The language of computers is not one of the Romance languages; the language does not roll off of one’s tongue like French, Italian or Spanish. However, computer programming language speaks volumes to programmers, computers and viewers with a simplistic code of zeros and ones. Also called binary code, the the code is the basis for all computer programming language. Let’s look closer at binary code as the original computer language.
Binary Code
The binary code is based on bits, or binary digits, that in a sequence can tell a computer how to act. Each number tells the computer to turn “on” or “off” different paths of electrical impulses in the computer, which means that a slightly different sequence of zeros or ones can tell the computer to do completely different things.
How Other Languages Build on Binary Code
Binary code may the be basic computer language, but as computers developed into super-machines, programmers developed different languages to tell the computer to do the exact same thing in fewer keystrokes. The new languages developed a translation code that saves the zeros and ones in an intense, shortened language. For example, HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) could tell a computer to develop a webpage using shortcuts like rather than pages of zeros and ones. Because HTML is only a shortcut for the longer binary, the computer still works on the same binary language: The HTML code a user punches in to the computer is “translated” to binary as the actual computer language used to make every computer display the webpage desired.
Every computer language is different, but all are based on the same principal: Binary code. Although binary is becoming a dead language for programmers, those who can read and program in binary can speak to the computer in the most basic sense. Is that love or what?