On 11/03/2022 08:48, Michael Kay wrote:
Well, I would say that XSD is indeed a "formal computer language",
but not a "programming language"; I don't think you can describe
something as a programming language unless it is Turing-complete.
I don't know of any universally accepted categorisation scheme for
formal computer languages, and without such a scheme you can't say
where a particular language fits; but it's certainly reasonable to
describe XSD as a constraint specification language or as a data
definition language (if indeed those two categories are distinct).
A related perma-topic is "Is HTML a programming language?"
I'm in the "No, because it is not Turing-complete" camp (for example,
it has no conditionals) but it does instruct a computer to do things
and so others say it is.
I'd say if "programming language" was a spectrum, HTML would be more
of a programming language than XSD.
To add more confusion, for most programming languages such as C++ and
Java, it's very specific what the language tells the computer to do.
With XSD, the XSD can be used in many ways by a computer. Does that
suggest it is "something else"?
Pete.
