A third-generation programming language (3GL) is a refinement of a second-generation programming language. The second generation of programming languages brought logical structure to software. The third generation brought refinements to make the languages more programmer-friendly. This includes features like good support for aggregate data types, and expressing concepts in a way that favors the programmer, not the computer (e.g. no longer needing to state the length of multi-character (string) literals in Fortran). A third generation language improves over a second generation language by having the computer take care of non-essential details, not the programmer. High level language is a synonym for third-generation programming language.
First introduced in the late 1950s, Fortran, ALGOL and COBOL are early examples of this sort of language.
Most "modern" languages (BASIC, C, C++, C#, Pascal, and Java) are also third-generation languages.
Most 3GLs support structured programming.
See also
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