History and Make Up of Programming Languages

There are a lot of different types of programming that have been developed over the years. Each programming language will be one of three programming paradigms, event driven, procedural, or object orientated. These help for new programming languages to be error free to make the users time programming a lot easier.

Procedural programming

The first and simplest type of programming paradigm is procedural programing as it works by steps starting from an input then to processing the input and result with an answer depending on what steps the programmer specified the program to do. As procedural programing is very easier to learn then other forms of programing it allows companies to hire employees without having to retrain them as it is commonly what most programmers learn first. Also as procedural programing has a clean layout it allows smaller projects to be completed for cheaper and will take less effort to keep track of the code and the ability to re-use the code for the same program allows programs to get rid of wasteful time in recoding of the same procedure. Procedural programing comes with limits especially with large projects as the code of the program will need constant refining and editing so because of this the program will turn into Spaghetti code which means that the flow of the code is not organized and is scrambled around the program which will make it confusing for developers to keep track of which part leads to what. This will also result in hiring new employees, this will be much more expensive as it will take weeks before the programmer will fully understand all of the program and how it works. Also as most things in procedural programing is connected to each other making modifications are difficult to make without causing errors within other parts of the code.

Object oriented

The second programing paradigm is object oriented, this is different to procedural as procedural breaks down a program into a collection of code which is structured to run it step by step but object oriented programing will break down a program into objects which are independent to the rest of the program so one single task can be placed into an object instead of it having to be executed in previous sets of code which might be connected to other tasks. Because the objects are self-sustaining they can be easily placed into other programs as they don’t need to be modified to extreme lengths.

Event driven programming

Event driven programming is where a program responds to an event that has happened when the user inputs something this could be a click of a button. This type of programming is different to the other programming paradigms because the system doesn’t respond to the structure of the program, but the structure can be like object oriented programing. Event driven programming will follow the movements of a user to determine how the program will require a programmer to write event procedures to respond to the user’s inputs. Because the program is interactive it Is usually used for graphical user interface programs such as Microsoft Paint. Although event driven programming is good it will take up the most storage and processing power compared any other programming paradigm that you could use, that is the main disadvantage to event driven programming.

Organisational policy

One factor to consider when choosing a programming language is the organisational policy. Some organisations will use specific companies to provide their software and hardware which means that they need to choose a programming language that will be compatible with their systems. There might also be a policy stating what type of programming language they use. This means they must choose a language that fulfils the requirements of the type of language.

Availability of trained staff

When choosing a language, an organisation should consider what past experiences the employees have with programming and if there is a common language that they all know how to use. They will have to consider the skill level of each member of the team and whether they will be able to develop their skill level enough to adapt to the programming language to make it a high level program. If the organisation is developing a new system, then they should take into consideration the most common programming language to use for it so they don’t have to train staff to adapt to the language so it results in the program being a lot cheaper.

Reliability

Some programming languages have features that will allow the programmer to improve reliability of their program. This can be because the programming language has different features of the different programming paradigms or elements specific to the programming language which could be something like a debugger and editor which identifies errors and stops the program from crashing.

Expandability

Expandability is a big factor when it comes to choosing a programming language. The company needs to choose a language that is easily adapted to and allows the programmers to create a program that can sustain multiple users without the program crashing. Some programming languages are more adaptable than others and have different features that can support the larger systems that may be programmed.

Explain sequence, selection and iteration as used in computer programming

Sequence

Sequence in programming is basically when a program is being built the code will be running in an order where one thing follows another and doesn’t repeat its self it follows the code. A flow chart can represent this showing where it will start and will go through the flow and eventually will come to an end through following its sequence. Flow charts make it easier to show how a sequence program will run instead of describing it in words because it is easier to understand for the person who is reading it, every flow chart that is made will always have a start and a finish and will follow through it flow.

Outline the benefits of having a variety of data types available to the programmer. Various data types allow a programmer to describe how the data is going to be stored inside a program. It also allows the programmer of the code to understand the maximum and minimum values that can be stored there. The Boolean data type for example, indicates how data is to be used. A Boolean variable might have only one of two possible values this will be either true or false. An Integer will not contain fractional values, they will only contain whole numbers. Variables will not take up a lot of bytes to store, this will mean that they are very easy to store. Having a variety of data types is good to the programmer because they can save on memory and CPU usage because they will only be using it when it is necessary. Efficient storage and quick processing is very beneficial to the programmer. This will also make it easier for them to debug because a data type could be causing an error because the variety of data types that have been used, this will make it a lot easier to find exactly where the problem is.

Boolean

‘Boolean is a subset of algebra used for creating true/false statements. Boolean expressions use the operators AND, OR, XOR, and NOT to compare values and return a true or false result.

