DOS a Programming language, or not?

Soldato
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VBScript is quite popular for this sort of thing. Although I can't get the hang of it.

I do loads or batch scripting, but I wouldn't call it programing.

What is it then? It certainly isn't writing a letter or your shopping list.

You are writing instructions for your computer to carry out. Therefore programming. Just because it is a "lesser" language doesn't mean it isn't programming.
 
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It is programming, but I wouldn't say that its a programming language - it is a scripting language though.

Burnsy

Scripting languages are programming languages! The split is between compiled/interpreted (and the third option of JIT, I suppose), not between "scripting languages" and "programming languages".

There isn't half some misinformation in this thread!
 
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VBScript is quite popular for this sort of thing. Although I can't get the hang of it.



Actually, I have been getting a little dirty with sed and awk. These are providing me with some extra power, and hopefully will provide a nice bridge into Perl further into the future.


One thing though - I have a CSV (tab=delim) and am trying to validate the data in each column (e.g. $1=date, $2-must be 6 numerics, etc etc using Regexps)

But I can't yet work out how to do this line at a time, so I have resorted to splitting the file into 8 columns (8 fields) and then performing operations on each file. Then I'll stitch it back to gether with either join or paste.
The file I'm working with may have either ~50 or 20000+ lines if I get the knack down.

Any awk gurus here?
 
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Scripting languages are programming languages! The split is between compiled/interpreted (and the third option of JIT, I suppose), not between "scripting languages" and "programming languages".

There isn't half some misinformation in this thread!

The thing is, not all scripting languages are Turing complete, whilst all programming languages are.

Burnsy
 
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Even my mate AdamP wouldn't have said that DOS is a programming language. (And that's saying something).

Whitecrook: I know many people who have given up learning languages because they don't really take much of a structured approach. They wanted to make something cool so jumped in at the deep end and couldn't figure out why things didn't work and gave up because they didn't do the groundwork.

Start from the beginning and learn the theory/basics and work your way up would be my advice. Java is fairly easy to get on with and you can create some decent stuff fairly quickly.
 
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Some people are still missing the point here, DOS is not and never will be a programming language, it is an operating system. Very few people these days will be doing any DOS scripting, although they may be writing batch files to perform a series of command line tasks in the Windows environment (or whatever environment you choose that allows a series of command line tasks to be strung together into a batch).

A batch script written to run on whichever specific version/brand of DOS could be considered programming as it is a series of instructions that alter the state of a machine. C, C++, Pascal, ADA, Prolog, Fortran, BASIC, RPG, COCOL, Java, C#, ABAP are all examples of programming languages and it does not matter if they are interpreted or compiled, they are still bona fide programming languages.

MS-DOS is an operating system as is CP/M, Atari DOS/TOS, Dr-DOS, PC-DOS, OS/400 etc etc etc.
 

~J~

~J~

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HTML is not a scripting language, javascript is the scripting language of client side web development. HTML is the structure and content of a document.

SQL I am not so sure about.

True, agree with you, but there's always the old school of thought about whether you're creating something with keywords but it could never be a full program, which some would argue is scripting.

It's a weird one I know, some will argue it is, others will argue it isn't.
 
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SQL and HTML for a start.


Both are computer languages in that they possess a defined syntax but I would not consider either of them a scripting language. A script in this context is a means of executing individual applications or processes in series, without having to type in individual commands. A Script is programming on the macro level.

HTML is a markup language and definately not a programming or scripting language and SQL is a specific type of programming language, rather than a general programming language.
 
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~J~

~J~

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I'd beg to differ to be honest. I'm not saying I'm right (or wrong), but I can certainly see both sides to the argument but can't settle myself on which one I'd agree with.

SQL commands themselves perhaps aren't a language in itself, but once you introduce Stored Procedures and SSIS, then wouldn't that in itself be classed a general programming, that isn't turing complete?

Like I said, I'm not arguing a case, I'm simply trying to get my own head around it and have seen many, many, people argue for's and against's on the matter.
 
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Once you learn a couple of general programming languages, it becomes easier to pick up more. Most languages have :

a) Some type of register or temporary storage mechanism (commonly called variables) that can store a result and access it later
b) Some type of mathematical &| boolean evaluator that can recursively process throught brackets using normal mathematical ordering (BIMDAS).
c) Program control / looping such as if statements, for/do/while looping and or trilateral true ? true : false type statements.

Many higher level languages then have

a) Object oriented development (encapsulation of methods/variables into wrapper objects with accessibility tightly controlled)
b) inheritance/interface and polymorphism mechanisms
c) strict typing of variables (int / float / String type classes etc)
d) Applied techniques for threads/processes, synchronous / asynchronous data access/editing
e) Serialisation techniques (file io, output io, specific file types)

And that is just the beginning...

EDIT : My general experience has been C++/Java/PHP with a tiny sprinkle of SQL and javascript. Obviously my views reflect this.
 
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If SQL is not a language, what does the L stand for. SQL whether in a stored procedure or within a SSIS package, is still SQL and SQL is a programming language which is specific to data manipulation, but is not a language you would use for any other task apart from data manipulation.

SSIS is an ETL tool that can use queries within it's packages, it's not really an argument for calling SQL a general programming language.
 

~J~

~J~

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http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=10347725&postcount=54

Never said SQL wasn't a language, I said that the commands themselves are not a language.

I am agreeing with what you're saying, really I am, but what I'm trying to say is that there are many schools of thought from people with far 'deeper' understanding of this.

Whether SQL is geared towards a specific problem or not, I don't recall the turing complete argument been specifically narrowed down to a "general" language, but rather "a" programming language. Which, as we both agree, SQL is.

See what I'm saying? :)
 
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Yep, I see what you are saying and ANSI SQL is an interesting concept in this respect. I would say that it is not Turing complete as it is too specific and does not fulfill the criteria for Turing completeness, however there will be those who argue the opposite. It looks like it could be a bit of a grey area.
 
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If SQL is not a language, what does the L stand for. SQL whether in a stored procedure or within a SSIS package, is still SQL and SQL is a programming language which is specific to data manipulation, but is not a language you would use for any other task apart from data manipulation.

SSIS is an ETL tool that can use queries within it's packages, it's not really an argument for calling SQL a general programming language.

Obviously it is a language, it says so in the name, but that doesn't mean it's a programming language.

I've always been a little confused between the distinction between a scripting language and a programming language. But now I don't really think there is one. Scripting really is just an application of a language. C# isn't generally considered a scripting language but it's sometimes used as one (eg. scripting for a game engine written in lower level C++).
 
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and what does the Q stand for Query? So it's a query language not a programming language. T-SQL is more like a programming language but SQL itself is not a programming language. I am a C# programmer who uses SQL to select the data i need
 
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