No. The primary purpose of programming languages is to be machine-readable first, human-readable second. The primary purpose of both markdown and plaintext is to be equally readable by both humans and machines.
Assembly, perhaps. But not every other language. Every other language’s sole purpose is to be easier than assembly to read by humans, so it can be compiled or translated through an engine into something a machine can read.
Machines do not read Rust. Machines do not read C++. Machines do not read JavaScript. Humans do.
Machines do read Rust. Just because those machines are compiling the Rust code doesn’t mean they aren’t reading it. And every affordance the Rust devs included to make it easier for that compiler to do its job makes it harder for humans to read, but Markdown’s affordances are equally helpful for humans as for computers; and they’re designed to be so because they were adapted from shorthand that was already in use.
A programming language is an engineered language for expressing computer programs,[1] typically allowing software to be written in a human readable manner.
If a language’s primary purpose is for a machine to read it, why does anyone use Python instead of C, when Python is typically CPython? Python is still used because it is more human readable.
If you were saying this about something like CBOR compared to JSON, I’d agree, but the primary purpose of most programming languages is to be human readable, and to, in a human readable format, define instructions and guardrails.
Every programming language is plain text.
Not intended to be easily human-readable though.
Sure they are. They’re intended to be as easy to read for a human as possible.
No. The primary purpose of programming languages is to be machine-readable first, human-readable second. The primary purpose of both markdown and plaintext is to be equally readable by both humans and machines.
Assembly, perhaps. But not every other language. Every other language’s sole purpose is to be easier than assembly to read by humans, so it can be compiled or translated through an engine into something a machine can read.
Machines do not read Rust. Machines do not read C++. Machines do not read JavaScript. Humans do.
Machines do read Rust. Just because those machines are compiling the Rust code doesn’t mean they aren’t reading it. And every affordance the Rust devs included to make it easier for that compiler to do its job makes it harder for humans to read, but Markdown’s affordances are equally helpful for humans as for computers; and they’re designed to be so because they were adapted from shorthand that was already in use.
Debate all you want, but the literal first sentence on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programming_language
I never disagreed with the Wikipedia lede. I only said its primary purpose isn’t human-readability, and Markdown’s is.
If a language’s primary purpose is for a machine to read it, why does anyone use Python instead of C, when Python is typically CPython? Python is still used because it is more human readable.
If you were saying this about something like CBOR compared to JSON, I’d agree, but the primary purpose of most programming languages is to be human readable, and to, in a human readable format, define instructions and guardrails.