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> the language isn't an abstraction of the hardware Programming languages were designed to do useful stuff. They can't do this without hardware. There are alwa

> the language isn't an abstraction of the hardware Programming languages were designed to do useful stuff. They can't do this without hardware. There are always concerns of practicality. > as if this were some kind of computational atomism NAND gates are computationally atomic, IMO, since to go a level below them you get to the level of physical processes (e.g. electronics) that implement them.

HappMacDonald 2y ago
I dunno about you, but my NAND gate is implemented as an AND gate followed up by a NOT gate. shrug
- whitten 2y ago
  So it’s less efficient than just implementing a NAND gate directly ?
- fragmede 2y ago
  If you're implementing things in, say, Minecraft it might be, but the computer you wrote that on uses NAND gates. NANDs take fewer transistors to implement, are faster, use less power, and thus everyone uses NAND gates as their foundational gate.
lo_zamoyski 2y ago
> Programming languages were designed to do useful stuff. They can't do this without hardware. There are always concerns of practicality. Programming languages are formalisms, and formalisms predate machines that simulate them, even if programming languages only really took off with machinery able to simulate them. You can simulate a programming language entirely with pen and paper if you wanted (tedious, but possible; the lambda calculus was entirely theoretical when when conceived). Regardless, while the utility of programming languages is related to there being machines that can simulate them, the distinction remains. > NAND gates are computationally atomic They're an implementation detail of the hardware being used. There is no necessarily relation between a language and a NAND gate. It is not as if, by dissecting a language, you will discover a bunch of NAND gates bounding around underneath. A language doesn't reduce to NAND gate operations. It just so happens that NAND gates are incredibly useful for implementation and simulation. You can implement a fully mechanical computer, or a water computer, if you wanted, even if it isn't very practical. Software is a mental construct that hardware can simulate.

HappMacDonald 2y ago

I dunno about you, but my NAND gate is implemented as an AND gate followed up by a NOT gate. shrug

whitten 2y ago
So it’s less efficient than just implementing a NAND gate directly ?
fragmede 2y ago
If you're implementing things in, say, Minecraft it might be, but the computer you wrote that on uses NAND gates. NANDs take fewer transistors to implement, are faster, use less power, and thus everyone uses NAND gates as their foundational gate.

lo_zamoyski 2y ago

> Programming languages were designed to do useful stuff. They can't do this without hardware. There are always concerns of practicality. Programming languages are formalisms, and formalisms predate machines that simulate them, even if programming languages only really took off with machinery able to simulate them. You can simulate a programming language entirely with pen and paper if you wanted (tedious, but possible; the lambda calculus was entirely theoretical when when conceived). Regardless, while the utility of programming languages is related to there being machines that can simulate them, the distinction remains. > NAND gates are computationally atomic They're an implementation detail of the hardware being used. There is no necessarily relation between a language and a NAND gate. It is not as if, by dissecting a language, you will discover a bunch of NAND gates bounding around underneath. A language doesn't reduce to NAND gate operations. It just so happens that NAND gates are incredibly useful for implementation and simulation. You can implement a fully mechanical computer, or a water computer, if you wanted, even if it isn't very practical. Software is a mental construct that hardware can simulate.