Английский для пользователей компьютеров. Ч.2. Белобородова М.Л - 19 стр.

  • COBOL (COmmon Business Oriented Language): its development as a
    common programming language for business applications was funded by
    the U.S. government; this language is noted for its machine independence
    and its data processing and file-handling capabilities.
  • PL/I (Programming Language I): designed to combine the computational
    capabilities of FORTRAN and the data processing and file-handling
    capabilities of COBOL. Although flexible, it is harder to learn than
    COBOL and requires a great deal of main storage.
  • BASIC (Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code): developed at
    Dartmouth College for instructional purposes, but now used on microcom-
    puters and certain business systems to solve a variety of relatively simple
    problems.
  • RPG (Report Program Generator): introduced by IBM as a program
    geared to deal with clear-cut problems and produce reports; users can
    produce reports by filling out special coding forms and then entering the
    recorded data.
  • C: developed by Bell Laboratories as a tool for writing systems software
    such as UNIX. It works on a variety of different computers, including
    microcomputers. However, it is not good for checking types of data, and it
    has no input/output routines.
  • Pascal: named for 17th-century French mathematician Blaise Pascal.
    Developed to teach structured programming. Has strong mathematical,
    scientific, and graphics processing capabilities and can be used on large
    and small computer systems; not used extensively in business.
  • Modula-2: an improved version of Pascal; better suited for business.
  • Ada: named for Augusta Ada, Countess of Lovelace (the first
     programmer), and developed by the U.S. Department of Defense for use
     as an embedded system in computerized weapons systems.
   Fourth-generation languages do not rely on a long list of detailed
procedures that tell the computer how to do something. They just use human-
language statements to tell the computer what to do. The five basic types of
fourth-generation language tools are (1) query languages, (2) report generators,
(3) applications generators, (4) decision support systems and financial
planning languages, and (5) some microcomputer applications software.
   Natural languages, which some people refer to as fifth-generation
languages, allow users and programmers to interact with the computer by
using human language patterns, including misspellings and mistakes.
   The advantages and disadvantages of each programming language
relative to the information and systems needs of a company should be
analyzed before a programmer begins a programming project.
   Most of the foregoing software development tools are commonly used
by computer specialists—programmers—to write software programs.
However, users have some relatively new microcomputer software