Why is machine language difficult for people to read and write?

Machine language is difficult for people to read and write primarily because it does not resemble human language or conventional mathematical notation. Instead, it consists of strings of binary digits (0s and 1s) that represent specific operations and data locations within a computer's architecture.12

Several factors contribute to this difficulty:

• Lack of Abstraction: Machine language is a "low-level" language, requiring programmers to explicitly manage all idiosyncratic details of data storage and operation.3
• Complexity: Because it is composed of raw bit patterns, it is not intuitive for human interpretation. While these codes are sometimes converted to hexadecimal for easier viewing, they remain far removed from the logic used in higher-level programming languages.124
• Hardware Dependency: Machine language codes vary from one computer to another, meaning they are tied to the specific internal architecture of a particular machine.1

In contrast, higher-level languages allow programmers to communicate with a machine at a level of abstraction that is much easier to read and write, shielding them from the complexities of the underlying hardware.34