5. High level language

Assembly language is only one step up from Machine Code - it is a bit easier to use, but it is still difficult to see what each part of programme is meant to be doing.

For example have a look at this set of Assembly Language instructions that may be a small part of a computer programme:

ADD A,B

MOV B,C

LDA C

It is still hard to understand what the program is meant to be doing overall. Plenty of comments within the program help but things could be easier.

This is where 'High Level Languages' come in. A high level language is designed to have all the handy things that a programmer needs to write code quickly and correctly. It has commands such as PRINT, GOTO, IF

IF Time = 3pm THEN

PRINT MyPaper.doc

GOTO END

A high level language is far easier to write than Assembly Language. It is also easier to fix because it is more obvious when a mistake has been made.

Advantages of high level languages:

Easier to understand what the program is meant to be doing
Easier to fix (debug) mistakes
Has commands such as "Print" to cut down on the amount of code that has to be written.
Independent of the computer it needs to run on

A high level language has to be translated into Machine Code. This is the job of a program called the 'Compiler'. The next page explains more.

Challenge see if you can find out one extra fact on this topic that we haven't already told you

Click on this link: High Level Programming Language

Examples of high level languages
Name of language	About
BASIC	A good language to learn programming as it contains most of the main commands used in all other languages. (Can be a bit slow to run though)
C++	Used by professionals to create all kinds of applications. Takes a lot of effort to learn well.
FORTRAN	Engineers and scientists love to use this language because it has some very powerful mathematical commands
JAVA	Very popular with programmers designing for the Internet.
HTML	This is the most popular code used to create Web sites. Strictly speaking this is not a computer language as the CPU does not run the code directly. A web browser interprets the commands to create the web page being viewed.