History of Computing

1)First Generation Languages
First Generation language was a binary language and is a machine-level programming language. The instruction set consists of 1s and 0s.

Disadvantages
1) Difficult to write/edit errors in the program.
2) The code is not protable as it is machine specific.
3) Incorrect instruction typed by programmer may damage equipment and data.

Advantages
1) Its faster and efficient as it is executed directly by the CPU
2) Does not need any compiler or interpreter.

2)Second Generation Languages
In order to overcome some of the disadvantages of the first generation langauge, Assembly level language was developed. Assembly level language was developed. Assembly level language consists of mnemonics , small set of instruction set. These instruction set consists of key words which are human readable but must be converted to machine-readable form in order to execute by the computer.

Disadvantages
1) This still requires a Assembler, a small piece of software to convert mnemonics to binary language.
2) The code is not protable as it is machine specific.

Advantages over 1GL:
1) Human readable for better understanding.

3)Third Generation Languages
3GL or High level languages are human readable instructions. These are also called as structured programming languages. Its easy to write programs using these languages ,however you still need software called compilers or interpreters to convert the code into machine specific instructions. As it is structured programming language instruction set is well organized and human readable.3GLs are character based languages.

Disadvantages:
1) It takes aditional steps to compile from source code to the executable code.
2) Ever single change needs the program/piece of code to be recompiled.
3) Developing a Graphical User Interface needs lots of programming

Ex : C,COBOL,FORTRAM,PASCAL etc

4)Fourth Generation Languages
4GLS includes Packages and GUI ( Graphical User Interfaces). In order to over come the limitations of 3GLs they have developed packaged softwares and GUI's.
Packages helps us the reusuability of the code. GDI ( Graphical Developer Interfaces) allows us the functionally for reusuability. GUI/GDIS will help us to develop software programs at ease and faster pace. In order tp develop a data entry screen you can use the components like buttons,windows,checkboxes , which are already been tested and ported to us. It has advantage of both component/code resuability.

example : Visual Basic,Visual C++, VJ++, Developer 2000,Designer 2000

5)Fifth Generation Languages/Internet Languages
5GL internet languages helps us in deploying applications over web. These languages include HTML,XML,VB Script,Java Script,ASP,JSP,PHP,PSP etc