Computers have become a force to be  reckoned with in this new,

          high-tech age.  They are becoming second nature in  business,  at

          home, at school, everywhere.  As  a  result, more and more people

          are beginning  to  use  and learn about these computers, how they

          work  and  what  they  can  do.   In order for anyone  to  use  a

          computer, he or she  must  be  able to interact with it.  This is

          done by means of a  Computer  Programming  Language.   Basically,

          there are three types of programming languages: machine-oriented,

          procedure-oriented, and problem oriented languages.   This  paper

          will look at the various programming languages, their  impact  on

          society, their trends and their future.


            Basically,   a  programming  language  is  for  programming   a

          computer.  The  computer  will only do what it is told and people

          have developed various languages in order to 'talk'  to/with  it.

          The original  algorithms (number language in which most computers

          originally  spoke)  were  discovered  in   ancient   Mesopotamia.

          Written on clay  tablets  was  a  sexagesimal  (base  60)  number

          system, from which we developed our notion of  the hours, minutes

          and  seconds.   This has developed into  the  different  computer

          programming languages that we have  today.   Each  has  different

          characteristics, capabilities and  uses.   For the most part, the

          languages are focused on one of four fields - a) data processing,

          b)  scientific applications, c) test processing applications,  or

          d) systems programming applications.  All of these languages that

          we will  look  at are "high-level" languages; that is they have a

          programming style  and functional capabilities that are closer to



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          real human  language than are the older, machine-level languages.

          A programmer can now  say  in  one  statement  what  he wants the

          computer to perform  in  what  used  to take several, if not many

          more, steps.  Also, these high-level  languages  allow  a  little

          flexibility in how you speak - they are  not so "syntax-correct."

          There  are  variations  found  not  only  between  the  different

          languages, but also within the languages.  This is  because  each

          language has certain uses, and  different  people use them to fit

          their needs.  However, each language is indeed unique.   We  will

          first look at some of the procedure-oriented languages.


            FORTRAN (FORmula TRANslating language) is  the  oldest  of  the

          "high-level" languages, and it basically paved the road  for  the

          others to follow.  It is a scientific language first developed in

          the mid 1950's. It was intended to resemble English in a way that

          it could easily  be  translated  into  machine  language  by  the

          computer.  Since its introduction,  FORTRAN has consistantly been

          adapted and altered to fit various needs.  As a result, there was

          very little uniformity among the language from  one  computer  to

          the next.  For this reason, in 1968, the ANSI met to  solve  this

          problem.  The result of their meeting was ANSI  FORTRAN and BASIC

          FORTRAN, two versions which were compromises of all  the  others.

          The ANSI version is the one now most commonly used and  is  known

          today as "standard FORTRAN."


            COBOL  (Commom  Business-Oriented  Language)  is  basically   a

          business language.  It is a  data-processing  language  which  is




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          capable of  manipulating  files  and it is easily shared by other

          machines.   This  is   convenient