Re:Rice’s Theorem: An interactive tutorial
by wizeman on Saturday November 26, 2022 @09:39AM
(#33753000)
As I said in my original post, Turing machines can be useful.
But they do a huge simplifying assumption which is that the program can use an infinite amount of memory.
This is OK in some cases, but it is not OK in others, especially when it comes to analyzing decidability.
For example, I think it is immensely useful to model computer programs in Turing-complete languages. I see no major reason why we should always use programming languages with enforced memory limits at the language level, currently.
Because, it's one thing to write a program, and it's another thing to execute it.
So, I'm not saying Turing machines are always inadequate. But I wish we would be more careful using them, so as to not make fundamental mistakes about what is true and what is false.
But they do a huge simplifying assumption which is that the program can use an infinite amount of memory.
This is OK in some cases, but it is not OK in others, especially when it comes to analyzing decidability.
For example, I think it is immensely useful to model computer programs in Turing-complete languages. I see no major reason why we should always use programming languages with enforced memory limits at the language level, currently.
Because, it's one thing to write a program, and it's another thing to execute it.
So, I'm not saying Turing machines are always inadequate. But I wish we would be more careful using them, so as to not make fundamental mistakes about what is true and what is false.