Development of programming languages

Question 1

What did 1st generation programmers use for writing programs?

Answer 1

• Simple text editors were used
• They would then compile and link them using command line compiler programs
• Hard to debug

Question 2

What was used to improve program development?

Answer 2

• IDE’s

- Used to help programmers concentrate on the logic of the programming

Question 3

What are the different features of IDE’s?

Answer 3

• Editor
• Translator
• Debugger
• Runtime environment

Question 4

What is the editor?

Answer 4

• Where code is written
• syntax highlighting
• autocomplete
• autoindent

Question 5

What is a translator and what are the three types?

Answer 5

• Turns the source code into machine code
• Assembler
• Compiler
• Interpreter

Question 6

What does an assembler do?

Answer 6

• Translates assembly language into machine code

Question 7

What is the runtime environment?

Answer 7

• Part of the translator

- Allows you to run a program to see if it works

Question 8

What is a debugger?

Answer 8

• Allows the programmer to run the program and see what is going on inside (e.g. see what is stored in variables)
• Helps the programmer find errors

Question 9

What is a breakpoint?

Answer 9

• Allows the programmer to stop the program from running up to a specific line

Question 10

What is a file manager?

Answer 10

• Helps organise files of source code

Question 11

What is stepping?

Answer 11

• A method of debugging where the code is executed line by line

Question 12

What is a virtual machine?

Answer 12

• This is a virtual environment which allows code which has been written on another device to be executed on a different device