3rd Generation (High-Level Languages such as C, C++, and Pascal, 1950s)
It provides some level of abstraction above assembly language. These normally use statements consisting of English-like keywords such as “
FOR,” “PRINT,” or “GOTO,” where each statement corresponds to several machine/assembly language instructions, whereas each assembly-language statement corresponds to one machine-language instruction.
It is much easier to program in a high-level language than in assembly language.
For example, assume that X and Y are integers.
X = (Y + 4) × 3;This command could be translated to the following assembly commands:
mov eax, Y ; move Y to the EAX register
add eax, 4 ; add 4 to the EAX register
mov ebx, 3 ; move 3 to the EBX register
imul ebx ; multiply EAX by EBX
mov X, eax ; move EAX to X
4th Generation (Application-Specific Languages such as SQL, Cobol, and Prolog, 1950s)
The term refers to non-procedural high-level languages built around database systems. For this kind of languages, the programmers tell the computers what to do, but not how to do it. For example, a typical 4GL command is
FIND ALL RECORDS WHERE NAME IS "SMITH"5th Generation (1980s)
A myth the Japanese spent a lot of money on. In about 1982, METI (Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry) of Japan decided it would spend ten years and a lot of money applying artificial intelligence to programming, thus solving the software crisis. The project spent its money and its ten years and in 1992 closed down.
Demonstration
Below is an SQL test area from W3Schools, which uses the well-known Northwind sample database. The tables here are for read only because of the problem of embedding the scripts. For a fully working example, check this by using Chrome.
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Result:
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The Database includes:
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The Database includes:
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