Class: 04 Introduction to Computer Programming --- Complete Course for BSSE and BSCS Students Specially

 

Compiler?

You write your computer program using your favorite programming language and save it in a text file called the program file.

Now let us try to get a little more detail on how the computer understands a program written by you using a programming language. Actually, the computer cannot understand your program directly given in the text format, so we need to convert this program in a binary format, which can be understood by the computer.

The conversion from text program to binary file is done by another software called Compiler and this process of conversion from text formatted program to binary format file is called program compilation. Finally, you can execute binary file to perform the programmed task.

We are not going into the details of a compiler and the different phases of compilation.

The following flow diagram gives an illustration of the process −

So, if you are going to write your program in any such language, which needs compilation like C, C++, Java and Pascal, etc., then you will need to install their compilers before you start programming.

Interpreter

We just discussed about compilers and the compilation process. Compilers are required in case you are going to write your program in a programming language that needs to be compiled into binary format before its execution.

There are other programming languages such as Python, PHP, and Perl, which do not need any compilation into binary format, rather an interpreter can be used to read such programs line by line and execute them directly without any further conversion.

So, if you are going to write your programs in PHP, Python, Perl, Ruby, etc., then you will need to install their interpreters before you start programming.

Online Compilation

If you are not able to set up any editor, compiler, or interpreter on your machine, then tutorialspoint.com provides a facility to compile and run almost all the programs online with an ease of a single click.

So do not worry and let's proceed further to have a thrilling experience to become a computer programmer in simple and easy steps.

Research Resources: Internet -- I am not owner of any thing!