fourth generation language

I was given a oppurtunity to edit a FOLDOC entry.

I am happy to see it published now. You may enjoy reading the definition about 4GL.

Here is format I submitted sometime December last week of 2003.( It was during /on Christmas)

fourth generation language

(4GL) An "application specific" language, one with built-in knowledge of an application domain, similar to {SQL} having the built-in knowledge of database domain.

The term was invented by Jim Martin to refer to {non-procedural}{ high level languages} built around {database} systems.

The fourth generation language (4GL) was designed to be very close to natural language to ease the programming process and with the idea that certain applications could be generalised by adding limited programming ability to them.

The fourth generation language are called Report Generated languages, because when fed a description of data format and the report to generate,they turned that into a {COBOL} ( or another 3GL,which actually contained the commands to read and process the data) and placed the results on the page.

Some examples of 4GL are : {SQL}; {Focus}, {Metafont},

{PostScript}, {S}, {IDL-PV/WAVE}, {Gauss},

{Mathematica}; and {data-stream languages} such as {AVS},

{APE}, {Iris Explorer}.

Enjoy the Formal entry here: 4GL

Thanks!

BTW, FOLDOC really great and helping me improve my knowledge in Computer Science.

Thanks Denis Howe!