Java Illuminated, 5th Edition

1.4 Programming Languages

1.4.1 High- and Low-Level Languages

Programming languages can be categorized into three types:

• machine language

• assembly language

• high-level language

In the early days of computing, programmers often used machine language or assembly language. Machine language uses binary codes, or strings of 0s and 1s, to execute the instruction set of the CPU and to refer to memory addresses. This method of programming is extremely challenging and time consuming. Also, the code written in machine language is not portable to other computer architectures because each CPU has its own set of instructions. Machine language’s early popularity can be attributed largely to the fact that programmers had no other choices. However, programmers ...