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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, April 23 2012 @ 06:51 AM EDT |
This is an important point that you both (Mark and PJ) seem to be missing.
The language is not the implementation, and the implementation is not the
language. You aren't techies, so I will try to explain clearly, with lots of
examples:
For one example, look at how long it took C++ compilers to actually implement
all of the features of C++. (I would not be suprised if they still haven't, for
some of the more complicated bits of template metaprogramming magic)
Here's another way to approach this:
Is a dictionary a language?
Is a book describing grammer, punctuation and syntax a language?
Is a book on how to learn a language a language?
A Language has all the things these books describe, but not even all of them
taken together *are* the language, they merely describe it.
Is an eBook reader a language?
Does the human brain contain a language?
These things parse the language, and derive some meaning from it, but are not
the language.
The language does not have a physical form, even though you can write statements
in a physical form using the language.
Computer programming languages are languages, in every sense of the word. They
are just very simple, direct languages, designed for writing lists of
instructions, with some parts of them being pretty unpronouncable, but very
readable.
"Computer" used to be a job title, until we built machines that were
better at doing that job than humans.
I hope this helps you understand.[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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