this post was submitted on 06 Mar 2024
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Programmer Humor

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[–] [email protected] 66 points 8 months ago (30 children)

For the common folk working with a markup language is programming.

[–] [email protected] 39 points 8 months ago (25 children)

For all intents and purposes, a markup document is a script that outputs a document. There's no point in saying the HTML isn't a programming language. Not all languages have to be general purpose.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (6 children)

Not really. If so, you might as well consider the stuff you can use to format a comment here on lemmy, as "programming". That's conceptually more similar to HTML as what programming actually is.

quote

some title

Ooo hyperlink

Etc.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (2 children)

Yeah.. there are macros to handle formatting. Next you'll say Scratch isn't programming either.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago

To my knowledge, Scratch can save information away and retrieve it later. That's enough to be programming. There are Theory of Computation reasons for this; it's not an arbitrary distinction.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

That's such a weird point to make. Is it because to you, it seems like the line drawn is arbitrary? I cannot imagine any other reason. Certain words just mean certain things.

Markup languages are exactly as much "programming" as you marking a word and hitting "bold". Which is to say, nothing at all. People are wrong all the time, and I have a very limited amount of fucks to give when it happens.

As for Scratch, it is a programming language. So, why would you think it's a logical next step for me to say otherwise? Next, you'll say something remarkably dumb in response. Resist the temptation, and do something more productive.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

If he had said "LaTeX" or "roff", that might have been a good example of something that blurs the line between the two. They aren't specifically intended to be programming languages, but with a powerful enough macro system, a markup or typesetting language can be used in the same way as something like Brainfuck.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Absolutely. Those you suggest there are good examples.

Good enough that, instead of "is/isn't" programming language, it would be more a "ah, so, how do you define that then?". Now that I've had some sleep, one could argue that I could have been nicer and suggested that approach for HTML as well. After all, it's just words that mean stuff, and transfer a concept between people, that translate to the same (ish) idea. The moment the latter isn't the case, it's no longer very useful for the former.

Most disagreements, I find, are just cases of different understandings. Discussions worth having is when both are correct but different, and both want to figure out why they differ. So, on second thought, I think I was appropriately rude ^_^

Both LaTeX and roff are Turing complete, but they are also DSLs with a somewhat narrow "domain". Sounds exactly right that these blur the lines between what is/isn't. You could even argue that claiming one or the other is just one way to express how you understand that difference.

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