Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cimshop!davidm From: cimshop!davidm@uunet.UU.NET (David S. Masterson) Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++ Subject: Re: What's 4GL? Message-ID: Date: 27 Jul 90 18:39:01 GMT References: <37312@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU> Sender: davidm@cimshop.UUCP Distribution: comp Organization: Consilium Inc., Mountain View, California. Lines: 35 In-reply-to: dong@lanai.cs.ucla.edu's message of 26 Jul 90 18:29:22 GMT In article <37312@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU> dong@lanai.cs.ucla.edu (Dong-Liang Sheu) writes: I wonder if this is the right group to ask the following question. If not, please bear with me. ;-) Interesting place to ask this question (not wrong, just "interesting"). It might more appropriately have been asked in comp.databases. I suspect that 4GL means 4th Generation Languages but I am not sure at all. What kind of languages are considered 4th generation languages? Examples? C++? Ada? Yes, 4GL is 4th Generation Language. C++ and Ada are really just fancied up 3GLs (like C, Pascal, PL/I, etc.), but might approach 4GL status with considerable libraries. What's 4GL -- if my guess is wrong? Nobody really knows ;-). It developed as a marketting hype for new languages on the market around the following progression: 1GL - machine code 2GL - addition of mneumonics (assembler). 3GL - more human readable description of problem (Pascal, C, Fortran). 4GL - describe what is desired, allow computer to decide how. -- =================================================================== 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!"