Forms Processing

[Dave Hull]

On Thu, 8 May 2003, Jeremy Fowler wrote:

> Granted, the editors at the American Heritage Dictionary are not technical 
> by any means. However, they are not medical or industrial either; but they 
> do include widely accepted definitions of words that are. They had to get 
> the definition from somewhere, they just didn't make it up. Unfortunately 
> they haven't provided a source. The bibliographic record contains "Words are 
> included in this Dictionary on the basis of their usage.", meaning they came 
> up with the definition based on it's use in the American language. 

Sure, and my high school English teacher used to say ""Ain't" ain't a word," 
yet I'm sure it's in the AHD. Just because a plurality of the population use a 
certain idiom doesn't make it correct, and I happen to be one of those people 
that thinks languages are fluid and rightly so.

> However, I can agree with your interpretation that since HTML is a markup 
> language, it is not a true programming language.

Ok then.

> Then you would also have to agree that since perl, python, and PHP are 
> scripting languages and thus interpreted languages, they are not true 
> programming languages either.

I disagree entirely with you here. These languages are programming languages 
because they include essential programming language constructs like variables, 
iteration, conditional expressions, etc. It doesn't make any difference 
whether or not they are interpretted or compiled. BTW, isn't there a way to 
have Perl produce byte-code?

> For another way to interpret "An artificial language used to write 
> instructions that can be translated into machine language and then executed 
> by a computer." is that the language itself has to be translated or 
> complied into machine language which is then executed by a computer.

And what exactly do you think happens when scripting languages are 
interpretted?

> So if one were to include scripting languages as a form of programming 
> language, one must also include markup languages.

I disagree. You can't do anything with HTML other than describe content. You 
can't assign variables, you can't perform operations conditionally nor 
iteratitively using straight HTML.

> Theirs a reason they call them Web Programmers you know... ;-)

Some people call them web programmers, but I don't, unless they are writing 
dynamic web applications using some sort of programming language as defined by 
myself above. I have a number of talented designer friends who spend countless 
hours designing web pages using HTML and CSS (doing things I'll likely never 
be able to do), but not one of them considers himself or herself a programmer. 
They consider themselves to be designers.

There are also many talented people who are both web designers and web 
programmers because they do both design and programming, using Perl or PHP or 
what have you, but they are not programming using HTML, they are using HTML 
for page markup.

It's unlikely that either of us will convince the other of the correctness of 
his assertions and seeing how this is not really all that relevant to the 
subject of this list, I'll stop responding to this thread before someone 
mentions Hitler himself.

-- 
Dave Hull
http://insipid.com

Meekness is uncommon patience in planning a worthwhile revenge.