A new build system?

[earlz]

Well, I'm still going to try to make it. I've discovered a way to make parsing of the language quite easy.. So I figure it's worth a shot, I plan for it to be usable within 2 weeks, and capable as a full build system in a month or two.

[dude101]

I meant the HTML part. Or the CSS part.

Javascript is fairly C-like as well, from my limited experience with it.

HTML isn't a programing language. Thats like saying .docx is a programming language. Its just a document format.

[JamesM]

I meant the HTML part. Or the CSS part.

Javascript is fairly C-like as well, from my limited experience with it.

HTML isn't a programing language. Thats like saying .docx is a programming language. Its just a document format.

Just because it isn't imperative does not mean it is not a programming language. HTML and other SGML derivatives use tags to describe what should be done - not how to do it, which is what an imperative language would do.

[Solar]

Erm...

I like being generous to the urchins on the block. But by no stretch of the imagination is HTML a programming language, imperative or otherwise.

There is no input to HTML (other than its own source), and it cannot do computations of any kind. No programming there.

[dude101]

Erm...

I like being generous to the urchins on the block. But by no stretch of the imagination is HTML a programming language, imperative or otherwise.

There is no input to HTML (other than its own source), and it cannot do computations of any kind. No programming there.

Exactly, HTML is a document format like .doc or .xls.

[JamesM]

I beg to differ.

HTML is a markup or declarative language, which is a subset of "programming languages".

[JohnnyTheDon]

In computer science, declarative programming is a programming paradigm that expresses the logic of a computation without describing its control flow.

HTML contains no computation, only information and a description of how to display it. One could argue that it expresses the logic of how to compute the display of that data, but then any format that contains formatting information would be a declarative programming language.

A much closer match would be markup language:

A markup language is a set of annotations to text that describe how it is to be structured, laid out, or formatted.

[Combuster]

JohnnyTheDon +1 for that.

Also, declarative language is not equivalent, nor a subset of a Declarative programming language.

Not to mention, you automatically fail as a software developer when you tell your employer you can "program" html.

[JamesM]

Looks like you guys can't read, so I'll just paste the relevant sections here (credibility of wikipedia is a different question):

Declarative programming is often defined in a number of ways:
...
# A program that describes what computation should be performed and not how to compute it
...

Many markup languages such as HTML, XAML, XSLT, SVG or other user interface markup languages are often declarative. HTML, for example, only describes what should appear on a webpage.

[JohnnyTheDon]

I would disagree, but since we're arguing semantics there is no real way to be completely 'right'.

The problem with calling HTML a declarative programming language is that it brings too many other things into the category. For example, if HTML is declaractive then the BBCode I am using to write this post is also a declarative programming language. In fact, I would go as far to say that any text would be a declarative programming language if HTML is included because it tells the computer what letters to display, what order to display them in, and where to put spaces, returns, etc. (though that may be stretching it).

[JamesM]

Hmm, It seems I missed one keyword; in the description it describes SGML as a declarative language, not a declarative programming language.


Thanks, combuster