Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site gumby.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!mit-eddie!godot!harvard!seismo!uwvax!gumby!g-frank From: g-frank@gumby.UUCP Newsgroups: net.lang Subject: high-level-headedness Message-ID: <241@gumby.UUCP> Date: Thu, 3-Jan-85 00:26:42 EST Article-I.D.: gumby.241 Posted: Thu Jan 3 00:26:42 1985 Date-Received: Fri, 4-Jan-85 00:47:07 EST Distribution: net Organization: U of Wisconsin CS Dept Lines: 21 > A high-level language expresses high-level concepts WELL. > -- Macrakis@Harvard My knee-jerk reaction is to agree. On reflection, however, I have two questions: 1) Which is more important to this definition: expressiveness, or the level of the concepts expressed? 2) Are we going to have an easier time defining high-level concepts than we did defining a high-level language? A virtuous man is filled with virtue, I suppose, but definitions of this sort leave us in doubt as to the value of his qualities. Can we take a different approach and suggest, as I once did in a rather fuzzy way, that the first purpose of a language is to communicate, and that all the features of the elephant we've been blindly describing may be different aspects of effective communication of ideas and purpose?