Computers understand and process information using machine language or machine code. This language consists of binary instructions, represented by combinations of 0s and 1s. Each specific instruction corresponds to a fundamental operation that the computer’s central processing unit (CPU) can execute.
Machine code is the most basic form of instructions that a computer can comprehend. However, programming directly in machine code is complex and error-prone. Therefore, higher-level programming languages were developed to facilitate the interaction between programmers and computers.
High-level programming languages, such as Python, Java, C++, among others, are more human-readable and are translated into machine code through a process called compilation or interpretation. These programming languages allow developers to express their ideas more clearly and efficiently, and then the compiler or interpreter takes care of converting that code into instructions comprehensible to the computer.
In summary, while the computer understands machine code, programmers use high-level programming languages to develop software, and then those programs are translated into machine code for execution by the computer.
