Assignment 1 Programming Language Concepts

Name: Alvin Theodora                                                                                                                NIM   : 1801428434

I make this blog as a requirement from my lecture Mr. Tri Djoko Wahjono,Ir.,M.sc. as a part of assignment in Programming Language Concepts course. And here is the first assignment, taken from tenth edition of book "Concepts of Programming Languages" by Robert W. Sebesta chapter 1 :

1. Why is it useful for a programmer to have some background in language design even though he or she may never actually design a programming language?

Answer:

We find it useful to have some background in language design because we can gain benefits from learning it, for instance, we will know the evolution of language design, from imperative language to functional language that discussed about the efficiency of both language. The development on programming design methodologies brought us too to emerge such a transition from procedure – oriented methodology to data – oriented which provided data abstraction, and it continued to begin new era to object – oriented which is more powerful and enhance its efficiencies.

All the points stated above lead us to widen our thoughts that new language constructs and designs is needed due to complexity of problems which computers had to solve along with technology development.

2. How can knowledge of programming language characteristics benefit the whole computing community?

Answer:

The understanding of programming language characteristics will benefit us because we can examine and evaluate the capabilities of one programming language to another on its writability, readability, and its reliability. And the most important, by knowing wider of language capabilities, we would be better able to choose language with the features that are more appropriate to the problems or tasks.

3. What programming language has dominated scientific computing over the past 50 years?

Answer:

Fortran is the most commonly used language in scientific applications, which is the first language for scientific applications and appeared in late 50s.

4. What programming language has dominated business applications over the past 50 years?

Answer:

COBOL is the most commonly used language in business applications, which appeared in 1960.

5. What programming language has dominated artificial intelligence over the past 50 years?

Answer:

LISP is the most commonly used language in artificial intelligence applications, which appeared in 1959.

6. Do you believe our capacity for abstract thought is influenced by our language skills? Support your opinion.

Answer:

Yes, it does. The more we know on languages, the more we can choose the best languages specific problems or tasks we encountered. The awareness of needing to learn various programming languages can reduce limitation of abstraction thoughts too and increase capacity to express ideas. With that knowledge, we can become a better programmer by understanding the choices among the programming language construct and features and its advantages and disadvantages. 

7. What are some features of specific programming languages you know whose rationales are a mystery to you?

Answer:

I am pretty curious about the logic programming language, such as Prolog. We know that logic programming language works in no particular order. It choose what procedure that has to come first to produce the desired results. I see this the same way as object-oriented language, so why does it have to create a logic programming language instead of making the object – oriented directly.

8. What arguments can you make for the idea of a single language for all programming domains?

Answer:

My arguments of a single language for all programming domains are: 

The advantages and disadvantages of a programming language are judged by its capability and criteria, such as writability, readability, reliability, simplicity, and etc. However, in my opinion, simplicity and reliability are the most important thing to design a language, because people these days need such a fast and practical in their lives. And reliability involves the effectiveness and a well-organized language construct, which shows the quality and integrity of a language. Moreover, one single language for all programming domains create a general language, so anyone just have to learn that language and will not make such confusion and learning other languages. So, for the points I stated above, I would say that we need a single language for all programming domains.

9. What arguments can you make against the idea of a single language for all programming domains?

Answer:

Here are my arguments against the single language for all programming domains. 

In order to make a very reliability language, it will be followed by a large number of basic construct of the language, which makes it difficult to read and has more complexity and impacts on execution time to be longer. But, to make a simple program, for example calculation program, it does not need a very complex construct in it, and the execution – time will be shorter. So, we cannot make a single language for all domains, every single language is divided by its capability and its own purpose as it was designed for. 

10. Name and explain another crtierion by which languages can be judged (in addition to those discussed in this chapter).

Answer: 

Another criterion for a programming language to be evaluated is by its user friendly. User friendly means the ease of use and to access the features in the programming language with an interface or construct which human can interpret it as well as human language itself.