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

["Kelly Hall" <hall@priest.com>]

"Randy McLaughlin" <randy@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:et4Ia.909$J52.372@fe02.atl2.webusenet.com...

> Word has now come down someone has now set the standard for what a
computer
> programming language must contain.  Many computer languages have had
similar
> statements made if it doesn't have x it can't be programming, a good
example
> is dbase.  When dbase came out everyone said it's not a programming
language
> because it did not have a goto (other than record pointer).  HTML is a
very
> limited language it allows for someone to tell a client to do
sophisticated
> actions.  You may not like it since it does not contain the verbs you want
> it to have, but it still is a programming language.  It will not balance
> your checkbook, but it will allow you see the world.

"word came down" when Church and Rosser proved the equivalence of the lambda
calculus and Turing machines.  In the half-century since then, lots of other
people have invented fancy new computation paradigms, and most have been
showed to be equivalent to Turing machines.  If you can show me how to
implment either a Turing machine or the lambda calculus in HTML, then I'll
grant that HTML expresses computation, and is thus a programming language.
You'll probably earn at least an honorary PhD in CS for this, and likely get
a Turing award from ACM.  Hurry up - fame and glory await you at the end of
your task!

One can implement a Turing machine in dBase without any trouble: a data base
has state, and has operations that can alter that state.  Unless you jump
out of HTML to use something like JavaScript, ASP, or server-side
processing, HTML is static, making it unable to express computation, and
thus not a programming language.  This isn't a value judgement about the
elegance or utility of HTML, it's about the fundamental nature of computing.

Kelly