[Charlotte.PM] Fwd: Turing Complete, was Re: [extremeperl] Logic Programming in Perl -- Just say no

[William McKee]

I've recently subscribed to the extremeperl mailing list which has lots
of good discussions going on. A recent post reminded me of our
discussion from last week comparing Perl with Python. I thought some of
you may enjoy this response as well as the article by Paul Graham.


William

----- Forwarded message from Shae Matijs Erisson <shae at ScannedInAvian.com> -----

> To: extremeperl at yahoogroups.com
> From: Shae Matijs Erisson <shae at ScannedInAvian.com>
> Date: Mon, 04 Apr 2005 16:22:19 +0200
> Subject: Turing Complete, was Re: [extremeperl] Logic Programming in Perl --
>  Just say no
> 
> 
> Rob Nagler <nagler at bivio.biz> writes:
> 
> > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/theory-edge/message/9442
> > mentions a Turing Machine compiler written in Perl.  Isn't this close
> > enough?  The point is that you could do theorem proving in Perl.  The
> > syntax does not have to be Prolog, and could be very Perl-like.
> 
> I've been in a a lot of programming language discussions over the years, and
> this particular point is what I call The Turing Tarpit.
> The answer is "Yes". Every language is equivalent to every other language at
> the turing machine / lambda calculus level. And there's no point in comparing
> languages at that level either. 
> 
> Because then Perl is no better than, and no different from, any of COBOL, BASIC
> ...
> 
> In my opinion, the most useful criteria for comparing languages is:
> What do those languages encourage? What do they discourage?
> 
> For more on language differences, check out Paul Graham's article,
> "Revenge of the Nerds" at http://paulgraham.com/icad.html
> This essay takes a deeper look at language comparisons. 
> It mentions DSLs, macros, 'conciseness hell', lots of good stuff.
> 
> Personally, I don't believe that you can learn all that Haskell has to teach
> from within Perl. But, I would be happy for you to prove me wrong. Why not show
> up on the #perl6 channel and work on Pugs? Then you can use both Perl and
> Haskell at the same time!
> -- 
> Programming is the Magic Executable Fridge Poetry, | www.ScannedInAvian.com
> It is machines made of thought, fueled by ideas.   | -- Shae Matijs Erisson
> 
> 
> 
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> 

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