toy language

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 Things

can result when a toy language is promoted as a general

purpose solution for programming (see bondage-and-disciplinelanguage); the classic example is Pascal. Several

moderately well-known formalisms for conceptual tasks such as

programming Turing Machines also qualify as toy languages in

a less negative sense.

See also MFTL.

[Jargon File]

(1995-05-09)