Programming languages comes in all tastes and designs and at any given time new languages are being invented,  but there are features that you will likely find in any given language. These are the feature which makes them be regarded as programming languages anyway.

In this article we will look at the various  features  of  most programming languages in use today. 

Compiler or interpreter

High level Languages must have a way of turning  source codes written in them to machine code. Compiled languages comes with a compiler while interpreted ones comes with an interpreter. Some languages which are both compiled and interpreted  comes  with both, for example Java comes with the Java compiler which turns the source code into bytecode before it is passed to it's  interpreter known as the java virtual machine.
 

Support for arithmetic operations

All languages supports basic arithmetic operations , these  operations forms the basis of writing more complicated programs in each language . Arithmetic operations can be grouped into algebraic, relational and logical operations.
Algebraic  operations

Programming languages provides utilities to perform  basic algebraic operations. Operations supported includes all the basic ones such as  addition , subtraction ,division ,multiplication and modular arithmetic. In most languages there are  reserved symbols to perform this arithmetic operations, some languages also provide builtin functions  on top of  the reserved symbols.  The most common symbols in most programming languages for this operations are:

addition           +
Subtraction          -
Division           /
multiplication          *
modulo operation         %

Most languages also comes  with  builtin  libraries  for advanced mathematical operations

Relational operations

In most languages there is normally a way  to establish  a relation between two or more items. This relation is normally based on  mathematical 'less than', 'greater than' , 'equal to' etc ,  but some languages also allows programmers to define the method used to establish the relation.

The most common symbols  used for relational operations are usually:

Equal         ==
greater          >
smaller          <
greater or equal          >=
smaller or equal          <=
Logical operations

A logical operation is an operation that acts on binary numbers according to the laws of boolean logic.The results of this operations are usually in binary form such as true or false.  The three basic logical operators are  'or' , 'and'  and  'not'.  Programmers can as well combine these operators   to perform more complicated operations. Most programming languages use symbols to denote this operations but some like python uses the  full words.For example the following table shows the symbols used by C and most similar languages for logical operations:

and        &&
or          ||
not           !

 

Conditional branching

Wanting to do something only if a certain condition or conditions are  satisfied is one of the most  common things in programming , for example in authentication systems, a program authenticates a person on condition that the password they enter matches the one stored in the database for the user. 

Almost all programming languages supports in one way or another a way of performing actions based on conditions. Most languages implements this using  the trio keywords  'if', 'else if' and  'else' , this is not always the case , for example python uses elif  instead  of else if.

 

Looping

Looping is performing certain actions repeatedly until a certain action until a condition is not met. Looping forms one of the strongest features of programming languages because it gives programmers the power to perform similar actions without repeating the same lines of codes thus avoiding code redundancy.

There are mostly three types of loops in most programming languages even though their implementations might be different depending on the language, these are  'for', 'while' and 'do while' loops . This is not always the case, for example python does not support the ' do while ' loop  in anyway.

 

Functions

A function is a group of statements which are executed  together to perform a certain task. Functions are mostly used in order to perform a recurring task or  which is likely to be encountered in future . Most programming language have a way of supporting the use of functions, they normally provide keywords for implementing the functions.

One of the notable and useful application of functions is in object-oriented programming, they are used to abstract various behavior or actions  of an object instance.

 

Data types

A datatype defines  various features of a data item such as the values it can take  and  the various operations that can be performed on it. Data types supported by most of the programming languages includes  basic ones also known as scala data types for example

integral data types
  • integers
  • boolean
  • floats
  • Double

other basic data types are characters and strings 

They also support advanced ones which can be customized by programmers depending on the requirements such as classes and structures.

 

Data structures

Data structures are the various ways that a data can be organized, manipulated , stored and retrieved in a computer. Some data structures includes arrays, stacks, lists, Queues and many others. The most fundamental data structure in computers is the array and almost all languages supports them. Arrays  are contagious locations in the computer's memory, in fact the whole of computer's memory can be seen as one long array. When programming languages declares an array, the operating system sets aside a small contagious   part  in the memory equal to the specified size. An array can as well be used to make other data structures such  as a stack and queue.

Some programming languages also comes with other  inbuilt data structures .

 

referencing objects in computer memory

A program at any given time receives,  manipulates , stores and retrieves data in the memory, therefore, all programming languages in a way supports  referencing these data .  The objects referenced may be files which were already in  the memory before the program started running or values which the program creates or updates at runtime. A value created during runtime is usually given a unique name called an identifier which identifies it  as long as it exists in the program's runtime.
 

Syntax

Each programming language has it's own unique syntax, this is one of the major features which makes a language standout from the rest. 
 
Syntax are rules which defines how keywords,  words and symbols are to be used in order to make correctly structured statements in a given language.
 

Input/Output(I/O) 

Input and output are two of the most fundamental components of a programming language. Input is the process of getting information or data into the computer system, while output is the process of getting information or data out of the computer system. Examples of input include a user typing on a keyboard, a mouse click, or a file being uploaded to a computer. Examples of output include a document being printed, a visual display, or a sound being played.

 

Memory Management

Memory management  is the process of allocating, scheduling, and reclaiming of objects in memory. It is a critical part of any program and is necessary to ensure efficient use of system resources (CPU, RAM, etc.). Memory management is handled differently in different programming languages, with different approaches such as garbage collection, reference counting, and manual management.

 

Exception handling

Exception handling is a process of handling errors that occur during the execution of a program. It is a key component of  programming languages and is supported by most modern languages like Java, C++, and Python.It helps in creating programs that are more reliable, efficient, and secure. 

 

Interoperability

Languages often provide ways to interact with code written in other languages. This can include support for calling functions or using libraries written in different languages or integration with existing systems and APIs.