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Encyclopedia > Turing tarpit

A Turing tarpit is a programming language designed to be Turing-complete while minimizing the number of distinct instructions. Such a language gives up practicality (such as ease of coding, performance, etc.) but is often useful in theoretical computer science. A programming language or computer language is a standardized communication technique for expressing instructions to a computer. ... In computability theory a programming language or any other logical system is called Turing-complete if it has a computational power equivalent to a universal Turing machine. ... Wikibooks Wikiversity has more about this subject: School of Computer Science Open Directory Project: Computer Science Collection of Computer Science Bibliographies Belief that title science in computer science is inappropriate Categories: Computer science | Academic disciplines ...


Originally:
"54. Beware of the Turing tar-pit in which everything is possible but nothing of interest is easy." --Alan Perlis, "Epigrams on Programming"[1]. Alan Perlis Alan J. Perlis (April 1, 1922 - February 7, 1990) was a prominent U.S. computer scientist. ... Epigrams In Programming was the title of an article written by Alan Perlis in 1982, for ACMs SIGPLAN journal. ...


Well-known Turing tarpits include

There are two sometimes divergent ways of viewing the challenge of designing a tarpit, those which lean towards fewer instructions, and those which lean towards fewer symbols recognised. Some results of this struggle have been: The PDP-8 was the first successful commercial minicomputer, produced by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) in the 1960s. ... Brainfuck is a computer programming language noted for its extreme minimalism. ... The OISC is the One Instruction Set Computer, by humorous analogy with RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computer) and CISC (Complex Instruction Set Computer). ... The lambda calculus is a formal system designed to investigate function definition, function application, and recursion. ... Unlambda is a minimal functional programming language based on combinatory logic, a version of the lambda calculus that omits the lambda operator. ... 0x29A is a stack-based functional and imperative programming language. ... This article is about a topic in theoretical computer science, and is not to be confused with combinatorial logic, a topic in electronics. ... A cellular automaton (plural: cellular automata) is a discrete model studied in computability theory and mathematics. ... Artists conception of a universal Turing machine. ...

  • Thue: 1 Instruction, 128+ symbols
  • Brainfuck: 8 instructions, 8 symbols
  • OISC: 1 instruction, 11+ symbols
  • Iota and Jot: 1 instruction, 2 symbols.

  Results from FactBites:
 
turing machine - turing machine ace digital modern computer (2289 words)
The concept of the Turing machine is based on the idea of a person executing a well-defined procedure by changing the contents of an unlimited number of ordered paper sheets that can contain one of a finite set of symbols.
Turing machines shouldn't be confused with the Turing test, Turing's attempt to capture the notion of artificial intelligence.
Turing tarpit, any computing system or language which, like the Turing machine, is not only Turing-complete but also useless for practical computing.
Turing tarpit (111 words)
A Turing tarpit is a programming language designed to be Turing-complete while minimizing the number of distinct instructions.
Beware of the Turing tar-pit in which everything is possible but nothing of interest is easy." --Alan Perlis, "Epigrams on Programming".
There are two sometimes divergent ways of viewing the challenge of designing a tarpit, those which lean towards fewer instructions, and those which lean towards fewer symbols recognised.
  More results at FactBites »


 

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