Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!think!bloom-beacon!mit-eddie!bbn!uwmcsd1!ig!agate!ucbvax!decwrl!purdue!i.cc.purdue.edu!j.cc.purdue.edu!pur-ee!uiucdcs!uiucdcsm!robison From: robison@uiucdcsm.cs.uiuc.edu Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc Subject: Re: Mathematics as the save-all languag Message-ID: <5200008@uiucdcsm> Date: 9 May 88 15:51:00 GMT References: <4655@ihlpf.ATT.COM> Lines: 14 Nf-ID: #R:ihlpf.ATT.COM:4655:uiucdcsm:5200008:000:622 Nf-From: uiucdcsm.cs.uiuc.edu!robison May 9 10:51:00 1988 > ... And, anyhow, > any problem which can be stated in a programming language which is (nearly > reasonably, or even not) "mathematical" (or otherwise) can be solved by > any computer which implements that language. The halting problem is specified with mathematics, but can never be solved by our notion of computer. That's why mathematics makes a nice specification language, we can specify the "what" without the "how", even when the "how" is nonexistent. See the "Laws of Programming" paper in the Aug. 1987 CACM for a readable discussion on programming languages vs. specification languages. - Arch D. Robison