First Meeting

Hello there, my name is Rizky Andiputra. I'm Binusian 2018 from School of Computer Science. This is my official blog for Programming Language Concept assignment, which is taught by Mr. Tri Djoko Wahjono, Ir.,M.Sc. He told us to make a blog where we can post our assignments. So this is my first assignment, he told me to do  review questions no. 1 - 5 and problem set no. 1-5 from Robert Sebesta's Concept of Programming Language ch. 1.

Review Questions:
1. Why is it useful for a programmer to have some background in language design, even though he or     she may never actually design a programming language?
   It is useful for a programmer to have some background in language design because even though the programmer hasn't designed a programming language, they have to know which vocabulary are commonly used for programming language syntax. For example: print, scan, if, end, etc.

2. How can knowledge of programming language characteristics benefit the whole computing community?
    By learning programming language characteristics, a programmer may

• increase his/her ability to express ideas,
• improve background for choosing appropriate programming language (which makes he / she knows which programming language is better for his / her needs), 
• increase ability to learn new language,
• understand the significance of implementation better, 
• use languages that have already known better, and
• have overall advancement in computing

3. What programming language has dominated scientific computing over the past 50 years?

     Fortran is the programming language that has been dominating for the scientific computing for more than 50 years. Fortran is also the first language used for scientific applications.

4. What programming language has dominated business applications over the past 50 years? 

    The programming language that has dominated business applications is COBOL. COBOL was made in 1960. It is still used for business applications until now.

5. What programming language has dominated artificial intelligence over the past 50 years?

    There are 2 most used programming languages for AI: LISP (appeared in 1959) and C. Actually there is one more programming language called Prolog, but it is not used a lot.

Problem Set:

1. Do you believe our capacity for abstract thought is influenced by our language skills? Support your opinion.
   For me language skills is important for the abstract thought. It's just the same as the time we want to share ideas to people. We have the rough idea, but still we have to ellaborate the idea into the bigger and greater ideas. We have to know what we are going to talk about, how to say it, etc. In programming, when we already have the idea about what we were going to do we still have to know how to make the program work, So language skill is important.

2. What are some features of specific programming languages you know whose rationales are a mystery to you? 

  I've already learnt the basic of some programming language such as C, HTML, and VB, and as far as I've learnt I haven't found something irrational in the syntax of the program. Every syntax has its own function.

3. What arguments can you make for the idea of a single language for all programming domains?     

   In every programming domain, we still use the same steps to do what we want the program do. It is called algorithm. Since there are algorithm, it is still possible to use a single language for all programming domains. All we have to do is translate the algorithm into the programming language.

4. What arguments can you make against the idea of a single language for all programming domains?

       Every programming domain has its own characteristics, e.g. for Web Software, it requires the head and body part, not like the other domain. So I think it's a little hard to do all programming domains with only using one programming language.

5. Name and explain another criterion by which languages can be judged (in addition to those discussed in this chapter).

• Easy to learn: Sometimes there are programming language that people find very difficult to learn. For me it would be better if a programming language is easier to learn, so programmer can explore more ideas and become more productive.
• Understandable: A good programming language is a language that can be understandable by the programmer or the user. It is important for user to understand the program. By understanding the  program, the user may know if there were any illegal activities such as phising, indentity stealing, etc.