1
Q
What are the characteristics of high-level programming languages?
A
- One instruction of high level code represents many instructions of machine code.
- Will work on different processors
- Code is easy to read, understand, edit etc.
- Must be translated into machine code before a computer is able to understand it
- Programs are less memory efficient and slower
2
Q
What are characteristics of low-level programming languages?
A
- One instruction of assembly only represents one instruction of machine code
- Written for only one type of processor
- Code is very difficult to read, understand, edit etc
- The code doesn’t need to be translated
- Memory efficient and faster
- Used for embedded systems and device drivers
- The programmer works with memory directly
3
Q
What is a compiler?
A
- Translates all of the source code all at the same time
- Creates an exe file
- Returns a list for all the errors in the program
- Once compiled the program runs quickly, but compiling can take a long time.
4
Q
What is an interpreter?
A
- Translates the code a line at a time
- Will return the first error it finds and then stop executing - useful for debugging
- Program will run more slowly because the code is being translated as the program is running.
5
Q
What is source code?
A
- Code written by the programmer
6
Q
What is object code?
A
- The code produced by a compiler or interpreter
