Lambda the Ultimate

Seperating the two is not always that easy or clear cut. Consuder visual languages. The language itself is defined visualy, so the GUI part is essential.

I am not sure about Delphi, but when considering VB, it seems to me the visual elements are quite important - as these define the control flow (since we are talking event driven programming here).

Now to Object Pascal. How well defined is it? Syntax/semantics etc? What compilers are out there?

The confusion may come about from the fact that Object Pascal is used as the underlying code base for a Delphi program while Visual Basic is used as the underlying code base for Visual Basic. So which one would one be talking about? The languge or the enviroment?

Perhaps, we should come up with a list of definitions that's agreed upon to which we can then refer to it, if not, it may come down to a disagreements due to definitions.

This is, of course, only one problem. The fact is that there are other issues - even when we limit ourselves to discussions of the underlying languages.

I don't think the crude view ("if you can program it, it's a programming language") is that wrong - at least, I am not sure that the distinction is useful. Why isn't a spreadsheet a programming language? Because the text isn't linear? Is that important?

Design by numbers is a programming language (system?) that looks as though it could bridge the spreadsheet/language gap (although maybe I'm reading too much into a grid).

And what about Toontalk?!

In the case of Delphi, and Visual C etc., you *can* separate a language from the tools. But I suspect that it may become both more difficult and less useful to do so as languages and IDE become more closely integrated....

Even when we look at the larger picture and include things like XML, I think using seperate categories is helpful. It is just easier when you know that things like paramter-passing and typing are relavent or not. Most programming languages can be studied using the same basic concepts, so when you want to consider other, more avant-garde tools, it is best to make the differences explicit, and explain them - as the first step of your study.

I have no objections to all these tools. Don't mistake me.

By the way: the Design By Numbers page you gave says explicitly "DBN is not a programming language"...

My cursory look didn't impress me. But I only glanced at it a few minutes.

I don't see any reason why it should be banned from the discussion. It seems like a pretty standard language, as far as I know. However, my impression was (and I never did study it in depth) was that it was "pascal with classes" and it didn't offer any intereting object model, or programming apporach not already seen in C++ etc. This is, of course, another issue entirely.

No it doesn't! It says both "DBN is both a programming environment and language" and, later, "DBN is not a general purpose programming language [but...]" (my emphasis). However, it's not interesting because it turns out to be a pretty boring language (the pretty results are a consequence of people fighting against a very restrictive set of parameters, which is often a good way to produce art, but that's a different topic).

A better example of a language that appears not to have a linear textual flow is Noodles .

Cutting back to the chase, your argument seems to be that by interpreting "language" in a literal way the discussion on this site can be more focussed. That's fine by me, but it's a very pragmatic argument that doesn't detract from the view that "programming language" can be interpreted in a much wider sense. But I'll give it a break - I guess your students can defend themselves... :-)

[OTOH, it might be better to let discussion explore wider areas until traffic increases]

Andrew

PS Thanks for the links to Ada info.

an interesting event handling notation (similar to generic functions).