Programming Language Concept (1)

Book : Concept of Programming Language

Page 52
Review Questions
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?
To increased capacity to express ideas; improved background for choosing
appropriate languages; increased ability to learn new languages; better understanding of
the significance of implementation; better use of languages that are already known; and
overall advancement of computing.

2. How can knowledge of programming language characteristic benefits the whole computing community?
Knowledge of programming language benefiting the whole computing community. People can solve their own problems so troubleshooters lose their jobs and it will reduce the number of common sense-lacking questions.

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

4. What programming language has dominated scientific business applications over the last 50 years?
COBOL

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

6. What language is most of UNIX written?
C

Page 53
Problem Set
1. Do you believe that solving problem in a particular algorithmic step require programming language skill? Support your opinion.
Not really.... The definition of "Algorithm" is step by step instruction to do something, and it is something that we learn on daily basis and often used unconciously (like when you want to make tea, take the tea bag, take a glass, put the tea bag into the glass, pour hot water, wait 1 min, take out the tea bag, pour lukewarm water, but most people "just do it")

2. Who is said to be the first programmer in human history? Use the internet for help.
Ada Lovelace.

3. What are the disadvantages of multiple programming languages?
It will be confusing. Each programming language has their own way to write, their own library, and many more "their own". People who learn multiple language would often mistaken one language's command for another.

4. In what way do the languages for scientific application differ from the languages for business application? Support your view.
From the start their goal is different, thus the requirement is different by proxy.

Business applications often need to be able to create reports of different and sometimes elaborate
formats. They need to be able to represent data in a human understandable way, as well as need “precise
ways of describing and storing decimal numbers, and character data.”

Scientific applications typically need simple data structures and arrays, and many floating point operations.
This would be typical of a program that performs matrix manipulation. When performing matrix
manipulation you want both fast floating point calculations, and to be able to load as much data into
memory at once as possible since I/O operations are costly.

6. Which characteristic of programming languages do you think are the most important and why?
Error Checking. Because I do not wish to stare at the computer for hours just for looking at one mistake from hundreds of code line.

7. Java uses a semicolon to mark the end of all statements. What are the advantages for and against this design?
The advantages is that t makes it easy to know where the statement ends, while the disadvantages is that sometimes people forgot to put it in and the whole thing stop working