Classification Of High Level Programming Languages

The High Level Language is basically classified into 3 types namely:

1. Procedural Language
2. Functional Language
3. Object Oriented Language

Procedural Language:

The most common high-level languages today are procedure-oriented languages. In these languages, one or more related blocks of statements that perform some complete function are grouped together into a program module, or procedure, & given a name such as “Procedure A.” If the same sequence of operations is needed elsewhere in the program, a simple statement can be used to refer back to the procedure. In essence, a procedure is just a mini-program. A large program can be constructed by grouping together procedures that perform different tasks.

Procedural languages allow programs to be shorter and easier for the computer to read, but they require the programmer to design each procedure to be general enough to be used in different situations.

Functional Language:

Functional languages treat procedures like mathematical functions and allow them to be processed like any other data in a program. This allows a much higher and more rigorous level of program construction. Functional languages also allow variables—symbols for data that can be specified and changed by the user as the program is running—to be given values only once. This simplifies programming by reducing the need to be concerned with the exact order of statement execution, since a variable does not have to be redeclared, or restated, each time it is used in a program statement. Many of the ideas from functional languages have become key parts of many modern procedural languages.

Object Oriented Language:

Object-oriented languages are outgrowths of functional languages. In object-oriented languages, the code used to write the program and the data processed by the program are grouped together into units called objects. Objects are further grouped into classes, which define the attributes objects must have.

A simple example of a class is the class Book.

Objects within this class might be Novel and Short Story. Objects also have certain functions associated with them, called methods. The computer accesses an object through the use of one of the object’s methods. The method performs some action to the data in the object and returns this value to the computer. Classes of objects can also be further grouped into hierarchies, in which objects of one class can inherit methods from another class. The structure provided in object-oriented languages makes them very useful for complicated programming tasks.

Logic Language:

There's also one more classification called as Logic Language.Logic languages use logic as their mathematical base. A logic program consists of sets of facts and if-then rules, which specify how one set of facts may be deduced from others, for example:If the statement X is true, then the statement Y is false.In the execution of such a program, an input statement can be logically deduced from other statements in the program. Many artificial intelligence programs are written in such languages.

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