17 lines
2.8 KiB
HTML
17 lines
2.8 KiB
HTML
|
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1" standalone="no"?>
|
|||
|
|
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><title>Turing tar-pit</title><link rel="stylesheet" href="../../jargon.css" type="text/css"/><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.61.0"/><link rel="home" href="../index.html" title="The Jargon File"/><link rel="up" href="../T.html" title="T"/><link rel="previous" href="turbo-nerd.html" title="turbo nerd"/><link rel="next" href="turist.html" title="turist"/></head><body><div class="navheader"><table width="100%" summary="Navigation header"><tr><th colspan="3" align="center">Turing tar-pit</th></tr><tr><td width="20%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="turbo-nerd.html">Prev</a><EFBFBD></td><th width="60%" align="center">T</th><td width="20%" align="right"><EFBFBD><a accesskey="n" href="turist.html">Next</a></td></tr></table><hr/></div><dt><a id="Turing-tar-pit"/><dt xmlns="" id="Turing-tar-pit"><b>Turing tar-pit</b>: <span xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" class="grammar">n.</span></dt></dt><dd><p> 1. A place where anything is possible but nothing of interest is
|
|||
|
|
practical. Alan Turing helped lay the foundations of computer science by
|
|||
|
|
showing that all machines and languages capable of expressing a certain
|
|||
|
|
very primitive set of operations are logically equivalent in the kinds of
|
|||
|
|
computations they can carry out, and in principle have capabilities that
|
|||
|
|
differ only in speed from those of the most powerful and elegantly designed
|
|||
|
|
computers. However, no machine or language exactly matching Turing's
|
|||
|
|
primitive set has ever been built (other than possibly as a classroom
|
|||
|
|
exercise), because it would be horribly slow and far too painful to use. A
|
|||
|
|
<span class="firstterm">Turing tar-pit</span> is any computer
|
|||
|
|
language or other tool that shares this property. That is, it's
|
|||
|
|
theoretically universal — but in practice, the harder you struggle to
|
|||
|
|
get any real work done, the deeper its inadequacies suck you in. Compare
|
|||
|
|
<a href="../B/bondage-and-discipline-language.html"><i class="glossterm">bondage-and-discipline language</i></a>. </p></dd><dd><p> 2. The perennial <a href="../H/holy-wars.html"><i class="glossterm">holy wars</i></a> over whether
|
|||
|
|
language A or B is the “<span class="quote">most powerful</span>”.</p></dd><div class="navfooter"><hr/><table width="100%" summary="Navigation footer"><tr><td width="40%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="turbo-nerd.html">Prev</a><EFBFBD></td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="u" href="../T.html">Up</a></td><td width="40%" align="right"><EFBFBD><a accesskey="n" href="turist.html">Next</a></td></tr><tr><td width="40%" align="left" valign="top">turbo nerd<72></td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="h" href="../index.html">Home</a></td><td width="40%" align="right" valign="top"><EFBFBD>turist</td></tr></table></div></body></html>
|