A fourth-generation programming language (4GL) is any computer

programming language A programming language is a system of notation for writing computer programs. Most programming languages are text-based formal languages, but they may also be graphical. They are a kind of computer language. The description of a programming l ...

that belongs to a class of languages envisioned as an advancement upon

third-generation programming language A third-generation programming language (3GL) is a high-level computer programming language that tends to be more machine-independent and programmer-friendly than the machine code of the first-generation and assembly languages of the second-ge ...

s (3GL). Each of the programming language generations aims to provide a higher level of

abstraction Abstraction in its main sense is a conceptual process wherein general rules and concepts are derived from the usage and classification of specific examples, literal ("real" or " concrete") signifiers, first principles, or other methods. "An a ...

of the internal computer hardware details, making the language more

programmer A computer programmer, sometimes referred to as a software developer, a software engineer, a programmer or a coder, is a person who creates computer programs — often for larger computer software. A programmer is someone who writes/creates ...

-friendly, powerful, and versatile. While the definition of 4GL has changed over time, it can be typified by operating more with large collections of information at once rather than focusing on just

bit The bit is the most basic unit of information in computing and digital communications. The name is a portmanteau of binary digit. The bit represents a logical state with one of two possible values. These values are most commonly represented a ...

s and

byte The byte is a unit of digital information that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, the byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer and for this reason it is the smallest addressable unit ...

s. Languages claimed to be 4GL may include support for

database In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases spa ...

management, report generation,

mathematical optimization Mathematical optimization (alternatively spelled ''optimisation'') or mathematical programming is the selection of a best element, with regard to some criterion, from some set of available alternatives. It is generally divided into two subfi ...

, GUI development, or

web development Web development is the work involved in developing a website for the Internet (World Wide Web) or an intranet (a private network). Web development can range from developing a simple single static page of plain text to complex web application ...

. Some researchers state that 4GLs are a subset of domain-specific languages. The concept of 4GL was developed from the 1970s through the 1990s, overlapping most of the development of 3GL, with 4GLs identified as "non-procedural" or "program-generating" languages, contrasted with 3GLs being algorithmic or procedural languages. While 3GLs like C, C++, C#,

Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's mo ...

, and

JavaScript JavaScript (), often abbreviated as JS, is a programming language that is one of the core technologies of the World Wide Web, alongside HTML and CSS. As of 2022, 98% of Website, websites use JavaScript on the Client (computing), client side ...

remain popular for a wide variety of uses, 4GLs as originally defined found uses focused on databases, reports, and websites. Some advanced 3GLs like Python,

Ruby A ruby is a pinkish red to blood-red colored gemstone, a variety of the mineral corundum (aluminium oxide). Ruby is one of the most popular traditional jewelry gems and is very durable. Other varieties of gem-quality corundum are called sapp ...

, and

Perl Perl is a family of two High-level programming language, high-level, General-purpose programming language, general-purpose, Interpreter (computing), interpreted, dynamic programming languages. "Perl" refers to Perl 5, but from 2000 to 2019 it ...

combine some 4GL abilities within a general-purpose 3GL environment, and

libraries A library is a collection of materials, books or media that are accessible for use and not just for display purposes. A library provides physical (hard copies) or digital access (soft copies) materials, and may be a physical location or a vir ...

with 4GL-like features have been developed as add-ons for most popular 3GLs, producing languages that are a mix of 3GL and 4GL, blurring the distinction. In the 1980s and 1990s, there were efforts to develop fifth-generation programming languages (5GL).

History

Though used earlier in papers and discussions, the term 4GL was first used formally by James Martin in his 1981 book ''Applications Development Without Programmers'' to refer to non-procedural, high-level

specification language A specification language is a formal language in computer science used during systems analysis, requirements analysis, and systems design to describe a system at a much higher level than a programming language, which is used to produce the executa ...

s. In some primitive way, early 4GLs were included in the Informatics MARK-IV (1967) product and Sperry's MAPPER (1969 internal use, 1979 release). The motivations for the '4GL' inception and continued interest are several. The term can apply to a large set of software products. It can also apply to an approach that looks for greater

semantic Semantics (from grc, σημαντικός ''sēmantikós'', "significant") is the study of reference, meaning, or truth. The term can be used to refer to subfields of several distinct disciplines, including philosophy, linguistics and comput ...

