Hot take: "HTML is a programming language" is gatekeeping in effect, if not in intent.
That is, something need not be a programming language to be a the subject of highly useful and important technical skills — viewing all of computing through the lens of programming languages is inherently limiting.
It's been a few days, with a lot of misunderstanding in replies. That's on me for not communicating my point effectively, so let me expand on and clarify.
Suppose you encounter "HTML isn't a real programming language" as an example of gatekeeping people out of tech. It's a real and really awful canard that techbros use, even now.
Very roughly, you can respond in one of two ways:
• Expand the definition of "programming language"
• Challenge the idea that programming is necessary to be in tech
I vastly prefer the second approach, as the first one doesn't actually challenge the core assumption that gives the threat of gatekeeping its teeth.
Also the differentiation between writing a program (very *very* roughly, an executable sequence of instructions) and markup (very *very* roughly the declaration of some data upon which a program acts) is an important one, and I don't think we should let gatekeepers co-opt that distinction to be assholes.
Amongst other things, arguing against gatekeeping by asserting that HTML is a programming language just lets the gatekeeper shift the goal posts. "Writing documentation isn't programming," "triaging issues isn't programming," "project management isn't programming," "UI design isn't programming," and so forth.
I fairly strongly believe that challenging the core assumption is an effective way of cutting that line of gatekeeping off entirely.
@xgranade I would still argue that declarative programming is a thing, but I think that's rather beside the point.
I think when someone says something is "not programming" it's because they believe that being able to program is still anything special, which it hasn't been since, oh, the 90s at the latest, probably.
My university taught Java in the 2000s, and one of the lecturers around 2007 was saying "when we implemented the course, if you didn't know Java, you were nothing, but these days, if you do know Java, you're still nothing."
And I think that's where the gatekeeping comes from. There was a time when you could be basically bare-minimum competent at programming and be considered a genius and that time is gone but people are still desperately clinging to it because they became accustomed to mediocrity being rewarded.
@Catriona Absolutely agreed about declarative programming, that's part of the complexity that I tried to sweep under the rug a bit with "very *very* roughly" in order to fit things into toot-length, but absolutely, yeah.
As for the bit about since the 90s, I tend to agree, save for that I've seen that discourse rear its ugly head again this bloody week, so some folks are still stuck in the 90s. Desperately clinging, as you say.
@xgranade to use one HTML page ,one need be good at
linode
phyp/python/ django
some js lib
linode / equivalent
to see how the conceived their page to work
seo scripting
Site reliability
SQL/ some dB
linux/ equivalent for server sec
NOW THATS AND ENTRY BARRIER
( or so i was told in my UG intern :)
or
(orgmode + make file+git ) equivalent in other editor
Now
To use one HTML page, one just needs to open a local file in a browser.
For other people to see it, you might move it to a web server (with different methods). The web server could by installed and administrated by someone else (and it is often).
Every other stuff is optional. Might be very useful, but it is optional.
@xameer @xgranade
If people of that generation in my country learned programming at school (up to A-Level) at all, it wasn't Java or C++. They might have learned Assembly, C or even Fortran or Cobol (but probably not).
Early Gen-X (me) learned Basic or Pascal at school.
Everything else: Mostly self-taught - often with a book. Or with a course the company paid. Most people haven't had internet "always on".
@swelljoe @xgranade The average web page now is layers and layers of software stack, which isn't representative of what you'd be doing with HTML/CSS, and you might not even end up using it in its purest form.
You kinda have to specialise. Learn the basics, move on to JS, pick a framework (Probably React) and then practice building out front ends. Probably also a good idea to learn Django or something to make a functional web app. And that all does take longer than just like, learning Java.
@xgranade I don't even understand how this can be a good faith assertion.
HTML is Hypertext Markup Language.
It's... Markup. You use it to turn plaintext into hypertext.
@salixdubois @toplesstopics @xgranade
Would you consider Assembler to have functions?
I really struggle with the definition
@realn2s @toplesstopics @xgranade ah, it translates assembly language code into machine code, and assembly is as 'low-level programming language'.
So assembler no, assembly yes.
@salixdubois @toplesstopics @xgranade
That is one definition. It don't that there are a ton of things which are (accidentally) Turing complete and are not intended to be progressing languages.
This raises a question if a more informal definition isn't more practical.
E.g. that a programming language is a "language" which offers abstractions to help humans to fulfil a task
And as i understood it, the OP posed the question if "being" a programming language increases the barrier of entry (which I think is an interesting question)
@realn2s Yeah, I wasn't responsing to OP's question, which I did find interesting too.
I was replying to @toplesstopics and so I used Turing-completeness because that's how it's usually defined in computer science.
Okay all that is officially out of my pay grade, lol. It's like the old stereotype of the mom who has no idea what different game consoles are calling everything a "Nintendo" I guess.
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