Why are there are so many high-level programming languages available today?

Answer 1

so computers would have more functionality

Answer 2

Programming languages are tools for solving problems or for getting computational jobs done. Each programming language can be described as one tool in the programmer's toolbox. Some tasks are large size (e.g. calculate salaries for all the employees of a large company). Some are small (e.g. sum the numbers from 1 to 10). One size does not fit all, so programming languages were created for specific purposes. Hardware and fashion also play a part.

Answer 3

There are probably several reasons for this fact.

1) Specialization. Each programming language has its unique strengths and weaknesses that make it more or less applicable for a particular kind of software. For example, C and C++ are great for systems programming and computationally intensive programs. Java and C# are great for web applications and applications with graphical user interfaces. Perl is great for quick ad hoc programs that need diverse capabilities.

2) Preferences. Despite the first point, there is a lot of overlap in the capabilities of programming languages yet people choose different programming languages because the like the style of it more than another comparable programming language. For example, a web application could be written in Java or PHP, but someone may choose PHP because they like that style better. A scientific program could be written in C++ or C#, but the decision could come down to personal preference.

3) Evolution. The field of computer science is still relatively young and so new programming languages are still being created all the time. Its probably safe to say that most programming languages ever created only ever saw very minimal use. Many programming languages were created to try a new idea out or find a new and better way to make programs. Many of these experimental languages have influenced mainstream programming languages even though they may not see regular use anymore. In fact, languages like Java and C# have successfully attempted to assimilate many previous experimental programming language features. Also, because programming languages are still evolving, there is still much software in use that was written 20 or 30 years ago and never rewritten creating the need to keep older programming languages around such as Fortran.

Answer 4

There are so many because we're always finding new and better ways to create machine code. That's the entire point of any programming language; to produce machine code. Writing code in terms the machine can understand is extremely difficult, so we use high-level languages to abstract away the machine-dependencies and thus write code that is much closer to the problem domain, in terms that are much easier for a human to both express and understand. The language translator (compiler or interpreter) converts the high-level abstractions into low-level machine code.

High-level languages cover every programming language that is neither a low-level assembly language or native machine code. However, the amount of abstraction varies considerably. At the lower end of the scale we have C which has the fewest abstractions of any high-level language. At the upper end of the scale we have the highly abstract languages, including Java, Basic and C#.

There is no single language that can solve every type of problem. General purpose languages such as C and C++ are intended to solve a wide range of problems using a combination of low-level and high-level abstractions. But they cannot solve every type problem; at least not as easily as we can with a language that is more specific to the problem domain. However, we can use C and C++ to create efficient language translators for any language, including languages that do not yet exist. So long as there are problems to solve there will always be the need to improve upon existing languages as well as creating new ones.

Of course some high-level languages are no longer used. Mostly this is down to fundamental changes in the hardware and it was often easier to develop a new language by modifying an existing language. For instance, Speedcode led to ALGOL 58, ALGOL 60, ALGOL 68, CPL, BCPL, B and finally C. Some of the earlier languages, particularly ALGOL, influenced many other languages, some of which are still in use today. However C was by far the most popular language hence many of the languages that came after it use some variation on the C-style syntax and grammar, including C++ (which was actually influenced by Simula rather than C), Java and even JavaScript.

Answer 5

it is for good purposes. Some computer languages are just the same but differs in use and improvements from the earlier languages.

Answer 6

because it evolves like humans they cant stop because we have a large set of programming languages. in which to find an appropriate to use so that's why we need so many high level languages

Answer 7

Mother your