properties and implementation power. Just as the 3GL offered greater power to the programmer, so too did the 4GL open up the development environment to a wider population. The early input scheme for the 4GL supported entry of data within the 72-character limit of the punched card (8 bytes used for sequencing) where a card's tag would identify the type or function. With judicious use of a few cards, the 4GL deck could offer a wide variety of processing and reporting capability whereas the equivalent functionality coded in a 3GL could subsume, perhaps, a whole box or more of cards. The 72-character format continued for a while as hardware progressed to larger memory and terminal interfaces. Even with its limitations, this approach supported highly sophisticated applications. As interfaces improved and allowed longer statement lengths and grammar-driven input handling, greater power ensued. An example of this is described on the

Nomad A nomad is a member of a community without fixed habitation who regularly moves to and from the same areas. Such groups include hunter-gatherers, pastoral nomads (owning livestock), tinkers and trader nomads. In the twentieth century, the po ...

page. ::Another example of Nomad's power is illustrated by Nicholas Rawlings in his comments for the Computer History Museum about NCSS (see citation below). He reports that James Martin asked Rawlings for a Nomad solution to a standard problem Martin called the ''Engineer's Problem'': "give 6% raises to engineers whose job ratings had an average of 7 or better." Martin provided a "dozen pages of COBOL, and then just a page or two of Mark IV, from Informatics." Rawlings offered the following single statement, performing a set-at-a-time operation... The development of the 4GL was influenced by several factors, with the hardware and operating system constraints having a large weight. When the 4GL was first introduced, a disparate mix of hardware and operating systems mandated custom application development support that was specific to the system in order to ensure sales. One example is the MAPPER system developed by Sperry. Though it has roots back to the beginning, the system has proven successful in many applications and has been ported to modern platforms. The latest variant is embedded in the BIS offering of

Unisys Unisys Corporation is an American multinational information technology (IT) services and consulting company headquartered in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania. It provides digital workplace solutions, cloud, applications, and infrastructure solutions ...

. MARK-IV is now known as VISION:BUILDER and is offered by

Computer Associates CA Technologies, formerly known as CA, Inc. and Computer Associates International, Inc., is an American multinational corporation headquartered in New York City. It is primarily known for its business-to-business (B2B) software with a product p ...

. Santa Fe railroad used MAPPER to develop a system, in a project that was an early example of 4GL,

rapid prototyping Rapid prototyping is a group of techniques used to quickly fabricate a scale model of a physical part or assembly using three-dimensional computer aided design ( CAD) data. Construction of the part or assembly is usually done using 3D print ...

, and programming by users. The idea was that it was easier to teach railroad experts to use MAPPER than to teach programmers the "intricacies of railroad operations". One of the early (and portable) languages that had 4GL properties was

Ramis RAMIS ("Random Access Management Information System") is a fourth-generation programming language (4GL) capable of creating and maintaining databases consisting of named files containing both numeric and alphabetic fields and subsequently producing ...

developed by Gerald C. Cohen at

Mathematica Wolfram Mathematica is a software system with built-in libraries for several areas of technical computing that allow machine learning, statistics, symbolic computation, data manipulation, network analysis, time series analysis, NLP, optimi ...

, a mathematical software company. Cohen left Mathematica and founded Information Builders to create a similar reporting-oriented 4GL, called

FOCUS Focus, or its plural form foci may refer to: Arts * Focus or Focus Festival, former name of the Adelaide Fringe arts festival in South Australia Film *''Focus'', a 1962 TV film starring James Whitmore * ''Focus'' (2001 film), a 2001 film based ...

. Later 4GL types are tied to a database system and are far different from the earlier types in their use of techniques and resources that have resulted from the general improvement of computing with time. An interesting twist to the 4GL scene is realization that graphical interfaces and the related reasoning done by the user form a 'language' that is poorly understood.

Types

A number of different types of 4GLs exist: * Table-driven (codeless) programming, usually running with a runtime framework and libraries. Instead of using code, the developer defines their logic by selecting an operation in a pre-defined list of memory or data table manipulation commands. In other words, instead of coding, the developer uses table-driven algorithm programming (see also

control table Control tables are tables that control the control flow or play a major part in program control. There are no rigid rules about the structure or content of a control table—its qualifying attribute is its ability to direct control flow in some wa ...

s that can be used for this purpose). A good example of this type of 4GL language is PowerBuilder. These types of tools can be used for business application development usually consisting in a package allowing for both business data manipulation and reporting, therefore they come with GUI screens and report editors. They usually offer integration with lower level DLLs generated from a typical 3GL for when the need arise for more hardware/OS specific operations. * Report-generator programming languages take a description of the data format and the report to generate and from that they either generate the required report directly or they generate a program to generate the report. See also

RPG RPG may refer to: Military * Rocket-propelled grenade, a shoulder-launched anti-tank weapon **''Ruchnoi Protivotankoviy Granatomyot'' (Russian: ''Ручной Противотанковый Гранатомёт''), hand-held anti-tank grenade laun ...

