< language > A language useful for instructional purposes or as a proof-of-concept for some aspect of computer-science theory, but inadequate for general-purpose programming. Bad Thing s can result when a toy language is promoted as a general purpose solution for programming (see bondage-and-discipline language ); the classic example is Pascal . Several moderately well-known formalisms for conceptual tasks such as programming Turing Machine s also qualify as toy languages in a less negative sense.
See also MFTL .
[ Jargon File ]
(1995-05-09)