I do understand the irritation. And I had pretty much the same reaction in that debate with my professor a decade or so ago.

By that definition, phonecalls are a "computer language" because it's both a communication standard and is regularly used to control devices.

How is a phonecall a communication standard? Regardless of how you answer that, though, I just see it degrading into a discussion about the definition of "language" in this context and I'm not sure how useful that is. If we can agree that HTML is a language and that it is used to control devices, that's sufficient.

The only difference between a computer programmer and a slaveowner in Rome is that our slave will do exactly what we say, has perfect recall, and will do it for as long as was asked for.

Provided you don't ask it to do anything too complicated (like feeding you grapes), you are very careful in the way you ask it, you don't require it to recall... say... an irrational number, and you have an infinite supply of power and hardware that will never wear out. :-)

-sauoq
"My two cents aren't worth a dime.";