1.4 Machine Language, Assembly, and High-Level Language

Programming Languages

Instructions written by programmers that can be understood by computers, divided into machine, assembly, and high-level languages.

Machine Languages

The lowest level of programming language, consisting of binary code that a computer's hardware can directly understand.

Assembly Languages

A type of programming language that uses English-like abbreviations to represent machine language instructions, requiring translation by assemblers.

Assemblers

Translator programs that convert assembly language code into machine language for execution by computers.

High-Level Languages

Programming languages that allow for writing instructions in a more human-readable form, often resembling everyday English.

Compilers

Programs that translate high-level language source code into machine language, enabling execution by computers.

Source Code

The collection of statements written in a high-level programming language that defines a program's functionality.

Interpreters

Programs that execute high-level language code directly without the need for prior compilation, though they may run slower than compiled programs.

CPython

The most widely used implementation of Python, which combines compilation and interpretation to execute programs efficiently.

Program Efficiency

The comparison of execution speed between compiled programs and interpreted programs, with compiled programs generally being faster.