Re: Low-level vs. High-level programming (was My First Computer)

[wildstar <wildstar128@hotmail.com>]

"Randy McLaughlin" <randy@nospam.com> wrote in
news:2OQIa.363$mS2.180@fe04.atl2.webusenet.com: 


> The Eniac DID have a language - machine language.  Later machines
> eased the task by making program boards that held jumper wires in a
> peg-board like araingement.  Later von Neumann designs allowed for
> other media (punch cards, mag tape, etc.) to load the computer memory
> with programs.  The truth is everyone reading this post has an "older"
> non-von Neumann machine next to them, for 10 points who can name it
> first? 
> 
> I have enjoyed this thread, the thread has been nothing more than a
> mental joust.  It is obvious you know little or nothing about:
> programming, computer, computer programming the mental joust for me
> has been with an unarmed opponent.  You missed every single important
> part of the thread: Programming can be extremely simple tasks such as
> programming a VCR (also a machine language).  A person that programs a
> VCR is programming the VCR but that same person is not a "programmer":
>  A HTML program is a program the person that creates the program is
> doing little more than word processing and not a "programmer".  Simple
> programs such as windows batch files, unix shell files etc. are
> programs and you can buy plenty of programming books for them.  The
> people who create these programs are not "programmers". 
> 
> HTML as well as thousands of other tasks done everyday are computer
> programming.  After years of training to become computer programmers
> people don't like to look on these mundane tasks as programming, but
> they are.  It is not just a technicality it is by definition.

HTML is a document markup language. You wouldn't call the formatting code 
in a word processor file like the code that tells how many pixels or so 
from the margin should the image start, or when a font should be 24 point 
instead of 14 point. That is essentially what HTML does. HTML describes 
the layout of a webpage. Scripts are used for programming. Some people 
are creative with tables and links. That is all. That is simple a pseudo-
program. Until one can keep scores  with HTML without outside help of 
scripts languages or real programming language then I would like to see. 
Of course it would be of usefulness if one can store that score into a 
score file that even simple BASIC did in 1964. Eh, that is variable 
handling and file handling. All real programming language require some 
form of data/file handling which machine language can do. This is call 
low-level programming. All higher level language simple convert text data 
into machine opcode instructions. That is what a program is. HTML can be 
called a computer language but not quite called a "programming language"

Markup languages are forms of document layout/definition scripting. Even 
Microsoft Word has this but due to the advent of WYSIWYG (graphical 
representation) people no longer had to use fancy codes like ^p to mark a 
new paragraph. In HTML that is <p> (Same purpose as PaperClip). Most 
people here probably do not remember this unless you are a Commodore user 
or a classic computer user. This changed in the mid-80s along with the 
advent of Graphical User Interface. (Macintosh,Windows 1.0,Amiga-OS, 
GEOS, and several others). This was because early word processors 
represent fonted text on screen and simply let that be up to the printer.

This was because of the stress on memory. In many ways, PaperClip is more 
powerful than GeoWrite but GeoWrite had better and more easier 
representation of the font that use see on screen before you printed 
which saved on paper and time because some of those dot-matrix where SLOW 
and NOISY. Some features that where in PaperClip that was not in GeoWrite 
was data linking and some of the extra stuff simply because PaperClip's 
stuff took alot of RAM and so does GeoWrite and the GEOS OS and all you 
had was 64KB to work with.

HTML's <p>...</p> is nothing more then PaperClip's ^p which where marked 
tags in the text file as certain characters where not displayable unless 
a special code sequence was used to display those characters then again - 
you wouldn't use ^ in a document. Well when the ^ looked like an actual 
arrow like the up arrow cursor key on your IBM PC keyboard. The ^ 
actually looked like an arrow so who would use something like that in a 
document. The p that followed meant new paragraph and the code could have 
been multiple characters long and often required a carriage return to 
marked the end of the tag. Though the carriage return didn't always meant 
new line.

You wouldn't call this tag stuff a programming language. You shouldn't 
with HTML just because data-linking process was more efficient in 
bringing up a whole new page. HTML was designed for the purpose to make 
hypertext documents. The purpose of hypertext documents where originally 
designed for the purpose of making rather interactive documents that you 
can click on a highlighted word and get a definition or even a picture. 
This was called interactive document which only meant user-event driven 
data-linking instead of automatic datalinking as with PaperClip which 
could link a whole entire paragraph or more from another document into 
your new document.

This was way back in 1983.

I still wouldn't call it a true programming language as a document is not 
a program as you will clearly find out in CS131 or whatever would be your 
first course class in a programming language is.