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Re: Is Python programming language?

From Terry Reedy <tjreedy@udel.edu>
Subject Re: Is Python programming language?
Date 2013-02-09 21:40 -0500
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Newsgroups comp.lang.python
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On 2/9/2013 6:53 PM, Michael Torrie wrote:
> On 02/09/2013 04:26 PM, Tim Roberts wrote:
>> Most people would call bash a "scripting language", but it is also clearly
>> a programming language.  It has syntax, variables and expressions.  I
>> suspect it is Turing-complete, although I haven't seen a proof of that.
>>
>> I would assert that scripting languages are a proper subset of programming
>> languages, not a separate category.
>
> I'm pretty sure Bash is turing complete.  I know it's been shown that
> sed is turing complete, and awk probably is too!  If I recall, the way
> to show a language is turing complete is to implement a turing machine

If the language has arrays, conditional execution, and explicit (while) 
loops or recursion, you can be pretty sure it is Turing complete. I 
presume this covers awk and bash. Something like the game of Life, where 
the looping in implicit in the operation, is much harder to show Turing 
complete. I suspect sed is non-trivial also.

-- 
Terry Jan Reedy

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Thread

Re: Is Python programming language? Stephane Wirtel <stephane@wirtel.be> - 2013-02-08 14:15 +0100
  Re: Is Python programming language? Grant Edwards <invalid@invalid.invalid> - 2013-02-08 17:59 +0000
    Re: Is Python programming language? Tim Roberts <timr@probo.com> - 2013-02-09 15:26 -0800
      Re: Is Python programming language? Michael Torrie <torriem@gmail.com> - 2013-02-09 16:53 -0700
      Re: Is Python programming language? Terry Reedy <tjreedy@udel.edu> - 2013-02-09 21:40 -0500
      Re: Is Python programming language? Terry Reedy <tjreedy@udel.edu> - 2013-02-09 21:47 -0500
      Re: Is Python programming language? Michael Torrie <torriem@gmail.com> - 2013-02-09 19:55 -0700
      Re: Is Python programming language? Dan Stromberg <drsalists@gmail.com> - 2013-02-11 15:46 -0800

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