Programming Languages Sift Through Oceans Of Code
The increase in EPIC developer jobs raises the question of why so many different programming languages exist. All programming languages stem from the same place, machine code, or the raw zeros and ones that the processor works with. It is a very tedious task to program a computer in this manner. Generally only software that demands absolute performance is written in or optimized in machine code or assembly language. Because of this challenge programming languages have evolved which allow writing in a higher level to depict more complex ideas, abstract information and processes, and automate functions for the end user. There are, indeed, lots of these languages, and EPIC developer jobs are listed alongside jobs for a huge list of programming and development jobs. Why so many languages, one might ask. The answer lies in process and interface.
Automatic Memory Management - Safer but Slower
Most languages are written to have automatic memory management, among other features. These languages are designed to be interfaced with, so users can easily write code that works. It frees them from tediously telling the computer to move information about, which also reduces the errors made in programming. Essentially code is user friendly and easy to understand, it removes the large mathematical element of programming and makes it available to anybody. There is much to be said for this method, as most languages are written using it, including: Java, JavaScript, C++, Python, Ruby, etc.
Direct-Access Languages - Powerful but Tricky
The much narrower side of the spectrum of programming languages are languages that do not use automatic memory management. Languages like C and FORTRAN allow the user direct access the the memory, which permits very fine tuned optimization of software. While there are definitely other languages that both perform well and have automatic memory management they can't be as finely tuned as languages with manual memory management.
Compilers
In either regard, both languages reduce back down into machine code, through use of what is known as a compiler. Because compilers can turn their respective code into zeroes and ones very elaborate code can be written, but still ran by a basic binary machine, since machines can only read zeroes and ones. With this layer of abstraction, and the different types of memory control, there are an unfathomable number of ways to generate code and for people to interface with the languages being reduced into machine code.
Why So Many Programming Languages?
Much like there are many different languages of the world, that all describe things differently, there are many different programming languages that describe things differently. In the world language is used to describe things or events, in a computer it is much the same except the “things” and “events” are zeroes and ones and mathematical operations to those zeroes and ones. Essentially there are a lot of different ways of going about the same, and different things. However, that is not the only reason for their being countless computer languages, many of them are application specific. Some are languages written for intense math, some for general purpose use, some for specific hardware. Some languages are simply modified versions of other languages.
There are even instances where higher level languages, like C++, will be used to write another language, like Ruby. Since many languages can be used to write new languages the process is ever evolving. New languages are sometimes written to optimize a certain application for a certain architecture or processor. Since there are simply so many electronics and applications of those electronics there are countless languages and variations of languages to suite different needs.
