High-level programming language

A high-level programming language is a programming language with strong abstraction from the
details of the computer. In contrast to low-level programming languages, it may use natural language
elements, be easier to use, or may automate (or even hide entirely) significant areas of computing systems
(e.g. memory management), making the process of developing a program simpler and more
understandable than when using a lower-level language. The amount of abstraction provided defines how
"high-level" a programming language is.[1]

In the 1960s, a high-level programming language using a compiler was commonly called an autocode.[2]
Examples of autocodes are COBOL and Fortran.[3]

The first high-level programming language designed for computers was Plankalkül, created by Konrad
Zuse.[4] However, it was not implemented in his time, and his original contributions were largely isolated
from other developments due to World War II, aside from the language's influence on the "Superplan"
language by Heinz Rutishauser and also to some degree ALGOL. The first significantly widespread high-
level language was Fortran, a machine-independent development of IBM's earlier Autocode systems. The
ALGOL family, with ALGOL 58 defined in 1958 and ALGOL 60 defined in 1960 by committees of
European and American computer scientists, introduced recursion as well as nested functions under
lexical scope. ALGOL 60 was also the first language with a clear distinction between value and name-
parameters and their corresponding semantics.[5] ALGOL also introduced several structured
programming concepts, such as the while-do and if-then-else constructs and its syntax was the
first to be described in formal notation – Backus–Naur form (BNF). During roughly the same period,
COBOL introduced records (also called structs) and Lisp introduced a fully general lambda abstraction in
a programming language for the first time.

Features
"High-level language" refers to the higher level of abstraction from machine language. Rather than
dealing with registers, memory addresses, and call stacks, high-level languages deal with variables,
arrays, objects, complex arithmetic or Boolean expressions, subroutines and functions, loops, threads,
locks, and other abstract computer science concepts, with a focus on usability over optimal program
efficiency. Unlike low-level assembly languages, high-level languages have few, if any, language
elements that translate directly into a machine's native opcodes. Other features, such as string handling
routines, object-oriented language features, and file input/output, may also be present. One thing to note
about high-level programming languages is that these languages allow the programmer to be detached
and separated from the machine. That is, unlike low-level languages like assembly or machine language,
high-level programming can amplify the programmer's instructions and trigger a lot of data movements in
the background without their knowledge. The responsibility and power of executing instructions have
been handed over to the machine from the programmer.

Abstraction penalty
High-level languages intend to provide features that standardize common tasks, permit rich debugging,
and maintain architectural agnosticism; while low-level languages often produce more efficient code
through optimization for a specific system architecture. Abstraction penalty is the cost that high-level
programming techniques pay for being unable to optimize performance or use certain hardware because
they don't take advantage of certain low-level architectural resources. High-level programming exhibits
features like more generic data structures and operations, run-time interpretation, and intermediate code
files; which often result in execution of far more operations than necessary, higher memory consumption,
and larger binary program size.[6][7][8] For this reason, code which needs to run particularly quickly and
efficiently may require the use of a lower-level language, even if a higher-level language would make the
coding easier. In many cases, critical portions of a program mostly in a high-level language can be hand-
coded in assembly language, leading to a much faster, more efficient, or simply reliably functioning
optimised program.

However, with the growing complexity of modern microprocessor architectures, well-designed compilers
for high-level languages frequently produce code comparable in efficiency to what most low-level
programmers can produce by hand, and the higher abstraction may allow for more powerful techniques
providing better overall results than their low-level counterparts in particular settings.[9] High-level
languages are designed independent of a specific computing system architecture. This facilitates
executing a program written in such a language on any computing system with compatible support for the
Interpreted or JIT program. High-level languages can be improved as their designers develop
improvements. In other cases, new high-level languages evolve from one or more others with the goal of
aggregating the most popular constructs with new or improved features. An example of this is Scala
which maintains backward compatibility with Java, meaning that programs and libraries written in Java
will continue to be usable even if a programming shop switches to Scala; this makes the transition easier
and the lifespan of such high-level coding indefinite. In contrast, low-level programs rarely survive
beyond the system architecture which they were written for without major revision. This is the
engineering 'trade-off' for the 'Abstraction Penalty'.

