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

[wildstar <wildstar128@hotmail.com>]

"Randy McLaughlin" <randy@nospam.com> wrote in
news:BvoJa.9888$al.2394@fe03.atl2.webusenet.com: 


> Dictionarries are recognized authorities on definitions, I don't know
> if you noticed but the thread is an argument on the definition of
> programming. 

Common dictionaries definitions of "terminology" are not explicitly 
written in a fashion for experts but for average people to get an idea. 
Computer Programming Language is a computer terminology and a dictionary 
definition is not written for experts in computer program. They are 
written for the common folk. Until you get into the field of computer 
programming, then you will learn to define things as the scope gets much 
more complex and defining things more accurately. If I said we had a bug 
in a program, that is not enough. To be useful, we need to know the 
symptoms and where the bug is occuring. Like a doctor diagnosing an 
illness. They have terms that describe specific types of illnesses. In 
the field of computer programming, saying computer language is like 
saying an automobile. Describe the automobile (language). Once you 
describe it, then WHY didn't you say it was a truck or a car or a 
motorcycle. In a relavent statement, it would be like this, " Why didn't 
you say it was a programming language when describing it is a programming 
language. HTML from experience and use is resembling to a document markup 
code. In early days of word processors, we simply called this stuff tags 
or marks. It is like the fact that we had multimedia long before the word 
"multimedia" was coined. 

Programming languages is a category of Computer Languages. So is Script 
Languages and Markup Languages. They are all Computer Languages and thus 
carries all the general features/elements the defines computer languages.

It is like this word - "Rodents". That is a general term but not all 
rodents are rats or mices. Some are hamsters, gerbals,ect. Gerbals are 
not Rats but they both are rodents. This is about categorizations and 
sub-categorizations. It is often not clearly written in a dictionary.

Most of our definitions is defined in actually getting a degree in the 
field and professionally. Books about programming languages and computer 
science is the basis of many of our sources. Yet, there is a level of 
discretion. It is very discretionary to define if Javascript can be 
considered a programming language. Script languages are very 
discretionary nowadays.