Why do we study programming languages?

Answer 1

You really don't have to, the vast majority of computer users will never need to know any. Just like the vast majority of car drivers don't need to study auto mechanics. People that will never use a computer certainly have no need. However if you want to program computers, either for your own casual entertainment or for a job, that's why!

Answer 2

You really don't have to, the vast majority of computer users will never need to know any. Just like the vast majority of car drivers don't need to study auto mechanics. People that will never use a computer certainly have no need. However if you want to program computers, either for your own casual entertainment or for a job, that's why!

Answer 3

Programming languages make it much easier for humans to translate algorithms into machine code. Instead of writing the code in the machine's native language, which is both laborious and highly prone to human error, we use high-level symbolic languages that generate the machine code for us.

C++ is the most popular general purpose language in use today. Since its introduction in 1983 it has been improved significantly. the C++ compiler is capable of producing machine code that is at least as efficient as that of C and assembly language, but at a much higher level of abstraction. Although C++ is highly extensible through third-party libraries, and is being used in applications that were never envisioned during its initial development, there is no single language that can address every type of problem on every type of machine. With advances in hardware, languages have to evolve in order to take advantage of those features and thus produce better, more efficient machine code. However, there is also the need to develop high-level languages that don't require an engineering degree to use.

Programming languages such as Java make it possible for novice programmers to write application software against a virtual machine, a non-existent machine that only exists in the computer's memory, but one that is consistent across all implementations regardless of the underlying hardware configuration. This means that the same code will run on any machine, unlike C++ which must be specifically written to cater for different hardware configurations and compiled separately upon each platform. However, popular though Java is, it is not suitable for writing operating system software, device drivers or subsystems programming; the need for a virtual machine renders this type of programming impossible.

However, as languages develop and improve, perhaps one day we will have a single language that allows anyone, including non-programmers, the ability to intuitively program any type of machine, perhaps even verbally. Artificial Intelligence will be fundamental to such a language, however we're still a long way from producing an "intelligent" machine, thus we need to continually study programming languages to make them easier to use, as well as to cater for problems that have yet to be resolved.