Summary

You should now feel pretty comfortable describing a high-level language, and you probably know enough about Ruby, Python, and lua to be a source of interesting conversation at a local coffee house. You might be able to name a few predecessors of each language and have an idea of how each is related (check out the big family b-tree in Figure 1.4 to put this history in perspective). You should definitely understand what a scripting language, interpreter, and compiler are before you go onto the next section. If you can also pull facts about OOP and open source, give yourself an A and move on to Chapter 2.

Important points from this chapter:

Languages possess a syntax that defines the order, arrangement, and structure of the system of communication.
All computers CPUs have an internal machine language that they execute directly.
All data in a modern digital computer is stored as binary on and off states. The tools used to manipulate these on/off states are coded in a numerical representation, normally consisting of two pieces of information: operation codes and addresses.
Assembly language is one step higher than machine language and consists of numeric instructions for specific computer architecture.
High-level languages act as translators between programmers and low-level computer instructions and closely resemble everyday human language, making them much easier to learn than their low-level equivalents.
Interpreted languages translate code step-by-step during runtime.
Compiled languages translate code before a program is run in a process called compiling that turns written code into a runable executable or runable byte-code.
A scripting language is a high level language designed for "scripting" the operation of a computer.
High-level languages save human time, low-level languages save computer time.

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