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Discussion on: Are CSS and HTML programming languages?

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gypsydave5 profile image
David Wickes • Edited

Can we try shifting the argument, as the dance around Turing completeness is always naff and boring. Let's ask a better question:

Do you perform the act programming when you write CSS and HTML?

And I'd say it depends.

For instance: I've written configuration files in Groovy (which is probably a programming language), and I wouldn't say that was programming. I've written an interpreter for a (sub set) of the English language - is English a programming language? When you write a Google search, is that a programming language? When you ask Siri a question, is that programming?

This whole "is x a programming language" - it's too essentialist for me. There's nothing inherent in a language that makes it a programming language until you write it and it's interpreted by a computer.

Whether a language is a programming language is an effect of what it does to a computer. That's a matter of intent for the writer, and a matter of how it's interpreted by the computer.