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Re: What`s computer programming...

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On 23/02/15 00:45, Ramine wrote:
> On 2/22/2015 1:09 PM, Richard Heathfield wrote:
>> No, it's more like creating a list of instructions that a computer can
>> use to accomplish a particular task.
>>
>> Trying to define it in terms of robotics is unhelpful, because a robot
>> is basically a computer with peripherals that can move, and you have to
>> program the movements. The definition thus becomes recursive, and not in
>> a helpful way.
>
>
>
> I don't agree with you..
>
> Because what's a physical robot ?

Broadly speaking, it's a computer with manipulable peripherals.


> and what's a computer ?

Originally, it was a device for performing calculations. It may now be 
more appropriate to consider it a device for processing simple 
mathematical models (for suitably complex definitions of 'simple'). 
Those mathematical models may be simplifications of the real world (to 
take a somewhat literal example, a driving simulator), or they may be 
arificial constructs (such as the Web), or they may be fantasy 
'realities' (such as in video games), but they all boil down to 
mathematical models that the computer moves from one state to another 
according to a (hopefully) well-defined list of instructions.

>
>
> When you construct a computer program , you also move and mix and
> work with bit and bytes and you also do measurements on the bits and
> bytes and on conceptual representations and numerical representations of
> physical objects to construct other objects from bits and bytes and from
> objects and from methods and conceptual representations and numerical
> representations of physical objects and you have to incorporate
> knowledge in it to give it the ability to behave in different ways...

The machine itself has no knowledge whatsoever. It can follow 
instructions, provided that the instructions are astoundingly simple.

> so

False premises lead to unreliable conclusions.

> a computer program is like a physical microprocessor or a computer

A computer program can emulate a physical microprocessor or indeed a 
computer, but it is not /like/ them.

<snip>


-- 
Richard Heathfield
Email: rjh at cpax dot org dot uk
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29 July 1999
Sig line 4 vacant - apply within

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Re: What`s computer programming... Richard Heathfield <rjh@cpax.org.uk> - 2015-02-22 21:09 +0000
  Re: What`s computer programming... Richard Heathfield <rjh@cpax.org.uk> - 2015-02-22 22:10 +0000
    Re: What`s computer programming... "Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de> - 2015-02-23 09:29 +0100

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