introduction
A computer program is a list of instructions that a computer can understand and carry out. Programming is the job of creating these lists. It is difficult, slow and complex work.
Converting instructions from human language to computer language
what it is
(from http://www.its.bldrdoc.gov/fs-1037/dir-028/_4179.htm)
programming language: An artificial language that is used to generate or to express computer programs. Note: The language may be a high-level language, an assembly language, or a machine language. (188)
high-level language (HLL): A computer programming language that is primarily designed for, and syntactically oriented to, particular classes of problems and that is essentially independent of the structure of a specific computer or class of computers; for example, Ada®, COBOL, Fortran, Pascal. Synonym high-order language.
assembly language: A computer-oriented language (a) in which instructions are symbolic and usually in one-to-one correspondence with sets of machine language instructions and (b) that may provide other facilities, such as the use of macro instructions. (188) Synonym computer-dependent language.
machine language: A language that need not be modified, translated, or interpreted before it can be used by the processor for which it was designed. (188) Note 1: The operation codes and addresses used in instructions written in machine language can be directly sensed by the arithmetic and control unit circuits of the processor for which the language is designed. Note 2: Instructions written in an assembly language or a high-level language must be translated into machine language before they can be executed by a processor. Note 3: Machine languages are usually used by computer designers rather than computer users.
what it isn't
where it is
history
Computers only understand strings of numbers. People understand strings of words. Ever since computers were invented, people have been finding ways of avoiding messing about down in the bowels of computers with all those numbers because it is repetitive, hard to understand and very dull. Programmers needed something that could take high level abstract concepts that people understand and turn them into the machine code that computers understand. They needed high level computer languages.
In the 1950's the first high level programming language, FORTRAN, was born. It helped to make these newfangled computer gizmos easier to handle. In the 1960's COBOL was created to make computer programming easy for the masses. In the 1970's C was invented to make programming easy for the outrageously clever. It was created by a bonkers boffin in the Bell Labs named Dennis Richie and was used to create an early version of the UNIX operating system.