*Similarly, forms generators manage online interactions with the application system users or generate programs to do so. * More ambitious 4GLs (sometimes termed ''fourth generation environments'') attempt to automatically generate whole systems from the outputs of

CASE Case or CASE may refer to: Containers * Case (goods), a package of related merchandise * Cartridge case or casing, a firearm cartridge component * Bookcase, a piece of furniture used to store books * Briefcase or attaché case, a narrow box to c ...

tools, specifications of screens and reports, and possibly also the specification of some additional processing logic. *

Data management Data management comprises all disciplines related to handling data as a valuable resource. Concept The concept of data management arose in the 1980s as technology moved from sequential processing (first punched cards, then magnetic tape) to ...

4GLs such as

SAS SAS or Sas may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * ''SAS'' (novel series), a French book series by Gérard de Villiers * ''Shimmer and Shine'', an American animated children's television series * Southern All Stars, a Japanese rock ba ...

SPSS SPSS Statistics is a statistical software suite developed by IBM for data management, advanced analytics, multivariate analysis, business intelligence, and criminal investigation. Long produced by SPSS Inc., it was acquired by IBM in 2009. Cur ...

, and

Stata Stata (, , alternatively , occasionally stylized as STATA) is a general-purpose statistical software package developed by StataCorp for data manipulation, visualization, statistics, and automated reporting. It is used by researchers in many fiel ...

provide sophisticated coding

commands Command may refer to: Computing * Command (computing), a statement in a computer language * COMMAND.COM, the default operating system shell and command-line interpreter for DOS * Command key, a modifier key on Apple Macintosh computer keyboards * ...

for data manipulation, file reshaping, case selection, and data documentation in the preparation of data for

statistical analysis Statistical inference is the process of using data analysis to infer properties of an underlying distribution of probability.Upton, G., Cook, I. (2008) ''Oxford Dictionary of Statistics'', OUP. . Inferential statistical analysis infers propertie ...

and reporting. *So-called "XTalk" languages, developed initially with Apple's Hypercard in 1987. Hypercard was the progenitor of more modern and powerful programs such as SuperCard, Toolbook and LiveCode. Some 4GLs have integrated tools that allow for the easy specification of all the required information: * James Martin's version of

data engineering Data engineering refers to the building of systems to enable the collection and usage of data. This data is usually used to enable subsequent analysis and data science; which often involves machine learning. Making the data usable usually involve ...

systems development methodology In software engineering, a software development process is a process of dividing software development work into smaller, parallel, or sequential steps or sub-processes to improve design, product management. It is also known as a software devel ...

was automated to allow the input of the results of system analysis and design in the form of

data flow diagram A data-flow diagram is a way of representing a flow of data through a process or a system (usually an information system). The DFD also provides information about the outputs and inputs of each entity and the process itself. A data-flow diagram ha ...

s, entity relationship diagrams,

entity life history diagram Jackson System Development (JSD) is a linear software development methodology developed by Michael A. Jackson and John Cameron in the 1980s. History JSD was first presented by Michael A. Jackson in 1982, in a paper called "A System Development Me ...

s etc., from which hundreds of thousands of lines of

COBOL COBOL (; an acronym for "common business-oriented language") is a compiled English-like computer programming language designed for business use. It is an imperative, procedural and, since 2002, object-oriented language. COBOL is primarily ...

would be generated overnight. * More recently

Oracle Corporation Oracle Corporation is an American multinational computer technology corporation headquartered in Austin, Texas. In 2020, Oracle was the third-largest software company in the world by revenue and market capitalization. The company sells da ...

Oracle Designer Oracle Designer was Oracle's CASE tool for designing an information system and generating it. After generating the information system one is able to edit the generated code with Oracle Developer Suite. As of April 2018 this product has reached ...

and Oracle Developer Suite 4GL products could be integrated to produce database definitions and the forms and reports programs.

Low code environments

In the twenty-first century, 4GL systems have emerged as "low code" environments or platforms for the problem of rapid application development in short periods of time. Vendors often provide sample systems such as CRM, contract management, bug tracking from which development can occur with little programming.

