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Comment by zem

7 days ago

if we trim a regex down to literal character matches is it still a regex?

So any text file is a programming language?

  • I would say that a "language" is a necessary component of a "programming language".

    An empty file was an IOCCC winner: https://www.ioccc.org/1994/smr/ but you need to interpret that empty file as C source in order to reasonably claim to have programmed the computer.

    My reasoning comes more from the other direction: someone who writes HTML is programming therefore HTML is a programming language.

    • Can you give a clearer definition of when a person "is programming"?

      Your earlier definition talked about giving the computer a capability, but that capability just seemed to be displaying a specific file?

      Where is the cutoff on the line from HTML to markdown to ASCII? (noting that ASCII uses control codes that trigger special behavior)

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