VDict mobile



language A language useful for instructional purposes or as
a proof-of-concept for some aspect of computer-science theory,
but inadequate for general-purpose programming. Bad Things
can result when a toy language is promoted as a general
purpose solution for programming (see bondage-and-disciplinelanguage); the classic example is Pascal. Several
moderately well-known formalisms for conceptual tasks such as
programming Turing Machines also qualify as toy languages in
a less negative sense.
See also MFTL.
(1995-05-09)