• Venus_Ziegenfalle@feddit.org
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    3 days ago

    The name itself doesn’t determine the meaning.

    The name in this case is defined by the meaning if you will. Programming languages are used to write programs. A HTML file is much closer to a PDF than to what can be considered a program.

    Also fun fact python is named after the comedy group Monty Python rather than the snake.

    • modeler@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      Actually, PDF is a turing complete programming language.

      PDF is a simplification and wrapper around the computer language PostScript - a PostScript or PDF doc literally runs on the printer or computer and outputs the rasterisation of the thing you want to print.

      PostScript is language based around a stack. You can define functions (which may be fully recursive) that run on the stack.

      Here’s a small example:

      /ANGLE {
         newpath
         100 0 moveto
         0 0 lineto
         100 50 lineto
         stroke
      } def
      
      10 setlinewidth
      0 setlinejoin
      100 200 translate
      ANGLE
      
      1 setlinejoin
      0 70 translate
      ANGLE
      
      2 setlinejoin
      0 70 translate
      ANGLE
      

      As such, PDF that’s actually similar to Python, and HTML is closer to something like a JSON or XML document.

      Note however that HTML can contain Javscript or WASM programs, but these are embedded rather than features of HTML.