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Turing Tarpit
A Turing tarpit (or Turing tar-pit) is any programming language or computer interface that allows for flexibility in function but is difficult to learn and use because it offers little or no support for common tasks. The phrase was coined in 1982 by Alan Perlis in the '' Epigrams on Programming'': In any Turing complete language, it is possible to write any computer program, so in a very rigorous sense nearly all programming languages are equally capable. However, having that theoretical ability is not the same as usefulness in practice. Turing tarpits are characterized by having a simple abstract machine that requires the user to deal with many details in the solution of a problem. At the extreme opposite are interfaces that can perform very complex tasks with little human intervention but become obsolete if requirements change slightly. Some esoteric programming languages, such as Brainfuck, are specifically referred to as "Turing tarpits" because they deliberately implement t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Programming Language
A programming language is a system of notation for writing computer programs. Most programming languages are text-based formal languages, but they may also be graphical. They are a kind of computer language. The description of a programming language is usually split into the two components of syntax (form) and semantics (meaning), which are usually defined by a formal language. Some languages are defined by a specification document (for example, the C programming language is specified by an ISO Standard) while other languages (such as Perl) have a dominant implementation that is treated as a reference. Some languages have both, with the basic language defined by a standard and extensions taken from the dominant implementation being common. Programming language theory is the subfield of computer science that studies the design, implementation, analysis, characterization, and classification of programming languages. Definitions There are many considerations when defini ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Computer Interface
In computing, an interface is a shared boundary across which two or more separate components of a computer system exchange information. The exchange can be between software, computer hardware, peripheral devices, humans, and combinations of these. Some computer hardware devices, such as a touchscreen, can both send and receive data through the interface, while others such as a mouse or microphone may only provide an interface to send data to a given system. Hardware interfaces Hardware interfaces exist in many components, such as the various buses, storage devices, other I/O devices, etc. A hardware interface is described by the mechanical, electrical, and logical signals at the interface and the protocol for sequencing them (sometimes called signaling). See also: A standard interface, such as SCSI, decouples the design and introduction of computing hardware, such as I/O devices, from the design and introduction of other components of a computing system, thereby allowing ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alan Perlis
Alan Jay Perlis (April 1, 1922 – February 7, 1990) was an American computer scientist and professor at Purdue University, Carnegie Mellon University and Yale University. He is best known for his pioneering work in programming languages and was the first recipient of the Turing Award. Biography Perlis was born to a Jewish family in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He graduated from Taylor Allderdice High School in 1939. In 1943, he received his bachelor's degree in chemistry from the Carnegie Institute of Technology (later renamed Carnegie Mellon University). During World War II, he served in the U.S. Army, where he became interested in mathematics. He then earned both a master's degree (1949) and a Ph.D. (1950) in mathematics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). His doctoral dissertation was titled "On Integral Equations, Their Solution by Iteration and Analytic Continuation". In 1952, he participated in Project Whirlwind. He joined the faculty at Purdue University and in 1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Epigrams On Programming
" Epigrams on Programming" is an article by Alan Perlis published in 1982, for ACM's SIGPLAN journal. The epigrams are a series of short, programming-language-neutral, humorous statements about computers and programming, which are widely quoted. It first appeared in ''SIGPLAN Notices'' 17(9), September 1982. In epigram #54, Perlis coined the term "Turing tarpit A Turing tarpit (or Turing tar-pit) is any programming language or computer interface that allows for flexibility in function but is difficult to learn and use because it offers little or no support for common tasks. The phrase was coined in 1982 ...", which he defined as a programming language where "everything is possible but nothing of interest is easy." References * External links List of quotes (Yale) Magazine articles Association for Computing Machinery {{compu-sci-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Turing Completeness
In computability theory, a system of data-manipulation rules (such as a computer's instruction set, a programming language, or a cellular automaton) is said to be Turing-complete or computationally universal if it can be used to simulate any Turing machine (devised by English mathematician and computer scientist Alan Turing). This means that this system is able to recognize or decide other data-manipulation rule sets. Turing completeness is used as a way to express the power of such a data-manipulation rule set. Virtually all programming languages today are Turing-complete. A related concept is that of Turing equivalence two computers P and Q are called equivalent if P can simulate Q and Q can simulate P. The Church–Turing thesis conjectures that any function whose values can be computed by an algorithm can be computed by a Turing machine, and therefore that if any real-world computer can simulate a Turing machine, it is Turing equivalent to a Turing machine. A universal Turin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Abstract Machine
