Oy Language N.
A Language Useful For Instructional
Purposes Or As A Proof-of-concept For Some Aspect Of
Computer-science Theory, But Inadequate For General-purpose
Programming.
A language useful for instructional
purposes or as a proof-of-concept for some aspect of
computer-science theory, but inadequate for general-purpose
programming. Bad Things can result when a toy language is
promoted as a general purpose solution for programming (see
bondage-and-discipline language); the classic example is
Pascal. Several moderately well-known formalisms for
conceptual tasks such as programming Turing machines also qualify
as toy languages in a less negative sense. See also MFTL.
Pascal n.
An Algol-descended language designed by
Niklaus Wirth on the CDC 6600 around 1967-68 as an instructional
tool for elementary programming. This language, designed primarily
to keep students from shooting themselves in the foot and thus
extremely restrictive from a general-purpose-programming point of
view, was later promoted as a general-purpose tool and, in fact,
became the ancestor of a large family of languages including
Modula-2 and Ada (see also bondage-and-discipline l
summed up by a devastating (and, in its deadpan way, screamingly
funny) 1981 paper by Brian Kernighan (of K&...
bondage-and-discipline language n.
A language (such as
Pascal Ada, APL, or Prolog) that, though ostensibly
general-purpose, is designed so as to enforce an author's theory of
`right programming' even though said theory is demonstrably
inadequate for systems hacking or even vanilla general-purpose
programming....
bondage-and-discipline language: A language (such as {{Pascal}}
{{Ada}}, APL, or Prolog) that, though ostensibly general-purpose,
is designed so as to enforce an author's theory of `right
programming' even though said theory is demonstrably inadequate for
systems hacking or even vanilla general-purpose programming....
