- So what even is a programming language?
Many people think they want to learn to code
because they know it drives so much of our day-to-day life.
However, they might not truly understand
what a programming language does.
So before I get too into the details of comparing
and contrasting Python and JavaScript,
I want to talk at a slightly higher level
about what programming languages are.
Simply put, a programming language is a way
of providing instructions to a computer
to get it to do things for us.
Computers, at their core,
really only understand electrical signals,
and code that directly interacts
with the processing hardware on your computer
is called machine language.
When discussing programming languages,
you will hear people refer to their level,
which refers to how close they are to machine code.
Low level computer languages tend to be very abstract
and difficult for humans to read and write.
Think ones and zeros
like you see in all of those hacker movies.
As such, over time,
higher level languages have been developed
that read much more like human language,
and in turn, are easier to read, write and reason about.
Both Python and JavaScript are high level languages
that eventually get compiled into instructions
that your hardware can understand.
Since they are high level languages,
JavaScript and Python are both quite easy to learn
and reason about.
This allows you to focus more on the logic of programming
and learning how to think like a programmer
rather than struggling with the syntax.
If hardware is your thing,
then you might look for a lower level language to learn.
However, if you're more interested
in using programming languages
to accomplish tasks as quickly as possible,
a higher level language is for you.