Samy Elashmawy <samelash@ix.netcom.com> écrit:

What do they relay mean by scripting and 4GL leval languages ?

I would say that a scripting language is one in which you may write scripts. A script is just a source program that could be executed without compilation, given that you add the permission bits for executability. On DOSWIN, the `.bat' files are scripts. On Unix, an executable file beginning with a line looking like `#!/PATH/TO/INTERPRETER' (the she-bang line) is a script. As for 4GL (4th generation languages), I'm surely no specialist. I would be tempted to say that 4GL is a generic term vaguely meaning "advanced". In particular, algorithmic languages (those in which we describe step-by-step recipes about how to complete a task) are _not_ considered advanced enough to be 4GL. 4GLs exhibit some uncertainty in the sequence of operations that will be performed, we mainly describe the goals to be reached. I would not grimace if I was hearing that SQL, or various languages based on logical inference (like Prolog), were 4GLs. Yet, I got the feeling that 4GL is easily abused by vendors, when a grossly algorithmic language has a tiny bit of automatism in it. So, I'm not sure what 4GL really means. To stress this, here is our daily quiz! Does `make' implement a 4GL? :-) -- François Pinard http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/~pinard -- To unsubscribe send e-mail to suse-linux-e-unsubscribe@suse.com For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the FAQ at http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/