Page 16 - Computer Class 07

But programs written in machine language is a binary language (combination of 0

and 1) are difficult to understand and debug. This led to the development of second
generation languages.

Second Generation Languages or 2GLs

Assembly language is considered to be the second generation of language.

In assembly language, symbols (letters, digits or special characters) are used to write
the instruction code.

Each machine has its own assembly language which is dependent upon the internal
architecture of the processor.

An assembly language program can not be executed by a machine directly as it is not
in binary form. For this, we need a translator called assembler , which converts an
assembly language program into object code executable by the machine.

Assembly Language Object code in
Assembler
Programme machine language

Smart Corner

Machine Language and Assembly Language are also known as low level languages as they

work on machine level.

A program written in assembly language is more convenient than in machine

language. As it is written in the form of symbolic instructions, it is little more readable.
As assembly language program is specific to make model of microprocessor of the
programs written for one processor if it is architecturally different. That is why

assembly language programs are said to be non-portable.
Assembly language programs are slower in execution as compared to machine
language program. The time and cost of creating machine and assembly languages

was quite high as a result High Level Languages (HLL) were developed.

Third Generation Languages or 3GLs

In the third generation of programming languages, English language with symbols and
digits were used to write the programs. The third generation programming languages
are also known as high-level languages . FORTRAN, BASIC, COBOL, PASCAL,

PROLOG, C, C++ etc. are the commonly used high-level programming languages.

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