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¶ turing complete my ass
[rant] here's something that really annoys me. Once every month or so, a couple of people will get into an argument about whether a programming language X is better than a programming language Y. Or about whether another language Z is a "real" language or not. Inevitably, someone will pipe up in an attempt to be clever and say "well, they're both Turing Complete, so they're just as good as each other."

It irks me, because it's a statement that doesn't say anything other than indicate to me that you took an intro course on computational theory and are invoking Turing Completeness for no purpose other than to stroke your academic wanker. Oh, they're both Turing Complete, why of course! problem solved, javascript is every bit as powerful a language as C++ because they're polynomially equivalent! why didn't i see it before!?

It irks me because the probability of someone invoking that principle rises exponentially as the argument progresses. It's like waiting for someone to read a bad line from a script.

It irks me because it's a fallacy of equivocation. When we argue about the power of a programming language, we don't use the word power to mean 'ability to perform a certain kind of computation', we use it to mean 'able to do some shit, do it fast, and with as simple a program as possible'. But some smartass just has to remember the definition of power as defined in the sipser book and equate it with daily usage.

grrr. [/rant]



Re: turing complete my ass
Posted 21 years, 5 months ago by Sonic • • Reply
So what? Are you saying that Javascript is less powerful than C++?! Bring it!



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