Examples

General use / versatile

* 4th Dimension * Accell/SQL (4GL) from

Unify Corporation Daegis Inc. (formerly Unify Corporation) was one of the early developers of database management systems and tools for database development. It was founded in 1980 and headquartered in Irving, Texas. Unify initially focused on providing databases ...

. *Broadcom 2e Formerly Synon 4GL RPG/COBOL Generator * CA-Telon 4GL Cobol/PLI generator * Clarion *

Clipper A clipper was a type of mid-19th-century merchant sailing vessel, designed for speed. Clippers were generally narrow for their length, small by later 19th century standards, could carry limited bulk freight, and had a large total sail area. "Cl ...

* Cognos PowerHouse 4GL * DataFlex (Microsoft Windows, web, mobile) * DATATRIEVE *

dBase dBase (also stylized dBASE) was one of the first database management systems for microcomputers and the most successful in its day. The dBase system includes the core database engine, a query system, a forms engine, and a programming langua ...

* FileMaker *

* Forté TOOL (transactional object-oriented language) * GeneXus *

Harbour A harbor (American English), harbour (British English; see spelling differences), or haven is a sheltered body of water where ships, boats, and barges can be docked. The term ''harbor'' is often used interchangeably with ''port'', which is ...

HyperCard HyperCard is a software application and development kit for Apple Macintosh and Apple IIGS computers. It is among the first successful hypermedia systems predating the World Wide Web. HyperCard combines a flat-file database with a graphical, ...

(development and support were ended) *IBM Rational EGL ( Enterprise Generation Language) *

LabVIEW Laboratory Virtual Instrument Engineering Workbench (LabVIEW) is a system-design platform and development environment for a visual programming language from National Instruments. The graphical language is named "G"; not to be confused with G- ...

* LANSA *

LINC The LINC (Laboratory INstrument Computer) is a 12-bit, 2048-word transistorized computer. The LINC is considered by some the first minicomputer and a forerunner to the personal computer. Originally named the "Linc", suggesting the project's ori ...

* LiveCode *

M-Power m-Power is a low-code development platform that uses a point-and-click interface to create enterprise web applications. M-Power is developed with open source languages such as CSS, HTML, and JavaScript. Applications created by m-Power run on any ...

NATURAL Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. Although humans are ...

* Omnis Studio SDK * Oracle Application Development Framework *

OutSystems OutSystems is a Low-code development platform which provides tools for companies to develop, deploy and manage omnichannel enterprise applications. OutSystems was founded in 2001 in Lisbon, Portugal. In June 2018 OutSystems secured a $360M ro ...

(Productivity/PaaS) * Jmix/CUBA Platform (Productivity/Framework) * PowerBuilder * R:Base *

SheerPower4GL SheerPower 4GL is a fourth-generation programming language developed by ''Touch Technologies, Inc.'' SheerPower 4GL is the result of porting Touch Technologies' ''Intouch 4GL'' programming language that runs on OpenVMS (for DEC Alpha and VAX comput ...

(Microsoft Windows only) * SQLWindows/ Team Developer * Uniface *

Unix Shell A Unix shell is a command-line interpreter or shell that provides a command line user interface for Unix-like operating systems. The shell is both an interactive command language and a scripting language, and is used by the operating system t ...

* Visual FoxPro (development and support were ended) * XBase++ * Xojo * ZIM:X

Database
query language Query languages, data query languages or database query languages (DQL) are computer languages used to make queries in databases and information systems. A well known example is the Structured Query Language (SQL). Types Broadly, query language ...
s

* 4D QL * Informix-4GL *

* OpenEdge ABL * OpenROAD (Ingres 4GL) *

* SQL * ZIM:X

Report generators

* Oracle Reports * Progress 4GL Query/Results * RPG-II * ZIM:X Extract data from files or database to create reports in a wide range of formats is done by the report generator tools.

Data manipulation, analysis, and reporting languages

Ab Initio ''Ab initio'' ( ) is a Latin term meaning "from the beginning" and is derived from the Latin ''ab'' ("from") + ''initio'', ablative singular of ''initium'' ("beginning"). Etymology Circa 1600, from Latin, literally "from the beginning", from a ...

* ABAP *

Audit Command Language Galvanize (formerly known as ACL Services Ltd.) is a privately owned software as a service (SaaS) company founded and headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The Company builds security, risk management, compliance and audit softw ...

* Clarion Programming Language * CorVision *

Culprit A culprit, under English law properly the prisoner at the bar, is one accused of a crime. The term is used, generally, of one guilty of an offence. In origin Origin(s) or The Origin may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Comics and ...

