The Top Programming Languages 2024
spectrum.ieee.org
Typescript and Rust are among the rising stars
  • moxOP
    4•4 months ago

    It’s a markup language(ish) but it’s not a programming language. XML would be closer to programming, IMHO, since you could have simple things like recursion.

    One could also view it a different way:

    XML merely provides abstract structure. It doesn’t direct that anything be done. By itself, it doesn’t program anything.

    HTML, on the other hand, directs web layout engines to produce outputs. It programs them.

    SQL is in the same category for me.

    SQL directs databases to manipulate data and relations, and to produce results. It programs them.

    Imperative and functional programming are often what come to mind first, at least for many of us, but declarative programming is nevertheless programming.

    • TehPersEnglish
      4•4 months ago

      Pushing HTML even further, one could say it’s a declarative programming language that programs a UI in a mostly-stateless manner (inputs aren’t really stateless but you can argue the state is provided by the UI rather than managed by HTML).

      I’m not sure I’d make this leap myself though, I have a hard time classifying it (or any other markup language) as a PL. As far as I am aware, you can’t really program a state machine with pure HTML, though you can accept inputs and return outputs at least.