Re: programming language genealogy

Hi Hans,

That is an interesting definition.  I would assume from this that Assembler
or its ilk are not programming languages, right?  Because while they are "a
set of characters with rules for combining them", it's been my experience
that they do require knowledge of machine code,  they're not exactly
portable, and they're generally one-to-one as far as opcode to machine
instruction, although macro capabilities could be construed as "instruction
explosion".  So if they're not programming languages, what are they?

Curious,
Peter Dow
Dow Software Services, Inc.
909 793-9050 voice
909 793-4480 fax
909 522-3214 cell

----- Original Message -----
From: "Hans Boldt"
Sent: Thursday, May 29, 2003 7:22 AM
> If you *really* think her definition is worth debating, is there any
> activity of writing programs in a programming language not covered
> by her definition? Or does her definition include languages not used
> for computer programming?
>
...
> > "a programming language is a set of characters with rules for combining
> > them. It has the following characteristics; 1) Machine code knowledge is
> > unnecessary, 2) Potential for conversion to other computers, 3)
Instruction
> > explosion, and 4) problem-oriented notation.".