My friend was asked the following question: what’s the difference between object language and object-oriented language?
It’s a little unintelligible question. What does term «object language» correspond to? Does that mean «pure» object-oriented language, like the Wikipedia article says:
Languages called “pure” OO languages, because everything in them is treated consistently as an object, from primitives such as characters and punctuation, all the way up to whole classes, prototypes, blocks, modules, etc. They were designed specifically to facilitate, even enforce, OO methods. Examples: Smalltalk, Eiffel, Ruby, JADE, VB.NET.
Unless the person was interviewed by a philosopher talking about an abstract metalanguage, or an old-school engineer talking about the end result a compiler produces, the question sounds like semantic masturbation by someone who doesn’t speak the same language as the rest of the industry.
So in other words, the distinction is whatever the interviewer wants it to be. (Or perhaps the question was misheard). I don’t think most developers would think that the terms are connected enough to be worthy of comparison and contrast.
The right response would probably be in the style of a psychoanalyst: What do you think it means? Ask clarifying questions to make sure you understand what the interviewer is asking and assuming. Then leave and don’t call the employer back, because you don’t want to work there.