programing class ch2

Fifteen Q&A flashcards summarizing pivotal developments, features, and contributions of major programming languages covered in Chapter 2.

When was Zuse’s Plankalkül designed, and why is it historically significant?

It was designed in 1945 (but not published until 1972) and is notable for never being implemented yet featuring advanced data structures such as floating-point numbers, arrays, and records.

Give two major drawbacks of writing programs directly in machine code that led to the invention of pseudocodes.

Machine code had poor readability and poor modifiability (coding expressions was tedious and machines lacked indexing/floating-point support).

Which IBM machine’s hardware features inspired the creation of Fortran I, and what were those features?

The IBM 704, whose index registers and built-in floating-point hardware encouraged a compiled high-level language instead of interpretation.

List three important features found in Fortran I (1957).

Post-test counting loop (DO), formatted input/output, and user-defined subprograms (also arithmetic IF and six-character identifiers).

Which Fortran revision introduced modules, dynamic arrays, and pointers?

Fortran 90.

What are the only two fundamental data types in the original Lisp language?

Atoms and lists.

Name one landmark contribution of ALGOL 60 to programming language technology.

It introduced block structure that gave local scope (also the first formal BNF syntax and machine independence).

What was a key design goal of COBOL and what pioneering facility did it introduce?

To read like simple English for business users; it introduced the first macro facility in a high-level language.

What paradigm-shifting features did SIMULA 67 contribute to programming?

It pioneered object-oriented concepts with classes, objects, inheritance, and also introduced coroutines.

Explain the concept of orthogonality in ALGOL 68 and give one feature the language added.

Orthogonality means a few basic concepts combined uniformly; ALGOL 68 added features like user-defined data structures, reference types, and flex (dynamic) arrays.

For what audience and environment was BASIC originally created?

It was designed for non-science students to be easy and friendly on time-sharing systems, emphasizing fast turnaround for homework.

How does Prolog’s programming model differ from imperative languages?

Prolog is based on formal logic, is non-procedural, and answers queries through an inference engine rather than explicit control flow.

State two innovations introduced by PL/I.

It provided the first unit-level concurrency and the first built-in exception handling (also first pointer type and array cross sections).

Give two ways Java improved safety and portability over C++.

It removed unsafe features such as pointer arithmetic and unions, and achieves portability through the Java Virtual Machine with JIT compilation.

What is the flagship .NET language released in 2000, and name two languages that influenced its design.

C#; it was influenced by C++, Java, and Delphi.