* ADS/Online (plus transaction processing) * Easytrieve *

GraphTalk Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) was an American multinational corporation that provided information technology (IT) services and professional services. On April 3, 2017, it merged with the Enterprise Services line of business of HP Ente ...

IDL IDL may refer to: Computing * Interface description language, any computer language used to describe a software component's interface ** IDL specification language, the original IDL created by Lamb, Wulf and Nestor at Queen's University, Canada ...

* IGOR Pro * Informix-4GL *

JSL JSL may refer to: * JSL, Joint Station LAN, International Space Station * JSL S.A., a Brazilian logistic company * '' Japanese: The Spoken Language'', a Japanese textbook ** JSL romanization, the romanization system used in the text * Jamaican Sig ...

* Judoscript * LANSA *

* LiveCode *

MANTIS Mantises are an order (Mantodea) of insects that contains over 2,400 species in about 460 genera in 33 families. The largest family is the Mantidae ("mantids"). Mantises are distributed worldwide in temperate and tropical habitats. They ha ...

* MAPPER ( Unisys/Sperry) now part of BIS * MARK-IV ( Sterling/Informatics) now VISION:BUILDER of CA *

Simulink Simulink is a MATLAB-based graphical programming environment for modeling, simulating and analyzing multidomain dynamical systems. Its primary interface is a graphical block diagramming tool and a customizable set of block libraries. It offers t ...

a component of

MATLAB MATLAB (an abbreviation of "MATrix LABoratory") is a proprietary multi-paradigm programming language and numeric computing environment developed by MathWorks. MATLAB allows matrix manipulations, plotting of functions and data, implementa ...

Octave In music, an octave ( la, octavus: eighth) or perfect octave (sometimes called the diapason) is the interval between one musical pitch and another with double its frequency. The octave relationship is a natural phenomenon that has been refer ...

PL/SQL PL/SQL (Procedural Language for SQL) is Oracle Corporation's procedural extension for SQL and the Oracle relational database. PL/SQL is available in Oracle Database (since version 6 - stored PL/SQL procedures/functions/packages/triggers since ...

* Progress 4GL * R *

* S *

Scilab Scilab is a free and open-source, cross-platform numerical computational package and a high-level, numerically oriented programming language. It can be used for signal processing, statistical analysis, image enhancement, fluid dynamics simula ...

* SQL PL *

SQR SQR (Hyperion SQR Production Reporting, Part of OBIEE) is a programming language designed for generating reports from database management systems. The name is an abbreviation of Structured Query Reporter, which suggests its relationship to SQL ...

Synon Synon was a software company which, at its height, dominated the worldwide market for third-party application development tools for the IBM i (formerly AS/400) platform. Its products continue to be used in that sector today, distributed and sup ...

Wolfram Language The Wolfram Language ( ) is a general multi-paradigm programming language developed by Wolfram Research. It emphasizes symbolic computation, functional programming, and rule-based programming and can employ arbitrary structures and data. It is ...

* XBase++ *

XQuery XQuery (XML Query) is a query and functional programming language that queries and transforms collections of structured and unstructured data, usually in the form of XML, text and with vendor-specific extensions for other data formats (JSON, bi ...

XSLT XSLT (Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations) is a language originally designed for transforming XML documents into other XML documents, or other formats such as HTML for web pages, plain text or XSL Formatting Objects, which may subse ...

* ZIM:X

Software Software is a set of computer programs and associated software documentation, documentation and data (computing), data. This is in contrast to Computer hardware, hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. ...
creators

4th Dimension (Software) 4D (4th Dimension, or Silver Surfer, as it was known during early development) is a relational database management system and IDE developed by Laurent Ribardière. 4D was created in 1984 and had a slightly delayed public release for Macinto ...

* LiveCode *

's GUIDE * Omnis Studio * OpenROAD * Progress 4GL AppBuilder *

SuperTalk SuperTalk is the scripting language used in SuperCard. SuperTalk is a descendant of HyperTalk. Extensions to the HyperTalk base language Additional syntax One of the most powerful features SuperCard adds to the HyperTalk language is ''user prope ...

Visual DataFlex DataFlex is an object-oriented high-level programming language and a fourth generation visual tool 4GL for developing Windows, web and mobile software applications on one framework-based platform. It was introduced and developed by ''Data Access ...

