"IMHO" I always thought that 4GL were specialized processing languages, such as Regular Expressions and SQL. At least that is what I have been taught in the academia. Now, maybe ALL of you are, in fact, correct, as visual bean assembly tools have been added to the 4GL list. That is entirely possible.
I guess the basic question is whether or not visual tools that allow you, say hook up a bean to an existing system, use their own language. I think that can be said to be so, as XML config files are modified by these tools, thus visual assemblers can be said to be "speaking" in terms of XML config files. Sounds like a reasonable 4GL assumption to me. As to the objection that these new tools are "not really" 4GL because they were built using Java or C, well, everything was built using C! SQL, Java, Perl, and reg-exp included... and C was built using Assembler... so it really does not matter what is under the hood (it could be Cobol for all I care, but that would be a scary prospect!). The designation such as 3GL and 4GL depends entirely on the language API that is presented to the programmer. Regards, Greg -----Original Message----- From: Tomm Carr [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Tuesday, June 11, 2002 3:04 PM To: JDJList Subject: [jdjlist] Re: Forte 4GL Andy Bentley wrote: >No, I think you are getting your terms mixed up. > Then the top names in the industry, including Microsoft, Sun, Oracle, Borland, etc., have been getting the terms mixed up for many years now. >A 4GL refers to a Fourth Generation Language. Java, C++, C are 3GL, >Assemby 2GL, binary/octal 1 GL. > As you say, high level language compilers are 3GL tools that take your source and convert it to 2GL assembly which can be converted to 1GL machine code. IDEs are visually oriented 4GL tools that convert your visual objects to 3GL high level source that can then be converted ... >4GLs that I am aware of are FOCUS, EASEL etc. Very high level >languages that allow people to "code" in a more english like syntax >than C for instance. > Anything that uses typed source code is at most a 3GL no matter how fancy the syntax. I am not familiar with FOCUS but it rings a bell. Isn't it just an IDE for COBOL? Tomm To change your membership options, refer to: http://www.sys-con.com/java/list.cfm To change your membership options, refer to: http://www.sys-con.com/java/list.cfm
