Re:HTML Is a Programming Language. Fight Me
by bowsamic on Friday January 10, 2025 @12:02PM
(#42657466)
> Disclaiming HTML as a programming language when it is actually powerful for programming comes across to me as a No True Scotsman argument about "real" programming languages being used to program only in some contexts or to make only some things as the program.
I mean it's just about the traditional intent, and still oft-used understanding, that web browsers are viewers for hypertext documents. But sure, feel free to call GCC a "C browser" and .c files "c documents"
Re:HTML Is a Programming Language. Fight Me
by lcnPylGDnU4H9OF on Friday January 10, 2025 @12:58PM
(#42658034)
It's not about "calling GCC a C browser" but recognizing that a "document" and a "program" are not mutually exclusive. Is HTML as a static document really so different from cards with holes punched through them (literally paper documents)?
Also not any more than a .c file is "programming your compiler" nor a binary executable is "programming your operating system" nor an operating system is "programming your hardware" nor hardware is "programming mathematics". Disclaiming HTML as a programming language when it is actually powerful for programming comes across to me as a No True Scotsman argument about "real" programming languages being used to program only in some contexts or to make only some things as the program.
I agree that it's a matter of semantics but I also understand HTML to be a programming language, semantically. It seems to me that where one draws the line for programming language is always going to be arbitrary unless one is willing to see that a language being used to program in some context is a programming language.