What makes different programming languages “better” than others? Or more powerful? Why have different languages developed over time? Are they all based on the same thing?
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Programming languages for digital machines all function to abstract the programmer from machine code. Machine code is a program written in 1s and 0s, but all programs have to eventually be written in 1s and 0s because it’s what the computer can read. Programming languages have compilers or interpreters to turn what a programmer has written into 1s and 0s. This is useful because it’s a lot easier for a human to understand a program written in a programming language than a program written in machine code. This allows a programmer to write even more complex programs that would take a superhuman mind to program before by constantly having to interpret information from machine code. When people say a language is powerful, it means that you can do more with it. You’re able to write more complex programs in less time. Some of choosing a programming language is preference and some of it is compatibility. There a programming languages specifically made for designing websites, for example. Sometimes it’s better to work with a certain framework or library that a programming language has. Sometimes you want more control over memory, and sometimes you’d rather let the compiler handle the memory management even if it’s less efficient.
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