An abstract machine is a computer science theoretical model that allows for a detailed and precise analysis of how a computer system functions. It is analogous to a mathematical function in that it receives inputs and produces outputs based on predefined rules. Abstract machines vary from literal machines in that they are expected to perform correctly and independently of hardware. Abstract machines are “machines” because they allow step-by-step execution of programmes; they are “ abstract” because they ignore many aspects of actual ( hardware) machines. A typical abstract machine consists of a definition in terms of input, output, and the set of allowable operations used to turn the former into the latter. They can be used for purely theoretical reasons as well as models for real-world computer systems. In the theory of computation, abstract machines are often used in thought experiments regarding computability or to analyse the complexity of algorithms. This use of abstr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Esoteric Programming Languages
An esoteric programming language (sometimes shortened to esolang) is a programming language designed to test the boundaries of computer programming language design, as a proof of concept, as software art, as a hacking interface to another language (particularly functional programming or procedural programming languages), or as a joke. The use of the word ''esoteric'' distinguishes them from languages that working developers use to write software. The creators of most esolangs do not intend them to be used for mainstream programming, although some esoteric features, such as visuospatial syntax, have inspired practical applications in the arts. Such languages are often popular among hackers and hobbyists. Usability is rarely a goal for designers of esoteric programming languages; often their design leads to quite the opposite. Their usual aim is to remove or replace conventional language features while still maintaining a language that is Turing-complete, or even one for which the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brainfuck
Brainfuck is an esoteric programming language created in 1993 by Urban Müller. Notable for its extreme minimalism, the language consists of only eight simple commands, a data pointer and an instruction pointer. While it is fully Turing complete, it is not intended for practical use, but to challenge and amuse programmers. Brainfuck requires one to break commands into microscopic steps. The language's name is a reference to the slang term ''brainfuck'', which refers to things so complicated or unusual that they exceed the limits of one's understanding, as it was not meant or made for designing actual software but to challenge the boundaries of computer programming. History In 1992, Urban Müller, a Swiss physics student, took over a small online archive for Amiga software. The archive grew more popular, and was soon mirrored around the world. Today, it is the world's largest Amiga archive, known as Aminet. Müller designed Brainfuck with the goal of implementing the small ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mathematical Recreation
Recreational mathematics is mathematics carried out for recreation (entertainment) rather than as a strictly research and application-based professional activity or as a part of a student's formal education. Although it is not necessarily limited to being an endeavor for List of amateur mathematicians, amateurs, many topics in this field require no knowledge of advanced mathematics. Recreational mathematics involves mathematical puzzles and Mathematical games, games, often appealing to children and untrained adults, inspiring their further study of the subject. The Mathematical Association of America (MAA) includes recreational mathematics as one of its seventeen Mathematical Association of America#Special Interest Groups, Special Interest Groups, commenting: Mathematical competitions (such as those sponsored by Mathematical Association, mathematical associations) are also categorized under recreational mathematics. Topics Some of the more well-known topics in recreational ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Write-only Language
In computer humor, a write-only language is a pejorative term for a programming language alleged to have syntax or semantics sufficiently dense and bizarre that any routine of significant size is too difficult to understand by other programmers and cannot be safely edited. Similarly, ''write-only code'' is source code In computing, source code, or simply code, is any collection of code, with or without comments, written using a human-readable programming language, usually as plain text. The source code of a program is specially designed to facilitate the wo ... so arcane, complex, or ill-structured that it cannot be reliably modified or even comprehended by anyone with the possible exception of the author. Languages that have been derided as write-only include APL (programming language), APL, C/C++, Perl, Forth (programming language), Forth, Scala (programming language), Scala and Lisp (programming language), Lisp, as well as Dynamic debugging technique (DDT), Text Editor and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zawinski's Law Of Software Envelopment
Jamie Zawinski (born November 3, 1968), commonly known as jwz, is an American computer programmer, blogger and impresario. He is best known for his role in the creation of Netscape Navigator, Netscape Mail, Lucid Emacs, Mozilla.org, and XScreenSaver. He is also the proprietor of DNA Lounge, a nightclub and live music venue in San Francisco. Biography Zawinski's programming career began at age 16 with Scott Fahlman's Spice Lisp project at Carnegie Mellon University. He then worked at AI startup Expert Technologies, Inc. followed by Robert Wilensky and Peter Norvig's AI research group at UC Berkeley, working on natural language processing. In 1990 he began working at Lucid Inc., first working on Lucid Common Lisp, and then on Lucid's Energize C++ IDE. Lucid decided to use GNU Emacs as the text editor for their IDE due to its free license, popularity, and extensibility, and Zawinski led that project. As Zawinski and the other programmers made fundamental changes to GNU Emac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
