[erikpukinskis]

You don’t need code-is-data for what your parent is describing. All you need is code that outputs data. Or even better, code that initiates contact with other code.

The only requirement is a commitment to doing things imperatively in a real programming language. It’s hard to resist the temptation to do things declaratively (because it’s easier to imagine a declarative interface that describes your problem than an abstraction of the procedure which will solve it) but you are never forced to.