nonprocedural data system languages
During the past decade research on data system languages has consisted almost exclusively of the definition and implementation of general purpose procedural languages as articulate as possible. Lately such hyper complicated languages have been gradually losing the interest of both users and manufacturers; their interest has been attracted towards the development of notations for representing processes statically as functional relations between input and output information: that is, nonprocedural data system languages. Procedural languages were originally conceived in order to state information processes of numerical nature. The most delicate aspect of this kind of processes is the algorithm or computation procedure adopted. Consequently, languages were needed which described the processes directly in terms of the procedures involved. Lately, however, computers have been frequently used in connection with nonnumerical data manipulations, whose most delicate aspect in general is no longer the procedure (which in many cases is rather simple) but the exact definition of the problem . Only methods of representing processes by means of itemized lists whose entries completely describe single elements of the output in terms of the whole input and perhaps intermediate datathat is, nonprocedural languagesallow for an effective and compact representation of such processes.
procedure data systems language research definition implementation general users developer process functional input informal order aspect algorithm computation connection method effect compact representation