machine code versus higher level language

Hi Roy Thanks for your email. Im being very dense. Have just started the course on computer basics and Im quiz answer no2. Can I upload a screenshot?

Mike

The only way to post screenshots is to use an off-site host for your images. I just use my free Dropbox account for it.

Don't worry about posting a screenshot. I took the quiz to see what the questions were.

I'll give you the answers and the reason for them. It doesn't do any good passing the quiz if you don't understand what they're talking about.

Q:  Higher-level languages have to be translated or compiled into machine code.

A:  True

A computer only knows how to actually execute machine code.

Some languages have compilers that you have to run to turn the code you write into machine code.

Other languages use an interpreter which read your code and compile them into machine code without you having to do anything.

Q:  Machine code runs very (quickly, slowly) and has a much (smaller, larger) memory footprint than a higher-level language.

A:  quickly and smaller

Machine code runs more quickly because it's in the native format for the machine you're running the code on.

Machine code has a smaller memory footprint because it doesn't worry about using meaningful words for things like variable names and whitespace to make your code easier to read. When you take all of those things we need to code effectively out of the picture, it doesn't require as much memory.

Q:  Why are there so many programming languages?

A:  Because sometimes when advanced programmers see room for improvement, updates are made and programming languages emerge and evolve.

Shouldn't need much clarification. The answer says it all. Whether you agree with it or not is a different story. :-)

Q:   (Higher, Lower)- level (programming languages are more programmer friendly than (higher, lower)- level programming languages.

A:  Higher and lower

When you're talking about programming languages, you're talking about how close the language is to the machine code rather than the skill of the programmer.

A higher-level language is closer to the way humans read and think, while a lower-level language is closer to the way the computer actually operates.

Did that answer your questions? Do you need any clarification on anything?

Roy

Yes thats what I had to question

Machine code runs very quickly and has much smaller level footprint than....

but its telling me the answer is incorrect?

Hi there - its ok now, thanks - looks like there was a glitch.

Many thanks