Re: text equation

Jim wrote:
>I tend to agree with this timeline, but you also have to
>look at the fact that in the 1960's Algol would of been
>considered a high level language, but if you take that same
>Algol now it is considered quite a low level language.
>
>I think that the terms low, middle and high level are two
>abstract.  I think that's where the generation terms came
>from.  I remember in the 70's and 80's everyone was
>talking about 3rd generation languages that would come
>along soon.  I guess they are here with OOPs and such.
>
>I think I was thinking more along the lines of 3rd generation
>languages being high level, 2nd generation being middle level,
>and 1st generation being low level.
>
>But heck, it's just not that simple anymore.  Languages can
>just do so much and have so many differences maybe the
>concepts of low level and high level languages have become
>obsolete.  Although everyone would agree that Assembly would
>be a low level language by any definition.
>
>Have we come to the age where assembly is low level, and all
>other programming languages are now high level?

Come to think of it, I'm not sure if the term "high-level
language" was ever really intended to imply anything other
than "more powerful than assembly language".

Sure, we can come up with any kind of hierarchy (and even
family trees) of programming languages, but there's really
no sense in trying to rate one language as a "higher-level"
language than any other.  There are too many variables.

Even assembly language could be considered as a high-level
language.  Most assembly languages come with a macro
facility.  Using the right set of macros, an assembly
language program could look very much like any "high-level
language".

Even the term "generation" seems to have fallen out of
favor when discussing programming languages.  The terms
"4th generation language" and "5th generation language"
refer more to application domain rather than language
sophistication.


>Remember Delphi (Pascal), VB (Basic), and just about
>every language that does objects now.  Although I tend
>to doubt if Fortran or Cobol does objects, and I've yet to
>see an object in RPG.
>
>Does that mean RPG is stuck in the 80's?

No.  Sorry RPG fans, but by my "Decades of Programming
Languages" classification system, although RPG IV has some
features of later decades, I'd put it squarely in the 1960's.
It doesn't have true data structure abstraction like Pascal
or C, no module abstraction like Modula, and no objects.

Cheers!  Hans

Hans Boldt, ILE RPG Development, IBM Toronto Lab, boldt@ca.ibm.com


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