Transcript The Evolution of Programming Languages

The Evolution of
Programming Languages
CS 351
Mark Hennessy Dept. Computer
Science NUIM CS351
1. Customized Digital Computer
Task j
Ij
Oj
Task k
Ik
Ok
Rig different circuit for each task
Mark Hennessy Dept. Computer
Science NUIM CS351
2. Stored Program Computing

von Neumann showed the existence of a
Universal Machine (hardware) that can be
customized using control inputs to carry out
different tasks.
 Software is the encoding of the task to control
this machine.
encoding(Tj)
Ij
Oj
Mark Hennessy Dept. Computer
Science NUIM CS351
Imperative Languages

Model of Computation
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ALU + Memory + Input + Output
(von Neumann architecture)
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Levels of Abstraction (“Human Interface”)
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Machine Language
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Binary Representation of the task
Assembly Language
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Symbolic Representation of the task
Mark Hennessy Dept. Computer
Science NUIM CS351
Imperative Languages - FORTRAN
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Stands for FORmula TRANslantion.
 Invented in the 1950’s as the first high level
programming language i.e used a compiler.
 Hello World Example:
C
C
FORTRAN IV WAS ONE OF THE FIRST PROGRAMMING
LANGUAGES TO SUPPORT SOURCE COMMENTS
WRITE (6,7)
7 FORMAT(13H HELLO, WORLD)
STOP
END
Mark Hennessy Dept. Computer
Science NUIM CS351
Imperative Languages – ALGOL 60
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Stands for ALGOrithmic Language
Defined in 1960 and was the first to introduce features
still in use today:
block structure and syntax defined by a grammar.
procedure Absmax(a) Size:(n, m) Result:(y) Subscripts:(i, k); value n,
m; array a; integer n, m, i, k; real y;
comment The absolute greatest element of the matrix a, of size n by m
is transferred to y, and the subscripts of this element to i and k;
begin integer p, q; y := 0; i := k := 1;
for p:=1 step 1 until n do
for q:=1 step 1 until m do
if abs(a[p, q]) > y then
begin y := abs(a[p, q]); i := p; k := q
end
end Absmax
Mark Hennessy Dept. Computer
Science NUIM CS351
Imperative Languages - C
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The most successful ALGOL type language.
Lexical variable scope and recursion
A static type system which prevents many
meaningless operations
 Function parameters are generally passed by
value (pass-by-reference is achieved in C by
explicitly passing pointer values)
 Heterogeneous aggregate data types (struct in
C) which allow related data elements to be
combined and manipulated as a unit
 A small set (around 30) of reserved keywords
Mark Hennessy Dept. Computer
Science NUIM CS351
Functional Languages
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Imperative programs are concerened with
programming a series of instructions that change the
state of program towards giving the solution.
Functional Programming is concerned with viewing a
program as a series of mathematical functions.
Based upon the maths model of Lambda Calculus,
developed by Turing, Church and Kleene in the
1930’s.
Church’s thesis says that there is no one form of
computation that is any more powerful than another.
This hold true as we are studying Paradigms!
Mark Hennessy Dept. Computer
Science NUIM CS351
Functional Languages
Turing developed a model of
computation called the Turing Machine
…. TCS course.
 Church developed lambda calculus.
 This is based on the notion of
parameterised expressions, which forms
the basis of Functional Programming.
 Passing arguments to methods.

Mark Hennessy Dept. Computer
Science NUIM CS351
Functional Programming

Introduced into programming the notions
of:
First class and higher order functions
 Polymorphism
 Lists
 Recursion
 Constructors
 Garbage Collection
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Mark Hennessy Dept. Computer
Science NUIM CS351
Functional Programming

Difference between FP and Imperative
programming:
IP:
“To compute the gcd of a and b, check to see if a and b are equal.
If so print one of them and exit. Otherwise replace the larger one
by their difference and repeat.”
FP:
“The gcd of a and b is defined to be a when a=b, and to be the gcd of
c and d when a!=b, where c is the smaller of a and b and d is their
difference. To compute the gcd of a given pair of numbers, expand
and simplify this definition until it finishes.
Mark Hennessy Dept. Computer
Science NUIM CS351
Functional Languages - Lisp
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Stands for List Processing
 Same vintage as Fortran and ALGOL.
 Allows for operations on lists
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Eg car(0, 2, 4, 6) = 0
Eg cdr(0, 2, 4, 6) = (2, 4, 6)
Lisp Program for factorials:
(defun factorial (n)
(if (<= n 1)
1
(* n (factorial (- n 1)))))
Mark Hennessy Dept. Computer
Science NUIM CS351
Functional Languages - ML
Stands for Meta Language
 Functional Language with syntax closer
to what you are familiar with. Will be
doing practicals with it! (CaML).
 CaML Program for factorials.
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let rec fac n =
if n <= 1
then n
else n * fac(n-1);;
Mark Hennessy Dept. Computer
Science NUIM CS351
Logic Programming
Designed to allow mathematical axioms
help prove a theorem.
 Based on the idea of a Horn clause
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H <- B1, B2,….Bn
The arrow means “if” and the commas
mean “and”
 We will be studying Logic programming
via Prolog
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Mark Hennessy Dept. Computer
Science NUIM CS351
Logic Programming - Prolog
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Name derives from the French programmation
en logique.
 Dates from the early 1970’s.
 Based upon Predicate Calculus, the system
uses backtracking.
Example Prolog Program for Factorials:
factorial(0,1).
factorial(N,F) :N>0,
N1 is N-1,
factorial(N1,F1),
F is N * F1.
Mark Hennessy Dept. Computer
Science NUIM CS351
Object Oriented Programming
Current paradigm. We write classes such
that data is hidden, ideas are abstracted
and code is re-usable! In theory….
 Simula -> Smalltalk & Ada -> C++ ->
Java
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Sub paradigms
Aspect Oriented Programming
 Generic Programming via Templates
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We will use C++ to show some
advanced OO features and generic
programming.
Mark Hennessy Dept. Computer
Science NUIM CS351
Scripting
Another form of programming is via
scripting.
 Huge amount of scripting languages,
Awk, sed, Bash, Javascript, UnrealScript
etc
 We will intoduce scripting via Bash and
Python in this course.
 Python uses dynamic typing and
features a very clean syntax. Multi
Paradigm!
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Mark Hennessy Dept. Computer
Science NUIM CS351
Scripting - Python
Indentation is essential!
 Sample factorial function:
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def fac ( num ):
if num == 1:
return 1
else :
return num * fac(num-1)
Mark Hennessy Dept. Computer
Science NUIM CS351