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

[wildstar <wildstar128@hotmail.com>]

"Randy McLaughlin" <randy@nospam.com> wrote in
news:9snIa.12430$uH2.3254@fe10.atl2.webusenet.com: 

> The compiler does not define the language it impliments it.  If a
> compiler has non-standard extensions that increase the functionality
> on a particular platform it does not mean the "language" supports it,
> just that a particular dialect does.  If someone wrote a browser that
> allowed inline-assembly language for for windows calls etc. it would
> not mean that HTML for every other browser would have to change.

Handling data and or variables do take into account in the definition of 
whether a language is a programming language as this is a basic element 
that allows for the creation of actual programs. Would you say the tags 
and special character codes used in PaperClip to mark new paragraph and 
Fonts being Italic or Bold is a programming language. HTML really 
resembles PaperClip to some degree. The purpose of HTML was and has never 
been for creating programs but creating web based documents.

When will you realize that. HTML simply doesn't have the power to handle 
data other than spitting out data and button clicking. Any more than that 
requires scripting or an actual programming language to handle. There is 
no variables for containing user data like string handling. This is not 
mentioned in a quick short layman definition but is when you do 
programming. Do you understand without variables, you can easily prevent 
the creation of certain programs and render data entry not an option. 
HTML doesn't provide data entry capability by itself. You can place text 
in a text box but data handling comes in the form of taking the data and 
process the data. HTML does not do that. Script languages are subsets of 
computer languages that are in some cases very much like real programming 
languages.