Programmers’ preferred choice of programming language is their primary weapon while diving into the world of programming. We have become reliant on computers for various tasks throughout our daily lives, and the computer understands all instructions in the form of programming languages.
Further, computer programs can be classified into two broad categories. These two languages are low- and high-level. Let’s look at how they differ from each other.
What is a high-level language?
High-level programming languages are generally problem-oriented rather than machine-oriented.
High-level programming languages are problem-oriented rather than machine-oriented. Using high-level languages, the computer can abstract many steps that would otherwise be necessary to solve a problem. In addition, since they are so easy to use, they are much more accessible than assembly languages.
What is low-level language?
A low-level language corresponds to the instructions set defined by the manufacturer. Code written in low-level languages cannot be portably run across different processor types because this is the type of processor the code was written. Therefore, these languages can be considered machine-oriented.
Significant differences between high level and low-level language
This section has established some key differences between these different programming languages to make our work more accessible than ever.
Platform Dependencies
The first thing you need to know is about the platform; in this case, it refers to the computer hardware (i.e., configuration of your computer).
The Low-Level languages are platform-dependent, meaning that they can run on the same hardware but not different hardware; they can only run on the same hardware but not different hardware.
In High-Level language, programs written on any hardware can run on any configuration, regardless of its platform.
Speed
Language programs with a low difficulty level are faster than those with a high difficulty level since they do not need to convert.
There are fewer syntaxes, functions, keywords, and libraries.
Easiness
Language programs at the Low Level are more challenging than those at the High Level. A Low-Level programming language consists only of two commands: Binary and Assembly, and Binary comprise only 0s and 1s, while Assembly uses complex symbols called mnemonics.
In contrast, the High-Level languages programs are very convenient since it is easy to write, read, modify and understand.
Performance
Programs written in Low-Level Languages are usually faster than High-Level languages programs because they are faster to run.
Translation
Unlike High-Level languages, Low-Level languages do not require translation because Binary codes are Machine codes, which computers understand directly.
Objects and binary files are created by interpreting or compiling high-level programming languages; sometimes, both are required (in the case of some programming languages).
Flexibilities
There is a lot of flexibility with High-Level Languages for reading, editing, debugging, understanding, etc. However, Low-Level Languages are hard to handle.
The high-level languages have extensive libraries that contain many different data types, functions, and keywords. Therefore, these languages are suitable for developing applications with excellent features with little effort and resources.
Support
Languages with low-level support often have fewer professionals supporting them than a language with high levels of support.
Final Words
There it is! These were some of the significant differences between the two. We hope you have found this article insightful and have accumulated enough information about the top programming languages.
