Programming Languages & Compilers

Computer languages are symbolic systems that computers eventually understand. They help your programs serve your needs. Compilers are programs that help to make this "understanding" happen. While the first generation of high-level programming languages, such as Fortran, are still in wide use and evolving, many new languages with higher level abstration capability are emerging. Since the nature of scientific research is to explore the unknown world and test new theories, programming languages are usually the most important interface between scientists and computers. For computer scientists, improving code execution efficiency on a given architecture and developing high level abstraction capability of the language are challenging.