Relative meaning
Examples of high-level programming languages in active use today include Python, JavaScript, Visual
Basic, Delphi, Perl, PHP, ECMAScript, Ruby, C#, Java and many others.

The terms high-level and low-level are inherently relative. Some decades ago, the C language, and similar
languages, were most often considered "high-level", as it supported concepts such as expression
evaluation, parameterised recursive functions, and data types and structures, while assembly language
was considered "low-level". Today, many programmers might refer to C as low-level, as it lacks a large
runtime-system (no garbage collection, etc.), basically supports only scalar operations, and provides
direct memory addressing; it therefore, readily blends with assembly language and the machine level of
CPUs and microcontrollers. Also, in the introduction chapter of The C Programming Language (second
edition) by Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie, C is described as "not a very high level" language.[10]

Assembly language may itself be regarded as a higher level (but often still one-to-one if used without
macros) representation of machine code, as it supports concepts such as constants and (limited)
expressions, sometimes even variables, procedures, and data structures. Machine code, in turn, is
inherently at a slightly higher level than the microcode or micro-operations used internally in many
processors.[11]

Execution modes
There are three general modes of execution for modern high-level languages:

Interpreted
When code written in a language is interpreted, its syntax is read and then executed
directly, with no compilation stage. A program called an interpreter reads each program
statement, following the program flow, then decides what to do, and does it. A hybrid of an
interpreter and a compiler will compile the statement into machine code and execute that;
the machine code is then discarded, to be interpreted anew if the line is executed again.
Interpreters are commonly the simplest implementations of the behavior of a language,
compared to the other two variants listed here.
Compiled
When code written in a language is compiled, its syntax is transformed into an executable
form before running. There are two types of compilation:

Machine code generation

Some compilers compile source code directly into machine code. This is the original
mode of compilation, and languages that are directly and completely transformed to
machine-native code in this way may be called truly compiled languages. See
assembly language.
Intermediate representations
When code written in a language is compiled to an intermediate representation, that
representation can be optimized or saved for later execution without the need to re-
read the source file. When the intermediate representation is saved, it may be in a
form such as bytecode. The intermediate representation must then be interpreted or
further compiled to execute it. Virtual machines that execute bytecode directly or
transform it further into machine code have blurred the once clear distinction
between intermediate representations and truly compiled languages.

Source-to-source translated or transcompiled

Code written in a language may be translated into terms of a lower-level language for
which native code compilers are already common. JavaScript and the language C are
common targets for such translators. See CoffeeScript, Chicken Scheme, and Eiffel as
examples. Specifically, the generated C and C++ code can be seen (as generated from
the Eiffel language when using the EiffelStudio IDE) in the EIFGENs directory of any
compiled Eiffel project. In Eiffel, the translated process is referred to as transcompiling or
transcompiled, and the Eiffel compiler as a transcompiler or source-to-source compiler.

Note that languages are not strictly interpreted languages or compiled languages. Rather, implementations
of language behavior use interpreting or compiling. For example, ALGOL 60 and Fortran have both been
interpreted (even though they were more typically compiled). Similarly, Java shows the difficulty of
trying to apply these labels to languages, rather than to implementations; Java is compiled to bytecode
which is then executed by either interpreting (in a Java virtual machine (JVM)) or compiling (typically
with a just-in-time compiler such as HotSpot, again in a JVM). Moreover, compiling, transcompiling, and
interpreting is not strictly limited to only a description of the compiler artifact (binary executable or IL
assembly).

