Languages and Translators: Programming languages and Integrated Development Environments: Computer Science: GCSE (9:1)

High-Level Language

Programming language designed to make it easier for humans to understand and write computer programs, than using low-level languages. Examples include Python and C#.

Low-Level Language

Programming language which is a much closer representation to the instruction set of the processor. These include assembly language and machine code.

Source Code

Computer programs written in a high-level language, the computer cannot execute these

Assembly Language

A low-level language which uses mnemonics such as LDA, ADD to represent machine code instructions

Machine Code

A low-level language which the CPU can process directly, and consists of only binary codes which are very hard to write directly, to change and to debug

Mnemonic

A short abbreviation used in assembly language to represent a machine code instruction, such as STA, SUB, JMP

Compiler

A type of translator which converts a high-level language in to machine code all at once

Assembler

A type of translator which translates assembly language in to machine code

Translator

A program which converts source code into code which the processor can execute, this can be a compiler, interpreter or assembler

Interpreter

This translator converts a high-level language into machine code one line at a time and then executes it, it's slower but interpreted code is quicker to write and easier to update

Fast

Compiled code is ______, because the compiler creates machine code that runs directly on the CPU without further translation

Easy

Writing or changing a program in an interpreted language is _______ because you can run, edit and debug without re-compiling each time