Char

‘The Char data type is a single two-byte (16-bit) Unicode character. If a variable always stores exactly one character, declare it as Char. For example: VB. ' Initialize the prefix variable to the character 'a'.

String

‘A string is a data type used in programming, such as an integer and floating point unit, but is used to represent text rather than numbers. Option1 and Option2 may be variables containing integers, strings, or other data.

Integer

‘An integer is a whole number (not a fraction) that can be positive, negative, or zero. Therefore, the numbers 10, 0, -25, and 5,148 are all integers. Unlike floating point numbers, integers cannot have decimal places. Integers are a commonly used data type in computer programming. Single/double ‘Double has more digits than a single data type. Both can use decimals.

Floating Point

‘Integer Representation. Integers are whole numbers or fixed-point numbers with the radix point fixed after the least-significant bit. They are contrast to real numbers or floating-point numbers, where the position of the radix point varies.

Explain the importance of the quality of code. To be able to produce high quality code, a programmer will usually need to have a lot of experience in coding. They have been able to overcome the many issues and problems associated with creating software and they are able to use their coding skills to produce reliable and robust systems. Creating quality code is important because it means that the software is maintained a lot easier and will result in it being a lot easier to read and understand for anyone adapting top the code. Quality code should meet the user’s requirements in the way it has been designed, it will not crash and will respond appropriately to it being used incorrectly. To keep it readable this will mean the code will have good understandable variable names and will also use code formatting, the code will also have to been tested to a good standard.

Reliable and robust

When a program is created, it might not always be used in the correct way. Some of the users can input incorrect data values into a variable which could cause the program to crash because it was expecting a different data format compared to what was inputted. Users could come across other issues such as the program crashing and not accepting valid data types. The programmer will need to be able to produce a reliable, robust program that can deal with the many issues that might come when the program is distributed to other users to use it. Reliable and robust programs are able to deal with any errors in the code for example an incorrect user input; the programmer can code the program so that it outputs error messages and tell the user to put a valid data type in to stop the program from crashing. To improve reliability and robustness they added validation routines to check user input and output routines, and also carry out testing before distributing it. These methods of ensuring code reliability and robustness stop a program from being used incorrectly and ensures that it performs to a high standard.

Usability

A high quality program should be simple to use. A programmer can make the use of a program a lot simpler by designing and creating a virtual interface, this allows the user to interact with the program. It can be designed to make the program a lot easier to use. If the program requires text or numbers to be entered, then it can be changed to accept other values to make other commands easier. Users can find the controls easily, but also having the controls grouped allows them to gain an understanding on how the program works.

Portability

High quality programs must be portable so that it can be used on different hardware devices and on different software platforms. Portability is important, if a program is developed for a client but can only be used on specific devices, it could not work for them because they do not like using them devices so it should be able to be transferred. This means that the programmer should be able to make a program that can be used on any platform or hardware, Java can be used or any language where it has the hardware and the correct software to be able to run the program.

Maintainability

Software that is produced at a high standard is much easier to maintain than low quality software. When a program is used, it is likely a few errors will be uncovered that were not found when the program was tested and these they will need to be fixed. The program will also need to have regular updates to improve the programs functionality. With quality software, performing maintenance is a lot easier because there are features that all good programmers include in their programming, such as use of comments, software structures and good variable names. Doing this will allow the programmer to find any errors in the code that they have a lot easier. (Devolopment, 2018)Discuss the factors that can improve the readability of code. The readability of code is highly important when it comes to writing programs. Projects that require a program or system to be developed must have an easily readable code for a lot of reasons, for example making the program maintainable to a quick and easy way.

During the maintenance stage of the systems development, a different programmer may have to change the code to fix any bugs that are in it or to make improvements and modifications to suit a new system requirements, if the code is not readable, it can make maintaining the program very difficult. There are a lot of ways in which the readability of the code can be improved. The programmer can include comments, indentation, and variable names to make the program a whole lot more readable. Indentation can be used to separate big blocks of code such as iteration and selection, this will make them a lot easier to locate and read. Comments are used to help other programmers that did not originally make the program to understand the code. This makes finding bugs and making improvements to code faster as they can easily detect any errors in it and change it.

Using appropriate variable names is useful because for the readability of the code as they make understanding the purpose of a variable much simpler. Some programmers might use random variable names. This is not good practice, it also can affect other programmers understanding of the code when they are trying to adapt to it as they may not know the purpose of the variable this will make it hard for them to make any improvements or modifications to the code. Using a variable name that is relevant to the variable’s purpose improves the readability of code as the variable name as it would be easier to recognise what the variables role is in the program. Variable names could include the data type of the variable. This can reduce the chances of the variable being put into the wrong data type.