Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site wu1.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!mit-eddie!godot!harvard!seismo!cmcl2!rna!cubsvax!wu1!rf From: rf@wu1.UUCP Newsgroups: net.lang Subject: Re: "high-level" (some thoughts) Message-ID: <331@wu1.UUCP> Date: Mon, 7-Jan-85 18:58:49 EST Article-I.D.: wu1.331 Posted: Mon Jan 7 18:58:49 1985 Date-Received: Wed, 9-Jan-85 04:42:09 EST Organization: Western Union Telegraph, Mahwah, NJ Lines: 17 The term "high-level" used to imply a hierarchy in which the first level was numeric machine code, the second level was assembler code, the third level was procedural languages like FORTRAN and COBOL, and the forth was problem- oriented "languages" like MACSYMA or VisiCalc. By this definition it is clear that Ada, Algol, Basic, C, COBOL, FORTRAN, Modula-2, Pascal, and PL/I are all at the same level. Regrettably, sales hype has given the term "high-level" the meaning "good". Thus the discussion of language level in net.lang is becoming a discussion of the quality of languages -- an interesting topic, but not one subject to quantification or resolution. Randolph Fritz UUCPnet: {ihnp4,decvax}!philabs!wu1!rf "We can only truly see, even the best of us, even the greatest, what we love." -- Archibald MacLeish