TR-70: Features of Fifth Generation Languages: A Panoramic View

Abstract

Fifth generation languages are general purpose programming languages with capabilities beyond those of existing programming languages. Nevertheless, their basic features and capabilities are already available and distributed in existing programming languages. We survey the more important ones, provide illustrations via program segments in various languages, and discuss their inherent importance.

The survey supports the notion that two major directions are being pursued: the logic and the actor directions – each grounded on a different subset of the capabilities. However, as each approach attempts to add on additional capabilities, an ultimate convergence can be predicted. This ultimate. fifth generation language is likely to contain the best of logic and actor-based languages.