Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
Generally speaking, compiled languages allow for operations to be carried out faster
when compared to interpreted languages, as they take direct control of the opera-
tions carried on by the computer hardware.
For example, the technique of Just-in-Time compilation speeds up the execution of
a Java interpreted program, by using a so-called virtual machine that translates spe-
cific chunks of code called bytecode into machine code just before the execution of
the program.
Usage
There are thousands of different programming languages available and not all of
them are able to carry out the same kind of operations or treat the similar kinds of
data.
When we use spoken languages, we can commit small errors, and still expect to be
understood by our listener. Programming languages, on the other hand, don't allow
such flexibility because we cannot expect the computer to understand what we inten-
ded to write. A computer program can only work if the programmer is absolutely pre-
cise when writing the code. This is why programming languages provide very struc-
tured mechanisms to define the data they can deal with and the operations that can
be carried out on that data. This is also the reason why debugging a piece of code
can be a hard task if the program is not written according to the syntax, the abstrac-
tion rules, and the best practices specific to that programming language! Program-
mers have a phrase for this:
Garbage in, garbage out
(
GIGO
).
There are several topics and online resources that you can refer to delve further in
the details of programming languages. A good starting point is the Wikipedia page at
