Difference Between High Level and Low-Level Languages (2024)

High-Level Vs. Low-Level Languages: Find What is the Difference Between High-Level and Low-Level Languages?

Both of these are types of programming languages that provide a set of instructions to a system for performing certain tasks. Though both of these have specific purposes, they vary in various ways. In this article, we will discuss the difference between high-level and low-level languages. But before that, let us first know more about programming languages and their purpose.

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What is a Programming Language?

Programming languages define and compile a set of instructions for the CPU (Central Processing Unit) for performing any specific task. Every programming language has a set of keywords along with syntax- that it uses for creating instructions.

What are High-Level Languages?

One can easily interpret and combine these languages as compared to the low-level languages.
They are very easy to understand.
Such languages are programmer-friendly.
Debugging is not very difficult.
They come with easy maintenance and are thus simple and manageable.
One can easily run them on different platforms.
They require a compiler/interpreter for translation into a machine code.
A user can port them from one location to another.
Such languages have a low efficiency of memory. So it consumes more memory than the low-level languages.
They are very widely used and popular in today’s times.
Java, C, C++, Python, etc., are a few examples of high-level languages.

What are Low-Level Languages?

They are also called machine-level languages.
Machines can easily understand it.
High-level languages are very machine-friendly.
Debugging them is very difficult.
They are not very easy to understand.
All the languages come with complex maintenance.
They are not portable.
These languages depend on machines. Thus, one can run it on various platforms.
They always require assemblers for translating instructions.
Low-level languages do not have a very wide application in today’s times.

Difference Between High-Level and Low-Level Languages

Parameter	High-Level Language	Low-Level Language
Basic	These are programmer-friendly languages that are manageable, easy to understand, debug, and widely used in today’s times.	These are machine-friendly languages that are very difficult to understand by human beings but easy to interpret by machines.
Ease of Execution	These are very easy to execute.	These are very difficult to execute.
Process of Translation	High-level languages require the use of a compiler or an interpreter for their translation into the machine code.	Low-level language requires an assembler for directly translating the instructions of the machine language.
Efficiency of Memory	These languages have a very low memory efficiency. It means that they consume more memory than any low-level language.	These languages have a very high memory efficiency. It means that they consume less energy as compared to any high-level language.
Portability	These are portable from any one device to another.	A user cannot port these from one device to another.
Comprehensibility	High-level languages are human-friendly. They are, thus, very easy to understand and learn by any programmer.	Low-level languages are machine-friendly. They are, thus, very difficult to understand and learn by any human.
Dependency on Machines	High-level languages do not depend on machines.	Low-level languages are machine-dependent and thus very difficult to understand by a normal user.
Debugging	It is very easy to debug these languages.	A programmer cannot easily debug these languages.
Maintenance	High-level languages have a simple and comprehensive maintenance technique.	It is quite complex to maintain any low-level language.
Usage	High-level languages are very common and widely used for programming in today’s times.	Low-level languages are not very common nowadays for programming.
Speed of Execution	High-level languages take more time for execution as compared to low-level languages because these require a translation program.	The translation speed of low-level languages is very high.
Abstraction	High-level languages allow a higher abstraction.	Low-level languages allow very little abstraction or no abstraction at all.
Need of Hardware	One does not require a knowledge of hardware for writing programs.	Having knowledge of hardware is a prerequisite to writing programs.
Facilities Provided	High-level languages do not provide various facilities at the hardware level.	Low-level languages are very close to the hardware. They help in writing various programs at the hardware level.
Ease of Modification	The process of modifying programs is very difficult with high-level programs. It is because every single statement in it may execute a bunch of instructions.	The process of modifying programs is very easy in low-level programs. Here, it can directly map the statements to the processor instructions.
Examples	Some examples of high-level languages include Perl, BASIC, COBOL, Pascal, Ruby, etc.	Some examples of low-level languages include the Machine language and Assembly language.

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FAQs

Difference Between High Level and Low-Level Languages? ›

High-level languages require the use of a compiler or an interpreter for their translation into the machine code. Low-level language requires an assembler for directly translating the instructions of the machine language. These languages have a very low memory efficiency.

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What are the differences between high-level language and low-level language? ›

High-level languages are more human-readable and abstracted from hardware, making them easier to program but less efficient, while low-level languages are closer to machine code, offering more control and efficiency but are harder to program.

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What is the answer to the low-level language? ›

The correct answer is Machine Language. Low-level languages are also known as Machine Language. A low-level programming language is a programming language that provides little or no abstraction from a computer's instruction set architecture commands or functions in the language map closely to processor instructions.

What is the difference between a high-level programming language and a low-level programming language quizlet? ›

What is the difference between a high-level programming language and a low-level programming language? It is high-level if the program must be processed before it can run, and low-level if the computer can execute it without additional processing.

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What is the difference between a high-level language and a low-level language brainly? ›

low-level programming languages consist of written messages, while high-level programming languages are made up of numerals. low-level programming languages do not have to be translated, but high-level programming languages do.

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What is a high-level language example? ›

Examples of high-level programming languages in active use today include Python, JavaScript, Visual Basic, Delphi, Perl, PHP, ECMAScript, Ruby, C#, Java and many others. The terms high-level and low-level are inherently relative.

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What are examples of low-level language? ›

They use binary, hexadecimal, or assembly language to directly manipulate the memory, registers, and instructions of the processor. They require more manual control and optimization, but they also offer more speed, efficiency, and flexibility. Some examples of low-level languages are C, C++, Assembly, and Fortran.

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Why are high-level languages easier to use? ›

High-level languages use command words and Syntax which reflects everyday language, which makes them easier to learn and use. High-level languages also offer the programmer development tools such as libraries and built-in functions.

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What are the advantages of low-level language? ›

Some advantages of low-level languages over high-level languages include greater control over hardware resources, higher performance, the ability to optimize code for specific architectures, and the flexibility to interact directly with low-level system operations.

Is low-level language faster than high-level language? ›

Low-level languages are those that are closer to the machine code, the binary instructions that the computer hardware understands and executes. They are usually faster, more efficient, and more flexible than high-level languages, but they also require more knowledge, effort, and attention to detail from the programmer.

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Why are high-level languages so called? ›

A high-level language (HLL) is a programming language, such as C, FORTRAN, or Pascal, that allows a programmer to develop programmes that are independent of the type of machine they are running on. all these languages are classified as high-level because they are more comparable languages than machine languages.

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What is the difference between middle level language and high-level language? ›

In their turn, medium-level languages strike a balance between low-level and high-level languages. While they provide some abstractions, they still require an understanding of memory management, pointers, and closer attention to details compared to high-level languages.

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What is the difference between high-level language and fourth generation language? ›

4GLs are closer to human language than other high-level languages and are accessible to people without formal training as programmers. They allow multiple common operations to be performed with a single programmer-entered command.

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What are the pros and cons of a high-level programming language? ›

While high-level languages offer many benefits, they may come with some trade-offs. For example, they can sometimes be less efficient in terms of execution speed compared to low-level languages. Additionally, certain high-level languages may have a steeper learning curve for beginners.

Is Python a high or low-level language? ›

Python is an object-oriented, high-level programming language. Object-oriented means this language is based around objects (such as data) rather than functions, and high-level means it's easy for humans to understand.

What are the features of high-level language? ›

The high level language features include automatic memory management, garbage collection, interfacing with the kernel, extensive error checking, complex arithmetic or boolean expressions, etc. Q. The most popular language used with microcomputers and time-shaped mini computers, is an easy-to-use high level language.

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