[PW] Windows programming language?

[Derrick Schneider]

A point that may be worth noting (or it may be too much information).

Visual Basic may be used to program Windows features, but it is run by a
virtual machine that is itself part of Windows. When you compile a language
such as C or C++, you create a big blob of assembly instructions that talk
to a particular set of chips. This is why you couldn't, in the old days,
just run the Mac OS on a Windows machine: The compiled instructions were for
different chips. (Even today, it requires a lot of programming ninja
skills.)

Visual Basic is compiled down to assembly instructions as well, but they are
for a virtual machine: A fixed, defined chip set, if you will. Java works
the same way. You create a virtual machine that has its set of instructions,
but the VM is compiled in a language like C or C++ to run on particular
hardware chip. That's why you can't run a Windows Java VM on a Mac (compiled
for different chip sets), but you can run the same Java program on each one
(because it's interacting with the virtual machine's "chip set" which is
consistent).

Derrick

On Wed, Apr 30, 2008 at 10:40 AM, Lois Fundis <fundisl at weirton.lib.wv.us>
wrote:

> One of my co-workers (on behalf of her son) wants to know what language
> Windows is programmed in. I am not entirely clear from what I've found
> on the Internet. I've found several languages mentioned (Visual BASIC
> and C++ being two) and some that "run on Windows" or "operate on a
> Windows platform" (which I'm not sure is the same thing).
>
> Can anyone enlighten us or point us to a website or source that can? Is
> there one language that is the main one used for Windows?
> --
> Lois Aleta Fundis, Reference and Government Documents Librarian
> ^~~~^  Mary H. Weir Public Library    Weirton, WV 26062
> .O   O    fundisl at weirton.lib.wv.us       (304) 797-8510, fax -8526
>  .  \/      Depository number 0655A     The owl says, "Carpe librum!"
>
>
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