C++ How to Program, 10/e

1.5 Machine Languages, Assembly Languages and High-Level Languages

Programmers write instructions in various programming languages, some directly understandable by computers and others requiring intermediate translation steps.

Machine Languages

Any computer can directly understand only its own machine language (also called machine code), defined by its hardware architecture. Machine languages generally consist of numbers (ultimately reduced to 1s and 0s). Such languages are cumbersome for humans.

Assembly Languages

Programming in machine language was simply too slow and tedious for most programmers. Instead, they began using English-like abbreviations to represent elementary operations. These abbreviations formed the basis of assembly languages ...