Re: The "host" in JavaScript and in C

[Evertjan.]

r...@zedat.fu-berlin.de (Stefan Ram) wrote on 19 Jun 2017 in
comp.lang.javascript:

> Newsgroups: comp.lang.javascript,comp.lang.c
>
> JavaScript has no proper console output functions.
> It depends on the host to provide one.
>
> The situation might seem different than the situation in a
> "real" programming language, like, say C.
>
> But in fact, in a sense, one might say that the situation in
> C is similar!
>
> According to the C standard, "The two forms of conforming
> implementation are hosted and freestanding". A freestanding
> C implementation also has no output functions (it can't write
> to a console).
>
> In C, the console output function »printf« is only available
> in a »hosted implementation«. Extending the language slightly,
> we might say, »printf« is a function of the host, not of the
> freestanding language in C. Or we might say that, in C,
> »printf« is a "host function".
>
> However, a difference lies in the fact that the default host
> of C is specified in the same standard as the language proper
> itself, while ECMAScript only specifies the language but no
> default host.
>
> In C there is one default host while JavaScript offers more
> of a choice between several different hosts, but, of course,
> "the browser" is the most prominent host.
>
> Summary: Both JavaScript and C provide a core language
> without console I/O, and in both cases the core language can
> be associated with the description "in the absence of a host".

All this could be usefull in the case of determination of a specific flower,
but I don't think all these words have much use in determining what computer
language it is.

Most of us surely know Javascript better than the notin of a "core
language", which it is not unless you define "core language" is such way
that it is.

A computer language is a concept that stands apart from its renderer[s], be
it compilers or script interpreters, but can be used by such and adapted to
the needed interfaces, usually by additional interface structures that thre
core does not provide. But to call it a "core language" does not not really
help since it is, meseems, the most natural [sic] form of a computer
language.



--
Evertjan.
The Netherlands.
(Please change the x'es to dots in my emailaddress)