Welcome to the Treehouse Community

Want to collaborate on code errors? Have bugs you need feedback on? Looking for an extra set of eyes on your latest project? Get support with fellow developers, designers, and programmers of all backgrounds and skill levels here with the Treehouse Community! While you're at it, check out some resources Treehouse students have shared here.

Looking to learn something new?

Treehouse offers a seven day free trial for new students. Get access to thousands of hours of content and join thousands of Treehouse students and alumni in the community today.

Start your free trial

Digital Literacy How the Internet Works The Internet TCP/IP

yaseen kabeer
yaseen kabeer
700 Points

are the data packets sent by TCP/IP in Machine language or application language i.e in bits (0101010) or high level lang

in the beginning of the computer basics program , it was mentioned that compiler changes the high level language into machine language. can the compiler so the reverse of it i.e change machine language into high level language.

also second part of my question is when we make a request say to a server say google , how does my request carry in the form of data - bits (machine language or high level language)

1 Answer

Steven Parker
Steven Parker
229,744 Points

Compilers only go one way, high-level to machine language.

The other way is called "decompiling" and is far more complicated and cannot be done precisely. Luckily it's not generally useful and typically only done for as a component of digital forensics by specialists investigating computer crimes.

And the concepts of languages, high level or machine, only relate to programs and applications. Server requests are just data so programming languages would not be involved in the actual transmission (compiled or not).

Nilangi Edirisinghe
Nilangi Edirisinghe
1,182 Points

Does that mean server requests are all sent in 1s and 0s ?

Steven Parker
Steven Parker
229,744 Points

At the lowest level, all data is 1's and 0's. The content might be photos, sounds, text, code, etc. but they are all represented by patterns of 1's and 0's.