From: Chad Perrin <code@...>
Date: 2011-08-02T00:11:58+09:00
Subject: Re: Ruby a "4th generation language"? Credible sources?

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On Tue, Aug 02, 2011 at 12:00:31AM +0900, Robert Klemme wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 1, 2011 at 4:51 PM, Chad Perrin <code@apotheon.net> wrote:
> > On Mon, Aug 01, 2011 at 04:24:43PM +0900, Mike Stephens wrote:
> >> Third generation came into mark the first languages a level above
> >> assembler. Fourth generation was applied to things like Focus which
> >> dealt with typical DP tasks by removing some of the chores,
> >> particularly empty datasets or starts/ends of datasets. That theme
> >> would lead you to say SQL or say PL/SQL were 4GL but of course people
> >> now expect more of a programming language so would reject these as
> >> 'languages'.
> >
> > More of a language than PL/SQL . . . ? =A0You're aware that PL/SQL is
> > actually a Turing-complete programming language -- right?
>=20
> Actually, PL/SQL is a pretty good procedural language with a decent
> module system.  Unfortunately it's abused even in the domain where it
> resides (Oracle database) but the blame cannot be put on the language.

Yeah, that was kinda my point.


>=20
> It's also noteworthy that SQL is not a programming language _at all_.
> It's a declarative language used to describe tuples and sets of
> tuples.  Full story @ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sql

That's true of SQL itself.  It's not true of PL/SQL, which is a lot more
than just SQL.

--=20
Chad Perrin [ original content licensed OWL: http://owl.apotheon.org ]

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