In some ways, a computer programming language is like a spoken language. We use both to communicate. Only people who know your language can understand you when you speak it. You could make up your own language, but you would find that no one but you would know what you were saying. A programming language is used to speak to the computer hardware. Commands are the words of the language and the computer has to know these words in order to understand what procedures need to be executed.HTML is a common language used for the base of a web page. An Assembly Language is based on the code that the chips understand.
The three main classes for programming languages are high level, low level, and markup languages. A high level language is one based on full control of the system and its operations. A low level language uses its code to pass through the operating system. It does not control the hardware or any system operations directly. A markup language uses an interpreter to understand and work with very simple commands.
The next big distinction in how a program is built is if it is compiled or interpreted. A language that is compiled creates a finished file that works with the original source code to have something that is ready to run. An interpreted program takes the original source code and executes it one line at a time. An interpreter can be hard to work with and take longer.
There are many computer languages that are used on a varity of platforms. These are some common programming languages:
Basic
COBOL
Cobra
FORTRAN
Java script
Perl
Shell scripts
XML
You can get more information on Java, J++, Java script and other languages at:http://www.developer.com, http://www.htmlgoodies.com/javagoodies, and http://www.hotwired.com/webmonkey.
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