* Xojo * XUL Can be used with

* ZIM:X

Mathematical optimization

* AIMMS *

AMPL AMPL (A Mathematical Programming Language) is an algebraic modeling language to describe and solve high-complexity problems for large-scale mathematical computing (i.e., large-scale optimization and scheduling-type problems). It was developed b ...

GAMS Gams is a municipality in the ''Wahlkreis'' (constituency) of Werdenberg in the canton of St. Gallen in Switzerland. History Gams is first mentioned in 835 as ''Campesias''. In 1210 it was mentioned as ''Chames'', in 1236 as ''Gamps''. Unt ...

* MathProg *

* ZIM:X

Database-driven GUI application development

C/AL C/AL (Client/server Application Language) was the programming language used within C/SIDE the Client/Server Integrated Development Environment in Microsoft Dynamics NAV (Formerly known as Navision Attain) and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Cen ...

* Genexus * SB+/SystemBuilder *

Unify VISION Daegis Inc. (formerly Unify Corporation) was one of the early developers of database management systems and tools for database development. It was founded in 1980 and headquartered in Irving, Texas. Unify initially focused on providing databases ...

* ZIM:X

Low code / No code development platforms

* 1C:Enterprise programming language *

Appcelerator Appcelerator is a privately held mobile technology company based in San Jose, California. Its main products are Titanium, an open-source software development kit for cross-platform mobile development, and the Appcelerator Platform. Founded in 20 ...

Appian Appian of Alexandria (; grc-gre, Ἀππιανὸς Ἀλεξανδρεύς ''Appianòs Alexandreús''; la, Appianus Alexandrinus; ) was a Ancient Greeks, Greek historian with Ancient Rome, Roman citizenship who flourished during the reigns of ...

* Bizagi *

DronaHQ DronaHQ, is a low code app development platform, from Deltecs InfoTech Pvt. Ltd., Mumbai, India that helps to build internal tools, and business apps. The platform advertises multi-experience output (Mobile & Web) with visual builders, online dat ...

* K2 * Kony * LANSA *

* Mendix *

Pegasystems Pegasystems Inc. is an American software company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1983, Pegasystems develops software for customer relationship management (CRM) and business process management (BPM). The company has been publicly tr ...

* PNMsoft *

Progress Progress is the movement towards a refined, improved, or otherwise desired state. In the context of progressivism, it refers to the proposition that advancements in technology, science, and social organization have resulted, and by extension w ...

* ServiceNow *

Servoy Servoy is a development and deployment platform for enterprise applications, written itself in Java, and which uses JavaScript as its scripting language. It can adopt the native look and feel of any platform or the web, using HTML5 and CSS code. S ...

* ViziApps *

WEM Wem may refer to: * HMS ''Wem'' (1919), a minesweeper of the Royal Navy during World War I *Weem, a village in Perthshire, Scotland * Wem, a small town in Shropshire, England *Wem (musician), hip hop musician WEM may stand for: * County Westmeath, ...

Screen painters and generators

Oracle Forms Oracle Forms is a software product for creating screens that interact with an Oracle database. It has an IDE that includes an object navigator, property sheet, and code editor that uses PL/SQL. It was originally developed to run server-side in c ...

* Progress 4GL ProVision * SB+/SystemBuilder * ZIM:X

Web development languages

ActiveVFP ActiveVFP (also known as AVFP) is a server-side scripting framework designed for Web development to produce dynamic Web pages. Similar to PHP, but using the native Visual Foxpro (VFP) language and database (or other databases like Microsoft SQL ...

* CFML * LANSA *

* Wavemaker * ZIMWEB

Music Programming language

* MaxMSP

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fourth-Generation Programming Language Programming language classification Fourth-generation programming languages

History

Types

Low code environments

Examples

General use / versatile

Database query language Query languages, data query languages or database query languages (DQL) are computer languages used to make queries in databases and information systems. A well known example is the Structured Query Language (SQL). Types Broadly, query language ...s

Report generators

Data manipulation, analysis, and reporting languages

Software Software is a set of computer programs and associated software documentation, documentation and data (computing), data. This is in contrast to Computer hardware, hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. ... creators

Mathematical optimization

Database-driven GUI application development

Low code / No code development platforms

Screen painters and generators

Web development languages

Music Programming language

See also

References

Database
query language Query languages, data query languages or database query languages (DQL) are computer languages used to make queries in databases and information systems. A well known example is the Structured Query Language (SQL). Types Broadly, query language ...
s

Software Software is a set of computer programs and associated software documentation, documentation and data (computing), data. This is in contrast to Computer hardware, hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. ...
creators