Andr� Thieme  <address.good.until.2004.aug.11@justmail.de> wrote:
+---------------
| David Steuber schrieb:
| > [Common Lisp] has all the features of VHLLs such as
| > Python along with a more powerful macro system and the fact that it is
| > a compiled language in most implementations.  You can say a lot with
| > very little code just like with a VHLL.
| 
| 1) What does VHLL mean?
+---------------

"Very-high-level language", originally used at a time when languages
such as Fortran, Algol, and (later) C were considered to be "high-level"
languages (HLLs). VHLL got used for other things which provided some
larger units of processing or data objects or being more declarative
than imperative, such as so-called 4GLs (e.g., RPG & other "program
generators"), database languages (e.g., SQL), logic programming (e.g.,
Prolog).

Recently, the popularity of "scripting" languages[1] has caused yet
another redifinition, to include in "VHLL" such things as the Bourne
Shell, Tcl, Python, Perl, or JavaScript [which are actually all fairly
*low*-level languages by modern standard, but which contain convenient
hooks for gluing code in other languages together].

Also see <URL:http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/H/HLL.html>, which
says:

    VHLL stands for `Very-High-Level Language' and is used to describe a
    {bondage-and-discipline} language that the speaker happens to like;
    Prolog and Backus's FP are often called VHLLs.


-Rob

[1] See <URL:http://home.pacbell.net/ouster/scripting.html>

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