Low-level Programming Language - Machine Code

Machine Code

Machine code is the only language a microprocessor can process directly without a previous transformation. Currently, programmers almost never write programs directly in machine code, because it requires attention to numerous details which a high-level language would handle automatically, and also requires memorizing or looking up numerical codes for every instruction that is used. For this reason, second generation programming languages provide one abstraction level on top of the machine code.

Example: A function in 32-bit x86 machine code to calculate the nth Fibonacci number:

8B542408 83FA0077 06B80000 0000C383 FA027706 B8010000 00C353BB 01000000 B9010000 008D0419 83FA0376 078BD98B C84AEBF1 5BC3

Read more about this topic:  Low-level Programming Language

Famous quotes containing the words machine and/or code:

    “The momentary charge at Balaklava, in obedience to a blundering command, proving what a perfect machine the soldier is, has, properly enough, been celebrated by a poet laureate; but the steady, and for the most part successful, charge of this man, for some years, against the legions of Slavery, in obedience to an infinitely higher command, is as much more memorable than that as an intelligent and conscientious man is superior to a machine. Do you think that that will go unsung?”
    —Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    “... the self respect of individuals ought to make them demand of their leaders conformity with an agreed-upon code of ethics and moral conduct.”
    —Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)