Differences Between Low Level Language And High Level Language

Low level programming language is a computer programming language designed to address the machine code of a specific processor while high level programming language refers to a programming language that is closer to the business logic and implements few if any, low-level concepts in the code.

What you will learn in this tutorial;

  1. Advantages of Low level language
  2. Uses of low level language
  3. Advantages of High level language
  4. Uses of high level language
  5. Differences between low level language and high level language
  6. Conclusion

Advantages of Low Level language

1. Low-level languages are those that are closer to the hardware, and thus have lower abstraction levels than high-level languages.

2. Low-level languages are more efficient than high-level ones, because they use simpler instructions, and thus require less work from the CPU and memory.

3. Low-level programming languages are ideal for writing programs that interact with hardware and other systems.

4. Low-level programming languages let you create applications using only the features that your device supports, so you don’t have to worry about compatibility issues when developing your app.

5. Low-level languages are faster. Because they are closer to metal and don’t require translation, they can be faster than higher level languages.

6. Low-level languages help you write secure software.

Uses of Low Level Language

Low-level languages are used to write system software and embedded software. They are also used in the development of operating systems, compilers, and other programming tools.         

Advantages of High level languages

1. They are more readable, which means that it is easier for you to debug and troubleshoot your code better than with lower level languages such as C++ or C.

2. They are more compact, which means that they require less memory to run, so they will run faster on slower computers as well as on newer computers with more RAM or faster processors.

3. High-level languages have fewer bugs because they are less prone to subtle errors and typos that can be hard to catch in low-level languages e.g., C++.

4. They tend to run faster than low-level languages such as Python or Ruby because they use fewer instructions per clock cycle and don’t require extra overhead such as garbage collection or virtual memory management — features that slow down code in other languages and make it run slower than machine code would run straight from the compiler.

Uses of high level languages

The following are some of the uses of high-level languages:

1. Research and development

2. Algorithms and data structures

3. Data abstraction, model checking, and verification

4. Computer-aided design, simulation, and test

5. Numerical analysis, computational geometry, and Numerical simulation

Differences Between Low Level Language and High Level Language

These boundaries between high and low level languages are becoming blurry as technology becomes more advanced.

Here are the main differences between low and high level languages.

Low Level LanguageHigh Level Language
Machine friendlyHuman friendly
Hard to debugEasier to debug
Hard to learn and useSimple to learn and use
Allow you to perform operations on the computer’s hardware directlyProvide an easy way for programmers to communicate with each other about their code
The source code is not portable.The source code is portable. Can be used in different platforms.
Utilise CPU and memory resources directlyUtilise resources outside the computer hardware
Examples include machine language and assembly language.Examples include Java, Python, PHP, JavaScript, C++, etc.
Not widely usedWidely used
Consume less memoryConsume high memory
Execution speed is fastVery slow in code execution

Conclusion

We have tried to put the difference between high level and low level programming languages at your fingertips. We hope you all learn something new from this article, and we wish you good luck on all your future projects.

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