1.2.4 Types of Programming Language

Question 1

Programming Paradigm

Answer 1

The word ‘paradigm’ means to describe an example or pattern. In a Computing context, this means to describe a computational way of doing things. So a Programming Paradigm is a style or way of programming. E.g. Low-Level languages, High-Level languages, Declarative languages are all examples of different programming paradigms.

Question 2

Procedural Language

Answer 2

Any high level language in which program statements can be grouped in self-contained blocks called procedures and functions. These procedures have their own variables, not accessible outside the procedure.

Question 3

Assembly Language

Answer 3

A language which is related very closely to the computer’s own machine code.

Question 4

Machine Code

Answer 4

Set of all possible instructions made available by the hardware design of a particular processor. Closest to pure binary.

Question 5

Low Level Language

Answer 5

A language which is close to machine code. Related closely to the design of the machine.
A one-to-one language

Question 6

High Level Language

Answer 6

A language designed to help a programmer express a computer program in a way that reflects the problem that is being solved, rather than the details of how the computer will produce the solution.
One-to-many language.

Question 7

Little Man Computer

Answer 7

An instructional model of a computer, created by Dr. Stuart Madnick in 1965. The LMC is generally used to teach students, because it models a simple von Neumann architecture computer - which has all of the basic features of a modern computer. It can be programmed in machine code or assembly code

Question 8

Immediate Addressing

Answer 8

Uses the data in the address field, not as an address, but as a constant that is needed by the program. An example is a routine counting up to 10, which may have the constant ‘10’ supplied in the address field of an instruction. Although the address field cannot hold numbers as large as those that can be stored as data in a memory location, because space has to be left for the operation code field, this is a particularly convenient method of loading constants into the accumulator.

Question 9

Direct Addressing

Answer 9

Uses the data in the address field without alteration. This is the simplest method of addressing and also the most common.

Question 10

Indirect Addressing

Answer 10

Uses the address field to hold the address of a location that contains the required address.

Question 11

Indexed Addressing

Answer 11

Modifies the address (either a direct or an indirect address) in the address field by the addition of a number held in a special-purpose registers, called an index register, before the address is used. Index registers are quickly and easily altered providing an efficient way of accessing a range of memory locations, such as in an array.

Question 12

Object Orientation

Answer 12

Looking at systems by classifying them into real world objects

Question 13

Object Oriented Programming

Answer 13

A method of programming which classifies real world objects into classes and encapsulates those objects attributes and behaviors.

Question 14

Class

Answer 14

A type definition of an object

Question 15

Object

Answer 15

An instance of a class.

Question 16

Base Class

Answer 16

Base class contains attributes and methods. It is the highest class and does not inherit from any other class.

Question 17

Superclass

Answer 17

A class that has been extended by another class. It allows the extending class to inherit its attributes and methods.

Question 18

Subclass

Answer 18

A class that extends another class. The subclass inherits the methods and attributes of the class it extends.

Question 19

Derived Class

Answer 19

A derived class is any class that inherits attributes and methods from any other derived class or base class.

Question 20

Instantiation

Answer 20

The process of creating an actual named instance of class. The instantiated named copy of the class in an object of that class.

Question 21

Overriding

Answer 21

A method in a subclass or derived class which has the same name as a method in one or more of its superclass’s. The method supersedes all other versions of the method above it in the inheritance tree.

Question 22

Method

Answer 22

A program routine contained within an object designed to perform a particular task on the data within the object. A method can broadly be thought of as a procedure / function from more traditional procedural programming languages

Question 23

Attribute

Answer 23

A single bit of data within a record

Question 24

Inheritance

Answer 24

When a derived class is defined it also has all the attributes and methods of the base class.

Question 25

Encapsulation

Answer 25

All of the object’s attributes are contained and hidden in the object and access to them is restricted to operations of that class.

Question 26

Polymorphism

Answer 26

A specialised form of overloading which allows us to create very general object structures, which can be used with a wide range of data types.