On 7/12/15 10:12 AM, James B. Byrne wrote:
> Methinks this is what is happening here:
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distinction_without_a_difference

Yes, and a bit of this, as well:

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/gadfly?s=t


B.





On 7/12/15 10:12 AM, James B. Byrne wrote:
>> Date:    Sat, 11 Jul 2015 11:16:55 -0400
>> From:    Tom Lang <[log in to unmask]>
>> Subject: Re: Wikipedia TurboImage article
>
>>
>> Computer Languages have been written about by such illustrious
>> individuals as Donald Knuth, Noam Chomsky, Edser Dijkstra, and many,
>> many others.
>> http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~uno/cl.html
>> http://www.chomsky.info/
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edsger_W._Dijkstra
>>
>> None of the above mention '4GL' anywhere in their writings.
>>
>
> Well, the KJV of the bible does not mention computer either.
> None-the-less they seem to be.
>
>> My problem with so-called Fourth Generation Languages is the use of
>> the term 'Language' attached to a commercial product.
>>
>
> Given that criteria then HP's own COBOL II would not be a computer
> language either. Nor for that matter would SPL.  Nor Visual Cobol.
> Nor Microsoft dot Net.  Nor Java.  It seems that applying that one
> criterion would exclude a large body of work that the rest of the
> world seems quite comfortable with treating as computer languages.
>
>
>>
>> I therefore maintain the view that creating a textual interface;
>> submitting that to an Interpreter; then submitting the result to a
>> compiler is not a 'fourth generation language'.
>>
> .  .  .
>> HP's Job Control LANGUAGE (JCL) is a means of interacting with the
>> Command Interpreter (CI). It is highly sophisticated and has evolved
>> over many years, but it is not considered as a Language - just a means
>> to an end. It is the language of communicating with the O/S.
>
> MPE/iX's JCL / CI is most certainly a computer programming language by
> any reasonable definition.  I have written many complicated scripts in
> the CI which are used to control job submissions and user environments
> on the HP3000 that could be implemented in Perl or Ruby with no better
> results.
>
> http://www.robelle.com/ftp/papers/progci.txt
>
> Every computer programming language is just a means to an end: to get
> something useful done with a pile of silicon, copper, steel, glass and
> traces of god-knows-what-else without taking all day to figure out how
> every time something needs doing.
>
> Arguments about what to call PowerHouse or Speedware products are
> pointless. If not 4GL then what?  For transaction processing with a
> DBMS back-end both families are certainly head and shoulders more
> efficient with a programmer's time than COBOL, Fortran, Algol, APL,
> BASIC, C++, Java, Ruby, Perl, PHP, and whatever else the cat has
> coughed up this week, can ever hope to be.  Whatever else PH or SW
> might be I would not lump either in with that pile of worms.
>
> So 4GL is marketing-speak;  sort of like G3, G4 and G5 cell networks.
> Each is whatever the person presently talking about it says it is.  Of
> course, in a similar vein now in English we have a word proactive -
> whatever that means; prophylactic perhaps?
>
> Methinks this is what is happening here:
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distinction_without_a_difference

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