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The problem with programming is that computers think exclusively in numbers (the numbers 0 and 1 to be precise) known as ''machine code'' while humans communicate using words. In the very early days programmers actually entered machine code directly into computers to program them. This, as you can imagine, was a laborious and error prone process. The next evolution was to associate brief human readable commands with the corresponding machine code. For example, a programmer could enter the command ''MOV'' to transfer a value from one microprocessor register to another. These commands would then be translated into machine code by a piece of software called an ''assembler'', thereby giving this command syntax the name ''Assembly Lanaguage''.

Next came a series of ''high level'' languages designed to make it easier for humans to write programs. These programs are written using a human readable syntax and then either compiled to machine code by a ''compiler'' or interpreted on behalf of the processor by an ''interpreter''. Such languages include BASIC, COBOL, Pascal and Fortran. One other such language is called ''C'' which was created at AT&T Bell Labs in the late 1960's and early 1970's. In the late 1970's and early 1980's work started on an object oriented approach to C programming culminating in a new, object oriented variant of C known as ''C++''.