C, a language with a minimal name, has been around since the early 1970s. By modern standards it is a very low-level language; it has a smaller set of simpler instructions compared to the other languages discussed here. C encourages "terse" programs that are short and often difficult to read for anyone who is not the original programmer.
This language is strictly procedural and is most often used for systems programming, creating software that directly interacts with the hardware or any situation in which performance is paramount. By keeping everything simple, a C compiler can produce tight, efficient machine code, making C a high-performance language.
The name C++ is pronounced as "C plus plus." In the C language, ++ is an operator that means "to increase by one"; thus, the name can be read as "one more than C." This reading is appropriate since C++ is an extension of the C language. Almost all of the instructions of C are retained (indeed, most C++ compilers can compile C source code), but new ones have been added to allow the use of the object-oriented paradigm.
C++ is thus known as a hybrid language, one that does not enforce a single programming paradigm. The programmer using C++ can use both the procedural or object-oriented paradigms, even within the same program. C++ is a general- purpose language and is used for all types of programming.
The Visual Basic language was developed by Microsoft, and its history is interwoven with that of the Microsoft Windows series of operating systems. Those systems provided a graphical user interface instead of plain text command entry, which made life easier for the computer user but more complicated for the programmer. Creating the user interface often required much more work than the underlying logic of the program.
Visual Basic changed that. More than just a programming language, it was a complete program design environment that itself extolled all the benefits of an intelligent user interface. It offered "drag-and-drop" interface design, which allowed programmers to design an interface by mixing and matching parts (like the Mr. Potato Head toy). This capability meant that programmers could spend their time on the core program logic.
The language itself was based on an older language called BASIC, which stands for Beginner's All- purpose Symbolic Instruction Code. BASIC was designed as a teaching language and is easy to learn, with an instruction set resembling English more than other popular languages like C or C++. Putting all the features together, Visual Basic allowed the programmer with ordinary skills to create a good-looking program quickly. For these reasons, Visual Basic became very popular for business program development.
The language evolved as the Windows operating system went through its revisions, always allowing (or in some cases, forcing) the programer to make use of the latest Windows features. Eventually, the language attracted more "hard-core" programmers, who appreciated many Visual Basic features but complained that the language was too simplistic, hid too many important details from the programmer, and lacked important features like full support of object-oriented programming.
Microsoft listened to these complaints, and now Visual Basic is no longer a simple language. In its latest revision, it's truly a modern, object- oriented programming language. However, these changes have complicated the language, and development is not as easy as it once was. No language can please all programmers.
Java is an object-oriented language with a set of instructions inspired by C++. It was originally developed for use in embedded systems. An embedded system is a computer and program in one self-contained package, for example, a "smart appliance" such as a DVD player. However, Java's popularity comes not from embedded systems but from its use on the World Wide Web.
Java is popular for the Web because of its distinguishing feature: platform independence. A platform-independent language produces programs that can be executed on different processors and operating systems. Java achieves this by not fully compiling the source code. Rather than produce machine code to run on a specific processor, a Java compiler produces "intermediate code," which is at a level between source code and machine code. On each system that runs Java programs, a special program called the Java Virtual Machine - called the VM for short - must reside, which is specific to that processor and operating system. The VM interprets the instructions in the intermediate code and performs the specific instructions needed for that system.
Platform independence is the key for programs on the World Wide Web because so many different systems use it. Even outside of the Web, the ability to write one program that can run on a Windows, Macintosh, or UNIX system is very powerful, saving time for the software developer. Java's motto is, "Write once; run anywhere."
The platform independence comes at a price, though, which is performance. Programs executing in a processor's machine code run faster than programs that must be interpreted on the fly. If a programmer only needs a program to work for a particular operating system, the performance loss may be enough to push development into another language.
Perl, is a scripting language, which refers to a language in which the source code is processed by a program called an interpreter, rather than compiled. Such languages are used for smaller tasks than compiled languages and are often used for "one-off" programs - special tasks that may only need to be done once. Perl is particularly suited for text manipulation, such as finding all the occurrences of a particular word in a document and exporting all the paragraphs in which that word appears to a second file. Perl is often used for programming tasks on a Web site.
Because Perl programs tend to be short but numerous, the language is very expressive. That is, the language incorporates the features of many other languages, so that programs can be written quickly. This means the language doesn't follow any particular paradigm, and Perl programs are not easy for others to read. As a general-purpose language, these problems would be serious deficiencies, but for the programs Perl is used for, they are not.
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