Why are there so many programming languages?
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The major split being: The *lower level* the language is, the closer it is to the actual hardware and more efficient it is when you run it. The *higher level* it is, the closer it is to human language. How ever higher the level of language more work there is to turn it in to commands that are in low level, which are the kind that the OS and hardware actually understand and use. It means the language is slower and less efficient, however easier for humans to work with.
After this the languages really split in to having different properties that the coder might want or need to utilise. These can range from mathematical functions or structures. Sometimes you might need different languages working together to achieve what you want. Granted… All languages will end up to the lowest form of language, raw binary, because this is how our computers work.
You could actually do everything you need at the lowest level of language if you wanted to. However just as every engineer knows, or should know, there is no point making a part that you can buy off the shelf. Languages have libraries that are filled with functions and structures you can call. Instead of using raw and simple C and by hand coding what is required to flip an array of text like “abcd” by using just one byte of memory. You load in a library which has functions to work with strings and can do this with a single function that you can call. In a really high language you could just write: “*Take the string and flip it*” and the compiler knows what you want and makes the code accordingly.
Now different languages are on different levels, and have different properties. Each having a trade off in functionality, ease of use and efficiency. Although with better and better hardware, more and more storage and memory, you can use language that is less efficient.
Back in the day of first proper programmable languages, you had to work in binary, and even then you had a very limited range of actions you could do. Only things you had to work with were basically: addition; subtraction; Increment; decrement; and basic logic of And/ Or/ Xor. Now basically everything could be done with this, just painfully slowly and in a complex manner. You just have to consider that 3×2 = 2+2+2.
However there are lots of language which are a person or group of them, that thought that they can do something better and make a more functional standard that is just going to be better. Which end up being a mix of different languages, functions, or work in a syntax or logic that they considered better. But the main division of languages are trading efficiency, functions and human understandability.
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