Re: What's the word for...

John Hagerman (hagerman@ece.cmu.edu) wrote:
: tjj@netnews.summit.novell.com (CNS-ksf-+Jordan T.J.) writes:
: > Could someone please tell me what the word is for a language
: > which can be written in itself?


: I don't know the answer, but I'm curious: are you interested in this
: academically or practically? The difference I mean is that while this may
: be impossible in the "pure" form of many languages (eg, Pascal), it will
: still (usually) be possible for real implementations of those languages,
: due to the extensions are added to make them practical for exactly this
: reason (variable-length argument lists, and so on).


Well, I guess practically. It's not impossible. C has the ability to do
assembler code so in that sence C fits this category. C++ was first written
in C and now it is written in C++. Of course you'll always be a version
behind but that's not what I mean. Plus Meta Tool by AT&T is written
in itself. It's a text to text translator that has a BNF like interface.
I know there is a special name for it because I was told this name by
a guy developing Meta Tool at Bell Labs but I forget the word.
He said that it was a mile stone in language development.
Tim
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