Programming Language is a language used to give instructions to computers. Which means programs are created by programming language to control the behavior of a machine (computer) or to express algorithms.
Moreover, a substantial amount of programming is now done with special program development tools (e.g., Visual Basic), or in programming languages that pertain to specific pieces of software (e.g., Maple) rather than by simply writing instructions in a general-purpose language.
During the 1960s and 1970s, a huge variety of programming languages were developed, most of which
are no longer in wide use.
The following is a rough classification of programming languages.
1. General-purpose languages for large, complex programs:
C, C++, Pascal, Modula-2, Ada, Java, C#.
2. General-purpose languages for smaller programs:
BASIC, Visual Basic, Pascal, Python.
3. Mathematical calculation, science, and engineering:
FORTRAN, APL, Maple, and the general-purpose languages named above.
4. Business data processing:
COBOL, RPG. Where microcomputers are involved, BASIC, C, and languages associated with specific database products are also widely used.
5. Artificial intelligence and programs of extreme logical complexity:
Lisp and Prolog.
6. String handling and scripting:
SNOBOL, REXX, Awk, Perl, Python, VBSCRIPT, JavaScript.
Another useful classification is based on the way the program is organized.
1. Sequential languages
treat the program as a series of steps, with an occasional GOTO statement as a way of breaking out of the
sequence. In this category are FORTRAN, BASIC, and COBOL 381 programming language (though COBOL also allows programs to be written in a style more like a block-structured language).
2. Block-structured languages
encourage structured programming by allowing the programmer to group statements into functional units.
(See STRUCTURED PROGRAMMING.) This category originated with Algol and now includes Pascal, Modula-2, C, PL/I, and Ada.
3. Object-oriented languages
allow the programmer to define new data types and associate procedures with them. Languages of this type include C++, Java, C#, object-oriented extensions of Pascal, and Smalltalk.
4. Symbolic languages
allow the program to examine and modify itself, treating instructions as data. Lisp and Prolog fall into this category.