Imagine this: you're a new programmer and you've been thrown in the pits of all the programming languages in the world! Terrifying, I know because oh my goodness there’s so many languages to choose from!
According to the Online Historical Encyclopaedia of Programming Languages, people have created about 8,945 coding languages!! That's a lot. It's obvious most of us only focus on the top 10, 20, maybe even 50. But there are many choices to choose from, each with so many characteristics and purposes!
A way people have grouped these languages is to put them in different programming levels! A programming language level refers to how closely a programming language resembles the human language and how easy it is for humans to understand and use the said programming language!
By now you must have heard of 'High-level' and 'Low-level' when giving the characteristics of a programming language. Let's take a look!
Higher-level programming languages are closer to human languages and are easier for humans to read and write. Examples: Python, Java, C++, C#, Ruby
Lower-level languages are closer to machine language (the 1s and 0s) and are more difficult for humans to understand. Examples: Machine, Assembly, C, FORTRAN, COBOL
Those aren't the only two groups, there are also:
Machine languages - x86, ARM, RISC-V
Assembly languages - MIPS assembly, PowerPC assembly
Domain-specific languages (DSLs) - SQL, HTML, CSS, Regex
Natural languages - voice commands
Remember that each level of a programming language has its own characteristics and is designed to solve specific types of problems! I always found people who are learning and know low-level languages are like super smart cause I could never, unfortunately 💔