high-level language

computing

Also known as: HLL, third generation language

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July 15, 2026

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A computer programming language is a set of instructions that allows a programmer to communicate with a computer. Early programming languages, known as assembly languages, were very close to the machine language that computers directly execute.

By the mid-1950s, higher-level languages emerged, such as FORTRAN and ALGOL, which allowed for more abstract and readable code, often resembling algebraic expressions. Languages like BASIC were developed to make programming more accessible, especially for educational purposes. COBOL was created for business applications, focusing on data management.

The trend has been towards increasing abstraction, enabling programmers to work at a level further removed from the computer's underlying machine code. This has led to various types of languages, including imperative, functional, and object-oriented languages, each with different approaches to problem-solving and program design.12

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computer
Machine language
…mathematics or some other “high-level language” to machine language was therefore necessary before computers would be useful to a broader class of users. As early as the 1830s, Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace had recognized that such translation could be done by machine (see the earlier section Ada Lovelace,…
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…mathematics or some other “high-level language” to machine language was therefore necessary before computers would be useful to a broader class of users. As early as the 1830s, Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace had recognized that such translation could be done by machine (see the earlier section Ada Lovelace,…
Read More

computer
From Star Trek to Microsoft
High-level languages were also needed in order for programmers to develop applications. Two young programmers realized this almost immediately upon hearing of the MITS Altair. Childhood friends Bill Gates and Paul Allen were whiz kids with computers as they grew up in Seattle, Washington, debugging…
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High-level languages were also needed in order for programmers to develop applications. Two young programmers realized this almost immediately upon hearing of the MITS Altair. Childhood friends Bill Gates and Paul Allen were whiz kids with computers as they grew up in Seattle, Washington, debugging…
Read More

computer
Grace Murray Hopper
…individual worked tirelessly to promote high-level programming languages and their associated compilers. Grace Murray Hopper taught mathematics at Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York, from 1931 to 1943 before joining the U.S. Naval Reserve. In 1944 she was assigned to the Bureau of Ordnance Computation Project at Harvard University, where she…
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…individual worked tirelessly to promote high-level programming languages and their associated compilers. Grace Murray Hopper taught mathematics at Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York, from 1931 to 1943 before joining the U.S. Naval Reserve. In 1944 she was assigned to the Bureau of Ordnance Computation Project at Harvard University, where she…
Read More