Re: The actual quote from the Post AAS article

[mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu (Michael Feldman)]

In article <8ceF1B1w165w@netlink.cts.com> mshapiro@netlink.cts.com (Michael Shapiro) writes:
>
>This discussion does bring up one of the points I make from time to time, 
>the observation is the only "high order" language around.  All the others
>are "high level" languages.  I have the feeling that this arbitrary 
>change of nomenclature (seemingly traced back to the HOLWG) gives people 
>the feeling that the DoD doesn't really want Ada to fit in with the 
>community of programming languages.
>
I think it goes back farther than the HOLWG. DoD has _always_ used the term
"high-order" languages. DoD also referred to ADP (Automatic Data Processing) 
in the old days when the rest of the US said EDP (Electronic Data Processing).

DoD also calls its TV dinners MRE's (Meals, Ready to Eat). I read that
they were distributing leftover MRE's from Desert Storm to homeless
shelters.

One can argue that it's weird that DoD has its own unique sublanguage
of American English; I think I'd agree. But I don't think that it has
anything in particular to do with Ada, or even with languages, and 
pre-dates Ada. DoD didn't _change_ the terminology; they've _always_
diverged from the rest of us. Perhaps they should change now, to agree
with the rest of the world, but that is a different argument.

The bottom line: Ada is NOT the only HOL. _All_ HLL's are HOL's to DoD.
And Ada is an HLL to me, whatever my DoD friends call it!

Ask your friends in the service if I'm right on this, though I'll bet they
are all younger than I...:-)

Mike Feldman