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What are the disadvantages of using high-level languages?

I take that the obvious advantages are maintainability, programmer-friendliness etc. but what are the disadvantages?

Is the compiler being put under extra work to convert where it may not be necessary?

Are there situations where low-level languages are better suited to a task because of aforementioned disadvantages?

Solution

  • In short: Low Level Languages can yield better performance due to very specific optimizations.

    Advantages of Low Level Languages:

    • You can specifically target and utilize chip features (or registers)
    • Generally it can be (a lot) faster if you know what you do, but this is a rare case.

    Disadvantages of High Level Languages:

    • You need some sort of compiler to get the HLL to LLL
    • In some cases (e.g. Java / C#) you have an interpreter in between which also consumes resources (but can also optimize itself while running the program!)

    Here a more detailed list of Advantages of LLL:

    • you can access machine-dependent registers and I/O
    • you can control the exact code behavior in critical sections that might otherwise involve deadlock between multiple software threads or hardware devices
    • you can break the conventions of your usual compiler, which might allow some optimizations (like temporarily breaking rules about
      memory allocation, threading, calling conventions, etc)
    • you can build interfaces between code fragments using incompatible conventions (e.g. produced by different compilers, or separated by a
      low-level interface)
    • you can get access to unusual programming modes of your processor (e.g. 16 bit mode to interface startup, firmware, or legacy code on
      Intel PCs)
    • you can produce reasonably fast code for tight loops to cope with a bad non-optimizing compiler (but then, there are free optimizing
      compilers available!)
    • you can produce hand-optimized code perfectly tuned for your particular hardware setup, though not to someone else's
    • you can write some code for your new language's optimizing compiler (that is something what very few ones will ever do, and even they not often)
    • i.e. you can be in complete control of your code

    Source: http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Assembly-HOWTO/x133.html