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Re: which class of programming languages, XML Schemalanguage b

• From: "Simon St.Laurent" <simonstl@simonstl.com>
• To: xml-dev@lists.xml.org
• Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2022 07:36:58 -0500

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.

• References:
  • which class of programming languages, XML Schema language belongs
    • From: Mukul Gandhi <mukulg@softwarebytes.org>
  • Re: which class of programming languages, XML Schemalanguage belongs
    • From: Michael Kay <mike@saxonica.com>
  • Re: which class of programming languages, XML Schemalanguage belongs
    • From: Pete Cordell <pete++xmldev@codalogic.com>