g-frank@gumby.UUCP (01/03/85)
> A high-level language expresses high-level concepts WELL. > -- Macrakis@Harvard My knee-jerk reaction is to agree. On reflection, however, I have two questions: 1) Which is more important to this definition: expressiveness, or the level of the concepts expressed? 2) Are we going to have an easier time defining high-level concepts than we did defining a high-level language? A virtuous man is filled with virtue, I suppose, but definitions of this sort leave us in doubt as to the value of his qualities. Can we take a different approach and suggest, as I once did in a rather fuzzy way, that the first purpose of a language is to communicate, and that all the features of the elephant we've been blindly describing may be different aspects of effective communication of ideas and purpose?