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

["Randy McLaughlin" <randy@nospam.com>]

"Kelly Hall" <hall@priest.com> wrote in message
news:jbeJa.245$3r5.9975866@newssvr15.news.prodigy.com...
>
> "Randy McLaughlin" <randy@nospam.com> wrote in message
> news:aA4Ja.10576$bH3.2854@fe02.atl2.webusenet.com...
> > I have yet to find a definition of a programming language better than a
> > language used to program a computer.
>
> For myself, I define a 'computer programming language' as some formalized
> syntax and semantics that express computation sufficient to model a Turing
> machine.  I'm not picky what sort of formalisms one uses; traditionally,
> Extended Backus-Naur Form (EBNF) is handy for syntax, and there are lots
of
> different formalisms for semantics (translational, operational,
> denotational - pick whatever you like).  I insist on Turing-completeness
> because frankly anything less seems pretty boring.  This definition
doesn't
> preclude non-textual programming languages; you'll just need to use a
> different formalism for the syntax.
>
> While HTML has a formal syntax, the semantics is somewhat vague and
> certainly the language is not Turing-complete.  Thus, I don't consider
HTML
> a 'computer programming language'.
>
> Of course, you may define 'computer programming language' any way that
makes
> good sense to you.
>
> > One person posted two references about
> > computer programming languages, but all they did was name a couple of
> > languages and stated the languages are broken into different gl classes,
> but
> > no definition of what a language must contain to be a language.
>
> Does my definition meet your criteria?  If you want, you can google 'EBNF'
> and 'denotational semantics' and 'Turing completeness' - they are well
> understood concepts in computer science.
>
> Kelly

I will look them up.

Thak you.