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rpl is

This is the standard term used...and, indeed, relates to the grammatical "imperative tense"...one uses "commands" in the imperative tense, you see: "Go forth!", "Sit down!", "Shut up!", etc....

Imperative programming languages are so named because they are, indeed, a series of "commands" for the machine to follow...as such, there are then in the grammatical "imperative tense"...that's, indeed, exactly where this standard name comes from...

My comment to note that buttembly language is an "imperative" programming language is, thus, relevent here because it's NOT a true "language" of the equal of the natural languages because of this...as you only actually make statements in the "imperative tense" throughout...there is no means to express "Jane is happy" or "would you like a cup of tea?" or even "variable A will always be greater in value than variable B" (that might be a fact of how the program operates, of course, but there is no means to express this: Indeed, they'd be no point either...computers possess no actual intelligence or self-awareness or concern for such things...there is no means to express this kind of thing because, simply, machines do not deal in such abstractions and possess no capability of understanding or doing anything with it)...

This is the significance of noting the designation of buttembly language as an "imperative language": It only consists of imperative tense "commands"...it is, thus, a limited language for a specific task...you could not, for example, translate the works Shakespeare or Ovid or Goethe into buttembly language...it contains no means of expression for anything but the imperative tone...

Again, these are not my terms here...I use the standard terms...

The collective name given to all the non-artificial human languages - such as English, French, Japanese, Hebrew, Latin, Ancient Egyptian, Navahoe, etc. - is that they are "natural languages"...

Quite why they are called this - though, to be fair, I myself can't think of any better term for them - is something you'll have to ask someone else...I don't invent these terms, I simply use them to make my point (using "standard" terminology to do so, in the Hopes that others recognise the terms and know what I mean by them)...

Programming languages are clbutted into "imperative" and "declarative"...

Imperative programming languages are, indeed, named after the grammatical "imperative tense" because, as they are a "series of commands", then they are, grammatically speaking, in the "imperative tense"...most programming languages are "imperative": buttembly language, C, C++, Java, Pascal, Ada, etc....

Declarative programming languages, on the other hand, "declare" the sets of conditions for a problem...and then the compiler for that language would be responsible for actually coming up with the steps necessary to meet that "specification"...examples of these types of languages are fewer but would include languages like Prolog or Haskell...

In simple form, an "imperative" language is like a recipe in a cook book...it's a series of "steps" to follow to reach a result...it describes the solution, not the problem...

While a "declarative" language is more like a blueprint...it shows the layout of the desired building, all the measurements and may note the materials to be used...it describes the problem, not the solution...it doesn't directly tell the builder the "steps" she should follow to construct the building, only what the building should be like when completed...

As such, in fact, buttembly language is about the most "imperative" programming language of them all...some buttemblers do not even have the ability to "declare" things like data types (and it's all "implied" from usage, not "declaration")...only raw "machine code" would beat buttembly language in this context (which has NO "declarative" capability whatsoever, in fact...not even the simplest "db" ("define byte") buttembly language declaration directive), IF you would deem machine code to be an actual "language"...

The term "natural language" is the standard term used to distinguish normal languages - such as English or Spanish - from artificial programming mathematical special languages, such as C++ or mathematical notation (though, interestingly, there is a synonymous term "ordinary language" too...I didn't know that until you made me go look for the Wikipedia entry on it to show you that it's a "standard term"):

Well, at least you didn't complain about me calling them "artificial"...that's saved a few paragraphs explaining how that is the correct standard term too...

Just to remind those who may have forgotten: We are, indeed, from a ".lang." newsgroup...better still, a ".lang.asm" newsgroup, which is effectively the "language" of the CPU itself...

What was it Gene Wilder said as "Willie Wonka" in that movie (the old one, not the new one)?

"We are the music makers...and we are the dreamers of the dreams..." Arthur O'Shaughnessy

Beth :)