Forms Processing

[Dave Hull]

On Thu, 8 May 2003, Jeremy Fowler wrote:

> Sorry to be a stickler but...
> 
> programming language
> n. 
> An artificial language used to write instructions that can be translated 
> into machine language and then executed by a computer. 
> 
> Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth 
> Edition
> Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
> Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
>  
> HTML may not have all the constructs and features of most of today's 
> programming languages. However, considering the above definition, HTML is an 
> artificial language which contains instructions that is translated into 
> machine language by the web browser to display information on the screen. 
> Then there is always DHTML which is a Hybrid of HTML mixed with a 
> client-side scripting language of some kind (JavaScript, VBScript, etc.). 

The people who put the American Heritage Dictionary together wouldn't know a 
programming language if it sat on their faces. HTML is an artificial language, 
but it's not a programming language, it's a markup language for constructing 
documents.

I've never heard any literate computer programmer call it a programming 
language. It lacks too many constructs essential to programming languages 
(i.e. looping, variables, conditional expressions, etc.).

-- 
Dave Hull
http://insipid.com

COBOL:
	An exercise in Artificial Inelegance.