CS 335 - Week 1, Lecture 1, 1-19-2011

What is a [general purpose] programming language?

MacLennan:
1. it is a language intended for the expression of computer
   programs

   (whether so they can be executed, or so people can describe
   programs to other people)

2. we reserve the term "programming language" (implied "general
   purpose programming language") for languages that can be
   used, at least in principle, to express any computer program

...in this class, when we say "language" or "programming language",
this is the category of languages we mean;