ABSTRACT
Formal (artificial) language used in computers and designed for formulating tasks and solving problems ( algorithm, formal language). An executable program (‘source code’) written in a programming language is translated by a compiler or interpreter into a machine language (‘object code’). Every (higher-level) programming language is conceived for working on certain types of problems, e.g. ALGOL (‘algorithmic language’) principally for mathematical problems, COBOL (‘common business-oriented language’) for businessoriented problems. FORTRAN (‘formula trans-lation system’) for non-numeric scientific problems. In the framework of computational linguistics, LISP (e.g. for ATN grammars) and PROLOG (for definite clause grammar) play an important role.
