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To say that all languages are equivalent because they are Turing Complete is just not true. That means they can decide the same class of problems, it does not m

To say that all languages are equivalent because they are Turing Complete is just not true. That means they can decide the same class of problems, it does not mean they can or do decide them in the same way. In particular some languages are inherently faster than others.

javert 14y ago
> That means they can decide the same class of problems, it does not mean they can or do decide them in the same way. OK so far... > In particular some languages are inherently faster than others. Which is an example of deciding the same class of problems, just doing in in a "different way." So your example is not providing a counterexample to the claim; it's providing an example.
- th0114nd 14y ago
  Measuring time of computation is counting the number of primitive operations. I'd say a language is a collection of capabilities that play nicely. Given one language, we can create a second that is also RE by taking each instruction in the first and adding a nop, or calculate ack(10,10) and throws it away, or whatever. Any algorithm that the second language computes with at least one step runs in fewer primitive steps in the first language by design. Beyond a theoretical consideration, in practice there is much more than preference providing the difference between languages. If they were the same, you shouldn't have any trouble implementing combinators in brainfuck.
habosa 14y ago
I understand, I'm saying that this article suggests that there may be languages which enable us to solve entirely different problems. Maybe the comparison of a classical computer vs. a quantum computer is more apt. There are many problems which they can both do, but for some a quantum computer is infinitely more efficient. For some linguistic problems, a certain language may be much more efficient.
- capisce 14y ago
  In the same way Lisp or Haskell enable us to solve entirely different problems from writing directly in assembly perhaps, since you avoid having to deal with all the mundane details and can reason about your program at a much higher level?
tunesmith 14y ago
Not sure where I read it, but it was recently - languages that sound faster really just tend to have more syllables per concept, and all languages generally tend to have the same speed of communicated concept.
- btilly 14y ago
  Whoever said that was not a competent programmer, discussing programming languages. Research into programming languages says that lines of code written/day tends to be surprisingly consistent. But the amount of functionality embedded in that code varies widely depending on the language. Faster languages are ones that take over basic mechanics for you (eg memory management), infer things for you (eg compare C++ to go), or offer more convenient abstractions (eg compare scripting languages to C or Java). The difference is usually an order of magnitude, but can be more in the right circumstances.
  - tunesmith 14y ago
    I'm talking about spoken languages. Spanish, for instance - low amount of concepts per syllable, which is why it sounds so fast.
    - johnwatson11218 14y ago
      I read the same thing, the article I read also said that Chinese encodes more info per sound so it sounds like the speakers are speaking more slowly. English was somewhere in the middle.

javert 14y ago

> That means they can decide the same class of problems, it does not mean they can or do decide them in the same way. OK so far... > In particular some languages are inherently faster than others. Which is an example of deciding the same class of problems, just doing in in a "different way." So your example is not providing a counterexample to the claim; it's providing an example.

th0114nd 14y ago
Measuring time of computation is counting the number of primitive operations. I'd say a language is a collection of capabilities that play nicely. Given one language, we can create a second that is also RE by taking each instruction in the first and adding a nop, or calculate ack(10,10) and throws it away, or whatever. Any algorithm that the second language computes with at least one step runs in fewer primitive steps in the first language by design. Beyond a theoretical consideration, in practice there is much more than preference providing the difference between languages. If they were the same, you shouldn't have any trouble implementing combinators in brainfuck.

habosa 14y ago

I understand, I'm saying that this article suggests that there may be languages which enable us to solve entirely different problems. Maybe the comparison of a classical computer vs. a quantum computer is more apt. There are many problems which they can both do, but for some a quantum computer is infinitely more efficient. For some linguistic problems, a certain language may be much more efficient.

capisce 14y ago
In the same way Lisp or Haskell enable us to solve entirely different problems from writing directly in assembly perhaps, since you avoid having to deal with all the mundane details and can reason about your program at a much higher level?

tunesmith 14y ago

Not sure where I read it, but it was recently - languages that sound faster really just tend to have more syllables per concept, and all languages generally tend to have the same speed of communicated concept.

btilly 14y ago
Whoever said that was not a competent programmer, discussing programming languages. Research into programming languages says that lines of code written/day tends to be surprisingly consistent. But the amount of functionality embedded in that code varies widely depending on the language. Faster languages are ones that take over basic mechanics for you (eg memory management), infer things for you (eg compare C++ to go), or offer more convenient abstractions (eg compare scripting languages to C or Java). The difference is usually an order of magnitude, but can be more in the right circumstances.
- tunesmith 14y ago
  I'm talking about spoken languages. Spanish, for instance - low amount of concepts per syllable, which is why it sounds so fast.
  - johnwatson11218 14y ago
    I read the same thing, the article I read also said that Chinese encodes more info per sound so it sounds like the speakers are speaking more slowly. English was somewhere in the middle.