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