Information Systems in Management Science

Languages are important in any discussion of information systems. It is through the medium of a machine-oriented (as opposed to natural) language that the user must communicate with the computer. In order to use the earliest computers, it was necessary to describe the problem in the detailed computer hardware language. Then higher level languages were evolved so that instead of describing a solution in machine language, it was possible to describe it in a more “natural” language. These languages (FORTRAN, COBOL, etc.) are general in the sense that it is possible to solve almost any problem that is solvable in machine language using them.

Now we have a group of languages in which it is possible to solve only the specific problem that each was intended to solve. The following letter describes such a language and its use in a simulated management environment. At the end, Editor's notes are presented.