General-purpose language

A general-purpose language is a computer language that is broadly applicable across application domains and lacks specialized features for a particular domain. This is in contrast to a domain-specific language (DSL), which is specialized to a particular application domain. The line is not always sharp, as a language may have specialized features for a particular domain but be applicable more broadly, or conversely may in principle be capable of broad application but in practice used primarily for a specific domain.

General-purpose languages are further subdivided by the kind of language, and include:

• General-purpose markup languages, such as XML
• General-purpose modeling language such as the Unified Modeling Language (UML)
• General-purpose programming languages, such as C, Java, PHP or Python

General-purpose markup language

A general-purpose markup language is a markup language that is used for more than one purpose or situation. Other, more specialized domain-specific markup languages are often based upon these languages. For example, HTML 4.1 and earlier are domain-specific markup languages (for webpages) and are based on the syntax of SGML, which is a general-purpose markup language.

List

• ASN.1 (Abstract Syntax Notation One)
• EBML
• GML - the predecessor of SGML
• SGML - a predecessor of XML
• XML - a stripped-down form of SGML
• YAML

General-purpose modeling

General-purpose modeling (GPM) is the systematic use of a general-purpose modeling language to represent the various facets of an object or a system. Examples of GPM languages are:

• The Unified Modeling Language (UML), an industry standard for modeling software-intensive systems
• EXPRESS, a data modeling language for product data, standardized as ISO 10303-11
• IDEF, a group of languages from the 1970s that aimed to be neutral, generic and reusable
• Gellish, an industry standard natural language oriented modeling language for storage and exchange of data and knowledge, published in 2005
• XML, a data modeling language now beginning to be used to model code (MetaL, Microsoft .Net)
• GPM languages are in constrast with domain-specific modeling languages (DSMs).

General-purpose programming language

In computer software, a general-purpose programming language is a programming language designed to be used for writing software in the widest variety of application domains (a general-purpose language). A general-purpose programming language has this status because it does not include language constructs designed to be used within a specific application domain.

Conversely, a domain-specific programming language is one designed to be used within a specific application domain. Examples include page description languages and database query languages.

The following are some general-purpose programming languages:

• Ada
• ALGOL
• Assembly language
• BASIC
• Visual Basic
• Boo
• C
• C++
• C#
• Clojure
• COBOL
• Crystal
• D
• Dart
• Elixir
• Erlang
• F#
• Fortran
• Go
• Harbour
• Haskell
• Idris
• Java
• JavaScript
• Julia
• Lisp
• Lua
• Modula-2
• Nim
• NPL
• Oberon
• Objective-C
• Pascal
• Perl
• PHP
• Pike
• PL/I
• Python
• Ring
• RPG
• Ruby
• Rust
• Scala
• Simula
• Swift
• Tcl