Re: At what point is a language so abstract that it simply cannot be compiled?

Path	csiph.com!xmission!news.snarked.org!border2.nntp.dca1.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!news.iecc.com!.POSTED.news.iecc.com!nerds-end
From	"Derek M. Jones" <derek@_NOSPAM_knosof.co.uk>
Newsgroups	comp.compilers
Subject	Re: At what point is a language so abstract that it simply cannot be compiled?
Date	Mon, 13 May 2019 20:15:02 +0100
Organization	virginmedia.com
Lines	24
Sender	news@iecc.com
Approved	comp.compilers@iecc.com
Message-ID	<19-05-085@comp.compilers> (permalink)
References	<19-05-083@comp.compilers>
Mime-Version	1.0
Content-Type	text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding	8bit
Injection-Info	gal.iecc.com; posting-host="news.iecc.com:2001:470:1f07:1126:0:676f:7373:6970"; logging-data="65409"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@iecc.com"
Keywords	theory
Posted-Date	13 May 2019 15:31:03 EDT
X-submission-address	compilers@iecc.com
X-moderator-address	compilers-request@iecc.com
X-FAQ-and-archives	http://compilers.iecc.com
Content-Language	en-US
Xref	csiph.com comp.compilers:2319

Show key headers only | View raw

John,

> [...
> There are plenty of problems that are known to be undecidable.  The
> best known is the halting problem.  You cannot write a program that
> can inspect any arbitrary program and always tell you whether the
> program it's inspecting will eventually halt or it will run forever.
....
> -John]

This wording of the halting problem tends to lead to all kinds of
misunderstandings.

I prefer to phrase it as:
It has been provided that there exist programs for which it is not
possible to deduce whether it will eventually halt or not.


For many programs it is possible to deduce whether they will
halt, or not.

--
Derek M. Jones
blog:shape-of-code.coding-guidelines.com

Back to comp.compilers | Previous | Next — Previous in thread | Next in thread | Find similar

Thread

At what point is a language so abstract that it simply cannot be compiled? "Costello, Roger L." <costello@mitre.org> - 2019-05-13 14:38 +0000
  Re: At what point is a language so abstract that it simply cannot be compiled? "Derek M. Jones" <derek@_NOSPAM_knosof.co.uk> - 2019-05-13 20:15 +0100
    Re: At what point is a language so abstract that it simply cannot be compiled? Jan Ziak <0xe2.0x9a.0x9b@gmail.com> - 2019-05-14 08:52 -0700
  Re: At what point is a language so abstract that it simply cannot be compiled? Martin Ward <martin@gkc.org.uk> - 2019-05-14 12:52 +0100
  Re: At what point is a language so abstract that it simply cannot be compiled? gah4@u.washington.edu - 2020-02-27 18:27 -0800

csiph-web