Programming languages can be divided into two major categories: low level and high level. "Assembly language" and "machine language" are called low-level languages because they more than others "speak" the language the computer understands. On the other hand, C, C++, Pascal, BASIC, Visual Basic, Java, and COBOL are high-level languages because they require more manipulation by the computer, a process called compiling.

Compiler

A compiler is a special program that processes statements written in a particular programming language and converts them into machine language, a "binary program" or "code," that a computer processor uses. A compiler works with what are sometimes called 3GL and higher-level languages (3rd-generation languages, such as Java, C, and PL/1). Typically, a programmer writes language statements in a language such as C, Pascal, or C++ one line at a time using a tool called an editor. The "edited" file contains...