Re: Bob's 'Self-aggrandizing ignorant' Count: Was: What databases have taught me

From: Bruno Desthuilliers <onurb_at_xiludom.gro>
Date: Mon, 03 Jul 2006 10:57:18 +0200
Message-ID: <44a8dbf0$0$1551$626a54ce_at_news.free.fr>

Marshall wrote:
>

>>Bruno Desthuilliers wrote:
>>
>>
>>>FWIW, I think this is just impossible. Computers are imperative. You
>>>need to tell them *how* to do anything.
>>

(snip)
>
> Not to mention the fact that it is perfectly possible to use one
> computational model to implement another one. We can
> write prolog in C, for example,

Yes, but on how many existing and usable hardware could you write prolog without *any* imperative code ?-)

Opps, sorry - forgot we were on a theoretical newsgroup...

> or python in haskell.

Even Haskell has to deal with states (at least IO).

> The
> fact that there exists a lower layer (in this case a hardware
> layer) that is imperative and untyped doesn't mean we
> can't use that layer to build a higher layer that is functional
> and typed.

Did I said such a thing ?

> This is one place where an "it's turtles all the way down"
> argument doesn't work.

Actually, the argument was more like "there has to be one turtle somewhere in the stack" !-)

-- 
bruno desthuilliers
python -c "print '_at_'.join(['.'.join([w[::-1] for w in p.split('.')]) for
p in 'onurb_at_xiludom.gro'.split('@')])"

Received on Mon Jul 03 2006 - 10:57:18 CEST