General Purpose Language

A General Purpose Language ( GPL , "all-purpose", "multi-purpose" or "universal language") is a programming language that can be used for many applications / problems. As a rule, a GPL is Turing-powerful . GPLs are in contrast to domain-specific languages (DSLs), which are only suitable for special applications.

advantages

With a general purpose language problems can be solved in many application areas. The programmer has a high degree of freedom and can use already known knowledge again. In addition, GPLs have powerful abstraction mechanisms such as functions, classes, modules, etc.

disadvantage

Problems to be solved have to be implemented in the "complicated" GPL world. This is particularly difficult when complex subject areas overlap. The programmer has to understand the problem, which is often not his area of ​​expertise, before he can translate it into program code. The resulting program is usually difficult for external programmers to understand and requires more training. Domain-specific languages offer a possible solution for this .

Examples

• Ada
• Algol
• C.
• C ++
• COBOL
• D.
• Fortran
• Pascal

literature

• Jason Sanders / Kandrot: CUDA by Example: An Introduction to General-Purpose GPU Programming , Addison-Wesley Professional, 2010

Individual evidence

1. ^ What is a general-purpose language? Accessed April 4, 2019 .