Machine Language:
The only language that can be understood by the computer hardware is the Machine Language.
The instructions in machine language must be in streams of 0's and 1's. Because the internal circuits of a computer are made up of switches, transistors, and other electronic devices that can be one of two states: off or on.
The off state is represented by 0,and the on state by 1.
High Level Language:
The desire to improve programmer efficiency and to change the focus from the computer to the problem being solved led to the development of High Level Languages. They must be converted to machine language. The process of converting high level language to machine language is known as Compilation. Each and every programming language uses a piece of software, called a Compiler or an Interpreter, to translate the program code into the machine language.
The first widely used high level language is FORTRAN-was created by John Backus and an IBM team in 1957; it is still widely used today in scientific and engineering applications.
After the invention of FORTRAN, with in a short span of time COBOL-was invented by Admiral Hopper.
FORTRAN-is an acronym for FORmula TRANslation.
COBOL-is an acronym for COmmon Business Oriented Language.
