In the context of basic expertise from an existing first language such as C or C++, this subject introduces language paradigms and categorises a selection of languages in terms of these paradigms, application domain specialisation and historical considerations. An introduction to portable programming and multiple platform development is given, with an emphasis on language preprocessing, coding style and debugging principles.

Two or more languages are selected for more detailed study through the use of patterns. Typically, one language will be script based and one language will contain high level networking support for distributed applications. Languages are chosen to support multiple environments such as Windows, UNIX and a web server CGI.

Lectures will include case studies in preparation for student software design. While this subject includes some program design, it does not extend to software systems architecture and development that are the focus of software engineering.