But me and my friend were having a friendly argument and found this board and thought that maybe you guys could settle this debate for us: What is the difference between an algorithm and a programming language? I've always thought that programming languages solve algorithms, but my friend thinks programming languages construct algorithms. So yeah, which is it?
Algorithm: a precise rule (or set of rules) specifying how to solve a particular problem.
Programming language: a language used to communicate programs and algorithms intended to be readable to a human reader as well interpreted by computer.
When we speak or write, we use a spoken language to communicate our thoughts. Programmers use programming languages to communicate algorithms to other programmers as well as the computer.
Name:
Anonymous2010-04-24 15:04
Programming languages are the tools that we use to implement algorithms.