Inspired by a recent Twitter thread (and long-running debate anyway): are HTML and CSS programming languages?
Is it gatekeep-y to say no?
Marian@fyrn
@hubertlepicki @gurlcode To be extra fair, neither html nor CSS are programming languages :)21:29 PM - 09 Jun 2019
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The answer is yes, it is gate-keepy, but go off
Discuss!
Top comments (105)
Yes, CSS + HTML are programming languages. Not only is this scenario technically Turing complete, I think these software fit a lot of the principles of the purpose of programming languages: source code in, magic out.
You can create some of the most incredible things coding html against a browser. No, it’s not as flexible as another programming language in terms of practical possibilities, but it’s a highly specialized language for doing really interesting things.
Distinguishing between programming languages and markup languages when nobody asked you to is unnecessary gatekeeping. If you want me to talk about that distinction, than sure.
The notion of what makes computers go bleep and bloop has always been under re-construction. If you could possibly debate whether something could be a programming language, you might as well call it a programming language because.
Yes, it's "source goes in, magic out", but still constrained to a specific context. The type of magic that comes out, while very cool and very vast, is still a small subset of the magic that can come out of something more general-purpose.
I don't understand why it's gatekeeping to acknowledge this distinction. I don't agree that calling something "not a programming language" makes it "lesser than a programming language", but just helps us understand in more specific terms what the tool is and isn't. Why is using multiple categories of language when we talk about our tools dismissive?
I agree - good categorization of the languages we have is important.
I think the real problem is when people think or act as if they are superior to others because they know a certain language or category of languages and others don't.
Of course - those people don't tend to be worth your time anyway.