Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site mit-eddie.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!harvard!godot!mit-eddie!smh From: smh@mit-eddie.UUCP (Steven M. Haflich) Newsgroups: net.lang Subject: Re: High-levelity Message-ID: <3370@mit-eddie.UUCP> Date: Mon, 31-Dec-84 10:16:41 EST Article-I.D.: mit-eddi.3370 Posted: Mon Dec 31 10:16:41 1984 Date-Received: Tue, 1-Jan-85 06:08:23 EST References: <83@mit-athena.ARPA> <235@gumby.UUCP> <6834@watdaisy.UUCP> Reply-To: smh@mit-eddie.UUCP (Steven M. Haflich) Organization: MIT, Cambridge, MA Lines: 23 Norman Diamond (ndiamond@watdaisy.UUCP) defines an ordering function for high-levelness: >If it is easier to translate between the problem being solved and a program >in language X, than between the problem and a program in language Y, then >X is higher-level than Y. This is an attractive formulation which directly addresses the expressive `ease' of a language. However, he then continues by jumbling up the language with the hardware on which it runs: >If it is easier to translate a problem into a program than it is to translate >the program into machine code, then the language is at least moderately high- >level. The problem, of course, is that by implication a language's high-levelness is penalized when running on `higher-level hardware'. If someone forges silicon that executes Prolog directly in microcode, without compilation, does that make Prolog low-level? Is C running on a 8086 higher level than when running on a VAX or 68000? Soon more and more hardware will look less and less von Neumann. At least, I hope so! :-)