The What is a programming language? question has a lot more votes than all the answers put together. That suggests to me that most people are unconvinced. Anyone have an idea for a better answer?
I voted it up because I think it's a good question that should have a standard definition. However, my theoretical CS knowledge isn't enough (IMO) to decide the answer, so I haven't voted for one.
@PeterTaylor We tried to nail this down in chat several weeks ago and failed.
An important requirement (at least for the purposes of PPCG) that hasn't been mentioned at all yet, but I think would be useful, is that anything that counts as a programming language needs an implementation.
a) For testability, b) Because otherwise by allowing regex we also allow answers in EBNF and stuff like that.
I'm not sure how you can draw an arbitrary line between print "hello world" and a full blown interpreter. print "hello world" is a machine that does one thing. But it's STILL a machine
My argument against rot13 as a language is that it's incapable of computing even the primitive recursive functions. Can anyone think of something which should reasonably be considered a programming language but which can't at a minimum perform basic arithmetic?
(For the sake of disambiguation, let's take "basic arithmetic" to mean addition of natural numbers and multiplication of natural numbers)
@Geobits If you take machine to only mean physical hardware, then a program must obviously be written in machine code (binary). I think that view is wrong, because Java is obviously a language.
I would argue on a simple level that something which doesn't take input isn't a program, and a ROT13 file doesn't take input so it's not a program, and thus ROT13 isn't a language
I'm saying there isn't anything it can do. For every input, there is exactly one output. If you call that a programming language, it's the worst one ever.
@Geobits That was also in my answer on meta. Although I think being a bijection is far stronger a condition than required to rule out a tool from defining a programming language.
It sounds like the general consensus is "I think it should do [insert arbitrary qualification here] because otherwise it would be a useless language." It has to have I/O, it has to be Turing complete, etc. They are all so arbitrary.
I think the problem with this entire discussion is that someone posted a challenge for which an existing utility can solve in one character. It was a poor challenge to begin with.
Often, answers to questions asking for "programs" or talking about "programming languages" utilize things like sed, awk, … in order to get around having to write an actual shell script.
Therefore, a question comes to my mind:
What qualifies as a language?
Sure, ultimately the OP can defines th...
@EricTressler requiring TC-ness would rule out answers in e.g. Agda and Coq (not that we have seen many of them, or that they are useful for golfing, but still)
I read about 60% of GEB. Actually, it's probably more accurate to say that I got about 60% of the way through, reading about 40%. I think I would have enjoyed it as a 15-year-old, but as a CS graduate I found it excessively slow and the storytelling chapters annoyed me.
I raced through Survival of the Fitest because my former PE teacher lent me it, and I'm half way through a book about railways which I've been reading 6months
There is the basic definition: 0, successor, projection of a tuple onto one dimension, composition of functions, primitive recursion (i.e. bounded loops).
I got this idea after answering Calvin's Hobbies question which reminded me of a cool programming trick I learned a year ago that can be used to satisfy program number 2.
Definitely open to feedback, different formatting/wording, or a different title. Please let me know what you think! This woul...
any advice on improvements that could be made?
I'm not sure of what changes to make it better, or if I should just post it as it is
I'd rather not let it get lost in the sandbox because the main site is slow on questions sometimes and I want to help contribute
right its not the most inclusive question, but you can still post answers for half of it if the other half doesn't work. I think we might see some interesting/creative solutions though.
it challenges you to think of a language where you can make it work
@PeterTaylor @Rainbolt @Geobits @EricTressler What about providing several problems, and if the language can solve any of the provided problems, it's valid? That is something like "prove that your language can compute any primitive recursive function", or "show that you can accept context-free languages" or ...
I'm worried that someone a very long time from now will have this thrown at them and they will think, "Who on earth chose these problems?"
Sure, your whatchamacallit (holy crap, I actually received a spelling recommendation for that word) can solve that problem, but it's not on The List so it doesn't count! sticks out tongue
Everyone in the community seems to have their own ideas of what capabilities a language must have. Someone wanted to draw the line at Turing Complete. Someone else wanted to put it somewhere below. I didn't want to draw a line at all.
You're saying someone should go back to the original quine challenge and say, "I'm using cat, any program is a quine.", and that that challenge was hence uninteresting to begin with.
That being said, the original quine challenge should have been by-language
Okay, I think the real problem here is being able to create a language that can anticipate a challenge in advance. We should try focusing on the actual thing we're trying to solve, not a simple side effect. For example, let's say I make a new language called "PythonUpgradedWowSoAmaze," which is exactly the same as Python except that an empty program or a . does {insert task here (quine, etc.)}. Your rules are absolutely worthless now.
The disputed "rot13" answer specifically pointed out that it wasn't a language invented for the challenge, so it doesn't help in invalidating that answer (if that is what we want)
I wouldn't even care if an answer was submitted usingrot13, but it should be counted as a bash/shell/whatever "program" and should count the command(s) and input, not just the input to the command.
@MartinBüttner I don't know, I think it's clear that if a task is about implementing X, then simply using an existing implementation of X is a rather boring answer
With JavaPlusSystemDotOutDotPrintln, you have two options when writing your program. You can simply type stuff, and if it looks like a Java program it will compile with Java. Otherwise, it will print it to System.out.
This was exactly Doorknob's point a moment ago
If Java is a language, then Java plus anything is also a language
@Rainbolt Okay, so basically your point is "anything is a language" unless you can show me something that can't be executed. In that case what do you propose to do with answer that just use an entire program built to solve the task at hand?
Repeat this as many times as you want. You'll end up with a compiler that compiles anything or nothing or somewhere in between. Any language that can be used with that compiler is a language
@MartinBüttner I've finally done some proper thinking and in a couple of days I hope to be posting a new DominoSolver which will solve the boolean operations in 2^m + (m-2)(m-1)/2 operations (74 for m=6, I think)
@EricTressler Someone decided to start collecting mods that work well together, tweak them so that the game isn't too easy or too hard, and then package them together and distribute. It turned into FeedTheBeast modpack, which was popularized on YouTube by a user named Direwolf20.
They've been through several iterations now, trying to keep up as Minecraft updates and new mods are released
Code wars
Your goal is to write a bot that modifies other's bots' code. A turn will consist of each bot performing a line of code asynchronously. After 5000 turns, the bot with the most flags wins.
There will be 50 copies of each bot. The world will be toroidal, and the bots will be placed r...
Often, answers to questions asking for "programs" or talking about "programming languages" utilize things like sed, awk, … in order to get around having to write an actual shell script.
Therefore, a question comes to my mind:
What qualifies as a language?
Sure, ultimately the OP can defines th...
Code wars
Your goal is to write a bot that modifies other's bots' code. A turn will consist of each bot performing a line of code asynchronously. After 5000 turns, the bot with the most flags wins.
There will be 50 copies of each bot. The world will be toroidal, and the bots will be placed r...
