Re: programming language genealogy

[Hans Boldt <boldt@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Mail List wrote:
> Hi Hans,
>
> That is an interesting definition.  I would assume from this that Assembler
> or its ilk are not programming languages, right?  Because while they are "a
> set of characters with rules for combining them", it's been my experience
> that they do require knowledge of machine code,  they're not exactly
> portable, and they're generally one-to-one as far as opcode to machine
> instruction, although macro capabilities could be construed as "instruction
> explosion".  So if they're not programming languages, what are they?

While certainly you can do "programming" using "assembly languages" 
(just like you can do programming by coding a series of hex 
numbers), I think Sammet's point is that they are somehow different 
than the things we normally call "programming languages". Her 
definition is used to group together "programming languages" for the 
purpose of study, and clearly assembly languages aren't as 
interesting from an academic point of view. For example, can you 
come up with a context-free grammar for an assembly language? Sure, 
it's a fine point, but on balance, I would tend to agree with her 
definition and keep assembly languages in a different category.

Now, where MI fits with respect to Sammet's definition, that's 
another issue. I'll leave that debate to others! ;-)

Cheers! Hans