High-level language computer architecture

Alternatively, it is possible for a high-level language to be directly implemented by a computer – the
computer directly executes the HLL code. This is known as a high-level language computer architecture
– the computer architecture itself is designed to be targeted by a specific high-level language. The
Burroughs large systems were target machines for ALGOL 60, for example.[12]

See also
Computer
programming portal

Generational list of programming languages

Categorical list of programming languages
Very high-level programming languages
Low-level programming languages
High-level assembler
Abstraction (computer science)

References
1. "HThreads - RD Glossary" (https://web.archive.org/web/20070826224349/http://www.ittc.ku.
edu/hybridthreads/glossary/index.php). Archived from the original (http://www.ittc.ku.edu/hyb
ridthreads/glossary/index.php) on 26 August 2007.
2. London, Keith (1968). "4, Programming". Introduction to Computers. 24 Russell Square
London WC1: Faber and Faber Limited. p. 184. ISBN 0571085938. "The 'high' level
programming languages are often called autocodes and the processor program, a compiler."
3. London, Keith (1968). "4, Programming". Introduction to Computers. 24 Russell Square
London WC1: Faber and Faber Limited. p. 186. ISBN 0571085938. "Two high level
programming languages which can be used here as examples to illustrate the structure and
purpose of autocodes are COBOL (Common Business Oriented Language) and FORTRAN
(Formular Translation)."
4. Giloi, Wolfgang, K. (1997). "Konrad Zuse's Plankalkül: The First High-Level "non von
Neumann" Programming Language". IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, vol. 19, no.
2, pp. 17–24, April–June, 1997. (abstract) (http://doi.ieeecomputersociety.org/10.1109/85.58
6068)
5. Although it lacked a notion of reference-parameters, which could be a problem in some
situations. Several successors, including ALGOL W, ALGOL 68, Simula, Pascal, Modula and
Ada thus included reference-parameters (The related C-language family instead allowed
addresses as value-parameters).
 6. Surana P (2006). "Meta-Compilation of Language Abstractions" (http://lispnyc.org/meeting-a
ssets/2007-02-13_pinku/SuranaThesis.pdf) (PDF). Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20
150217154926/http://lispnyc.org/meeting-assets/2007-02-13_pinku/SuranaThesis.pdf)
(PDF) from the original on 17 February 2015. Retrieved 17 March 2008. {{cite
journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
7. Kuketayev. "The Data Abstraction Penalty (DAP) Benchmark for Small Objects in Java" (http
s://web.archive.org/web/20090111091710/http://www.adtmag.com/joop/article.aspx?id=459
7). Archived from the original (http://www.adtmag.com/joop/article.aspx?id=4597) on 11
January 2009. Retrieved 17 March 2008.
8. Chatzigeorgiou; Stephanides (2002). "Evaluating Performance and Power Of Object-
Oriented Vs. Procedural Programming Languages". In Blieberger; Strohmeier (eds.).
Proceedings - 7th International Conference on Reliable Software Technologies - Ada-
Europe'2002. Springer. p. 367.
9. Manuel Carro; José F. Morales; Henk L. Muller; G. Puebla; M. Hermenegildo (2006). "High-
level languages for small devices: a case study" (http://www.clip.dia.fi.upm.es/papers/carro0
6:stream_interpreter_cases.pdf) (PDF). Proceedings of the 2006 International Conference
on Compilers, Architecture and Synthesis for Embedded Systems. ACM.
10. Kernighan, Brian W.; Ritchie, Dennis M. (1988). The C Programming Language: 2nd Edition
(https://web.archive.org/web/20221025180501/https://books.google.com/books?id=FGkPBQ
AAQBAJ). Prentice Hall. ISBN 9780131103627. Archived from the original on 25 October
2022. Retrieved 25 October 2022.
11. Hyde, Randall. (2010). The art of assembly language (https://books.google.com/books?id=s
YHtTvQ-ObIC) (2nd ed.). San Francisco: No Starch Press. ISBN 9781593273019.
OCLC 635507601 (https://search.worldcat.org/oclc/635507601).
12. Chu, Yaohan (1975), "Concepts of High-Level Language Computer Architecture", High-
Level Language Computer Architecture, Elsevier, pp. 1–14, doi:10.1016/b978-0-12-174150-
1.50007-0 (https://doi.org/10.1016%2Fb978-0-12-174150-1.50007-0),
ISBN 9780121741501

External links
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?HighLevelLanguage - The WikiWikiWeb's article on high-level
programming languages

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