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Athird-generation programming language (3GL) is ahigh-level computerprogramming language that tends to be more machine-independent and programmer-friendly than themachine code of thefirst-generation andassembly languages of thesecond-generation, while having a less specific focus to thefourth andfifth generations.[1] Examples of common and historical third-generation programming languages areALGOL,BASIC,C,COBOL,Fortran,Java, andPascal.
3GLs are much more machine-independent and more programmer-friendly. This includes features like improved support for aggregate data types, and expressing concepts in a way that favors the programmer, not the computer. A third generation language improves over a second-generation language by having the computer take care of non-essential details. 3GLs are more abstract than previous generations of languages, and thus can be considered higher-level languages than their first- and second-generation counterparts. First introduced in the late 1950s,Fortran,ALGOL, andCOBOL are examples of early 3GLs.
Most popular general-purpose languages today, such asC,C++,C#,Java,BASIC andPascal, are also third-generation languages, although each of these languages can be further subdivided into other categories based on other contemporary traits. Most 3GLs supportstructured programming. Many supportobject-oriented programming. Traits like these are more often used to describe a language rather than just being a 3GL.
A 3GL enables a programmer to write programs that are more or less independent from a particular type of computer. Such languages are considered high-level because they are closer to human languages and further from machine languages, and hence require compilation or interpretation. In contrast, machine languages are considered low-level because they are designed for and executed by physical hardware without further translation required.
The main advantage of high-level languages over low-level languages is that they are easier to read, write, and maintain. Ultimately, programs written in a high-level language must be translated into machine language by acompiler or directly into behaviour by an interpreter.
These programs could run on different machines (they are portable) so they were machine-independent. As new, more abstract languages have been developed, however, the concept ofhigh- and low-level languages have become rather relative. Many of the early "high-level" languages are now considered relatively low-level in comparison to languages such asPython,Ruby, andCommon Lisp, which have some features offourth-generation programming languages and were calledvery high-level programming languages in the 1990s.[2][3]