Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cimshop!davidm From: cimshop!davidm@uunet.UU.NET (David S. Masterson) Newsgroups: comp.databases Subject: Re: 5GLs, as defined in Jessica Keyes' article Message-ID: Date: 28 Jun 90 17:56:38 GMT References: <1192@abcom.ATT.COM> <37595@sequent.UUCP> Sender: davidm@cimshop.UUCP Organization: Consilium Inc., Mountain View, California. Lines: 48 In-reply-to: normb@sequent.UUCP's message of 27 Jun 90 23:46:05 GMT In article <37595@sequent.UUCP> normb@sequent.UUCP (Norm Browne) writes: In article <1192@abcom.ATT.COM> brr@abcom.ATT.COM (Rao) writes: > The question still remains, what other features should > a 5GL include? What is a 4GL? [For if we can't define that what is the point of speculating about a 5GL?] Taking this to its logical Nth degree, what are all the other GLs? And in answer to that, take this (naturally, there is some overlap in these, but, then again, nothings perfect :-)-: 1GL - communication with machine in its terms (aka. machine language) 2GL - machine communications in a more understandable manner - mnemonics (aka. assembler) 3GL - description of a solution to a problem through the procedural methods of achieving a solution in a manner a human would understand (human describes inputs, procedures, and outputs). 4GL - description of a solution to a problem by the characteristics of what the proper output would look like and not through the procedure for finding the information for the output (human defines inputs and outputs with what is desired, but machine determines procedure). 5GL - description of a solution to a problem by the characteristics of what makes up a good solution to the problem (human describes inputs and what is desired, but machine determines procedure and best method of output). 6GL - description of a problem that leads machine to conclude what is required to be done, how to achieve it, and what is needed to achieve it. 7GL - at this stage, the machine begins reasoning for itself and making conclusions based on early problems about what future problems will need to be solved. -- =================================================================== David Masterson Consilium, Inc. uunet!cimshop!davidm Mt. View, CA 94043 =================================================================== "If someone thinks they know what I said, then I didn't say it!"