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## Programming Language Design and Evolution (Specific and General Purpose Languages)

- Many programming languages are created with a specific purpose.
  - database processing.
  - "artificial intelligence."
  - multimedia processing.
- Special-purpose languages are not used much beyond their area of specialization.
- General purpose languages can be used for any task.
  - Pascal: designed as a teaching language (purposefully kept simple).
  - C: developed to be translated efficiently into fast machine code, with a minimum of housekeeping.
  - C++: adds "object oriented programming" aspects to C.

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