Markup or Programming Language???

[iota]

Makeup or Programming Languages???


Hi masters,


Languages like HTML,XHTML,XML,XSL is a markup or programming language.
Some teaching books or sites insist on saying they are makeup ones.
Thank you for valuable right info.

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[redoc]

Do, by makeup, you mean markup? These languages are markup languages, in the fact that they format data. They are not executable. Hope that helps

[tboss132]

They are markup languages. They contain instructions to the browser on how to display the page. Programming languages can be compiled and they can perform calculations and stuff. Markup languages can't - unless you use a script in them. See this (http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/prog.html) page for more information.

[whackaxe]

-markup is used to store data
-programming is used to treat data
thats how i always looked at it (if you consider XML the base of markup)

[liorean]

Programming languages have some traits:
- Deals with processing
- Can handle logic
- Can handle conditionals and looping

Markup languages:
- Deals with data and structure, but not processing
- Can't handle logic
- Can't handle conditionals and looping

[mattyod]

I hope I'm not being to obvious here but once you understand the differences as explained above the biggest clue is in the name....

xml = eXtensible Markup Language

html = HyperText Markup Language etc.

Sort of ends any debate on the matter.

[jkd]

XSLT is Turing-complete (see here (http://www.unidex.com/turing/utm.htm)), however, which makes it possible for XSLT to solve any computational task, making it a programming language, built upon markup. :)

The lines are not always so clear, as one can see.

[bcarl314]

Mmmm, fuzzy grey lines all over the place.

Here's a question:

Isn't markup a set of instructions which tells a parser how to render a page?

If one were to define a "program" as a "Set of instructions designed to execute a specific task", then I think you can call markup a programming language.

OTOH, if you were to follow liorean's definitions

Programming languages have some traits:
- Deals with processing
- Can handle logic
- Can handle conditionals and looping

Markup languages:
- Deals with data and structure, but not processing
- Can't handle logic
- Can't handle conditionals and looping


Then traditional HTML is NOT a programming language.

Looking further at the debate, we have this...
[quote]
-markup is used to store data
-programming is used to treat data
[quote]

Is a .csv file markup? By that definition, it would be. I hardly consider a .csv file "mark up" as I think of markup as a set of instructions for organizing data. It, by itself, does nothing, but needs a parser to work. Just the same way a c, c++ or java script does nothing with out an interpreter or compiler. So, what is a program???

[mattyod]

Would it perhaps be fair to say that Mark Up languages are a form of programming that deal specifically with data & it's structure/presentation?

As they still pass instructions to a processor.

[ReadMe.txt]

Would it perhaps be fair to say that Mark Up languages are a form of programming that deal specifically with data & it's structure/presentation?

As they still pass instructions to a processor.


no they dont, the parsers for these markup languages do.

[liorean]

As I said, requirements for something to be a programming language is that it can handle logic, that it can handle conditional processing, and that it can somehow repeat processing. XHTML cannot do those things, and is an XML format. XSLT can do these things and is an XML format - XSLT is a programming language that uses XML syntax. That's not strange - source code is data, and XML is one way of representing data. If you wish, you can make an XML syntax for any programming language. You just need to build the AST (Abstract Syntax Tree if that helps explain the concept) from an XML structure instead of parsing from the original format.

[Puffin the Erb]

Just to add.....
A mark-up language is not a programming language, it has no concept of aspects such as data types or logic, it just marks up content.

A stand-alone application, such as a Web browser, which is written in a programming language, processes the content based on the way that content is marked-up.

Scripting languages can exist within the stand-alone application - for example JavaScript - these add functionality ( for example the ability to dynamically manipulate the mark-up ) without the complexity of the full-blown language used to create the stand-alone application.

Although we often hear people describe themselves 'HTML programmers' I would say this is oxymoronic.

[codegoboom]

I think it's a matter of perspective; if one chooses to think of it as programming, then that's just what it is; there's no harm in that, as organizing contracts between the markup and manipulation of it can be a complex process at either end. :)

Furthermore, the UI is the program, as far as the user sees, and the structuring of markup can certainly simplify the user experience, by masking underlying complexity. In that respect, markup is an aspect of programming, or of factoring programs to a higher level of abstraction.