be executed
Interpreted
In this there is a program called an interpreter, its task is to read the code written in high-level language understand the program flow, and execute it. It just executes it or performs instructions in it without compiling. This happens in the case of interpreted languages such as Python, Ruby, and JavaScript
Compiled Languages
This is a little different from interpreted languages, in this first the code is transformed into an executable code, in machine language. Two ways of compilation are there first is by machine code generation other is by Intermediate representation.
- Machine code generation- In this, the code is compiled by compilers into machine code then they are executed.
- In intermediate representation, the code is first, compiled to intermediate representation which is saved so that there is no need to read the source file again. When it’s saved it forms a byte code that can be executed by the machine.
some compiled languages are C, C++, and Java.
Transcompile Languages
This is also known as Source-to-source translation Because in this the source code of one language is converted into the source code of another programming language. This is done so that code can be used for multiple platforms. Some transcompile languages are TypeScript, CoffeeScript, etc.
Use of High-Level Language
- Web Development: Web development can be easily done using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript they are high-level languages because they are easy to understand and make web development easy to learn for everyone.
- Data Analysis: R and Python are the most popular languages for data analysis, data analysts use them to study large amounts of data due to different libraries and data manipulation capabilities.
- DBMS(Data Base Management System): It is a place where your data is stored and managed. Like if you create a website you need to store data somewhere such as files, coding, etc. So PHP and SQL are high-level languages that help us store and access data.
- Game Development: Nowadays gaming is getting popular, which makes it possible to build these complicated high-graphic games, with a lot of buttons, and accessibility. It is because of high-level languages that game development is possible.
High-Level Language vs Low-Level Language
| Feature | High-Level Language | Low-Level Language |
|---|---|---|
| Abstraction | High, abstracts hardware details | Low, close to hardware |
| Ease of Use | Easy to read, write, and understand | Difficult to read, write, and understand |
| Syntax | Human-readable, uses words and symbols | Machine or assembly code, uses binary or mnemonic codes |
| Portability | Highly portable, can run on different systems with minimal changes | Low portability, often specific to a type of hardware |
| Development Speed | Fast, due to easier syntax and higher abstraction | Slow, requires detailed management of hardware |
| Memory Management | Automatic (handled by the language) | Manual (handled by the programmer) |
| Control Over Hardware | Limited control over hardware specifics | High control over hardware specifics |
| Performance | Generally slower due to abstraction overhead | Generally faster due to direct hardware manipulation |
| Debugging and Testing | Easier, with advanced tools and error handling | Harder, with fewer tools and more manual effort |
| Examples | Python, Java, C++, Ruby | Assembly language, machine code |
Advantages of High-Level Languages
- The biggest advantage of using high-level languages is that they are easy to understand, remember, learn, write codes, to debug.
- There are different libraries available that can be used for development, many defined operators, data types, and frameworks also reduce the amount we need to write.
- They are portable to use, which means we can use their code for different platforms without much modification.
- It provides a higher level of abstraction, which means it hides the complexities of hardware from the programmer. You don’t need to know about hardware before writing a program.
Disadvantages of High-level Languages
- High-level languages are slower as compared to low-level languages because there is more level of abstraction with hardware so they require more processing and more memory for execution
- High-level languages have less control over hardware, because of the complexities of hardware for the programmer in high-level languages.
- For the maximum utilization of hardware or CPU in terms of performance low-level languages are best.
Conclusion
High-level languages significantly enhance developer productivity and code maintainability by providing a user-friendly syntax and abstracting hardware complexities. High-level languages are easy to use and very flexible, making them essential for modern software development. As technology advances, the role of high-level languages will continue to grow, simplifying the development process further.
Frequently Asked Questions on High-Level Language – FAQs
Are high-level languages suitable for hardware programming?
No, most low-level languages are used for better hardware programming because they have more control over hardware but high-level languages have many more layers of abstraction which makes them unsuitable.
What is meant by domain-specific high-level languages?
It means the language that can be used for each specific domain, for example, SQL can only be used for server management, we cannot use it for creating websites, or HTML can be used for web development not for developing desktop software.
What is the use of interpreters or compilers in high-level language?
The main task of compilers is to convert human-written code to machine language so that machines can execute the process. So, interpreters or compilers are used in a high-level language.