<language> (AHPL) A <a href="">registera>-level language by Hill and Peterson, some of whose operators resemble <a href="">APLa>. HPSIM2 is a function-level simulator, available from Engrg Expt Sta, <a href="">University of Arizonaa>. ["Digital Systems: Hardware Organization and Design", F. Hill et al, Wiley 1987]. (1995-01-26)

A programming language is any set of rules that converts strings, or graphical program elements in the case of visual programming languages, to various kinds of machine code output. Programming languages are one kind of computer language, and are used in computer programming to implement algorithms.

<language> A formal language in which computer programs are written. The definition of a particular language consists of both <a href="">syntaxa> (how the various symbols of the language may be combined) and <a href="">semanticsa> (the meaning of the language constructs). Languages are classified as low level if they are close to <a href="">machine codea> and high level if each language statement corresponds to many machine code instructions (though this could also apply to a low level language with extensive use of <a href="">macrosa>, in which case it would be debatable whether it still counted as low level). A roughly parallel classification is the description as <a href="">first generation languagea> through to <a href="">fifth generation languagea>. The other major classification of languages distinguishes between <a href="">imperative languagesa>, <a href="">procedural languagea> and <a href="">declarative languagesa>. {<a href="http://levenez.com/lang/history.html">Programming languages time-line/family tree (http://levenez.com/lang/history.html)a>}. (2004-05-17)