Time Marches On...
KAL
Assembly language programmers discovered that they were using some of the same
sequences of commands over and over and developed macros - names for
sequences of assembly language instructions. Similarly, document preparation
languages allowed mnemonic names to stand for sequences of instructions.
The first high-level programming languages were developed in the
late 50's and 60's - FORTRAN & Algol came first, followed rapidly by COBOL,
BASIC, and many more.
These languages allowed programmers to write programs in a more natural
language notation. As they started to be used in the middle to late 60's,
and early 70's, document preparation systems also continued to become more
extensive.
High-level programming languages allow instructions to be
repeated.
They also
allow some instructions to be executed based on the oucome of a
condition.
These structuring constructs began to find their way into document preparation
languages. For example, some languages allowed you to test whether the
formatted document had reached the end of a page or not.
These embedded markups which describe how to
format are called procedural markup , and, similarly,
languages such as FORTRAN are called procedural languages.
Both describe
how something is to be done - FORTRAN by providing ways to operate
on data, formatters by describing the appearance of text, controlling fonts,
and spacing.
More sophisticated formatting commands began to develop because of the
development of more sophisticated
printers and phototypesetters.
Send questions and comments to: Karen Lemone
