Low-level programming language

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A low-level programming language is a programming language that provides little or no abstraction from a computer's instruction set architecture; commands or functions in the language are structurally similar to a processor's instructions. Generally, this refers to either machine code or assembly language. Because of the low (hence the word) abstraction between the language and machine language, low-level languages are sometimes described as being "close to the hardware". Programs written in low-level languages tend to be relatively non-portable, due to being optimized for a certain type of system architecture.^[1][2][3][4]

Low-level languages can convert to machine code without a compiler or interpreter—second-generation programming languages^[5][6] use a simpler processor called an assembler—and the resulting code runs directly on the processor. A program written in a low-level language can be made to run very quickly, with a small memory footprint. An equivalent program in a high-level language can be less efficient and use more memory. Low-level languages are simple, but considered difficult to use, due to numerous technical details that the programmer must remember. By comparison, a high-level programming language isolates execution semantics of a computer architecture from the specification of the program, which simplifies development.^[1]