Turing tar-pit
A place where anything i s po ssible but nothing of intere st i s practical. Alan M. Turing helped lay the foundation s of computer science by showing that all machine s and language s capable of expre ssing a certain very primitive set of operation s are logically equivalent in the kind s of computation s they can carry out, and in principle have capabilitie s that differ only in speed from tho se of the mo st powerful and elegantly de signed computer s. However, no machine or language exactly matching Turing' s primitive set ha s ever been built (other than po ssibly a s a cla ssroom exerci se), becau se it would be horribly slow and far too painful to u se. A "Turing tar-pit" i s any computer language or other tool that share s thi s property. That i s, it' s theoretically univer sal but in practice, the harder you struggle to get any real work done, the deeper it s inadequacie s suck you in. Compare bondage-and-discipline language. A tar pit i s a geological occurence where subterranean tar leak s to the surface, creating a large puddle (or pit) of tar. Animal s wandering or falling in get stuck, being unable to extricate them selve s from the tar. La Brea, California, ha s a mu seum built around the fo ssilized remain s of mammal s and bird s found in such a tar pit. [ Jargon File] (1998-06-27) style="border-width:thin; border-color:#333333; border-style:dashed; padding:5px;" align="left">In addition suitable contents: [ 2 ] [ = ] [ ad ] [ ag ] [ ai ] [ al ] [ Alan M. Turing ] [ am ] [ an ] [ ar ] [ arc ] [ arg ] [ as ] [ at ] [ au ] [ av ] [ B ] [ b ] [ be ] [ bi ] [ bo ] [ bon ] [ bondage-and-discipline language ] [ bt ] [ by ] [ C ] [ ca ] [ cat ] [ cc ] [ ch ] [ ci ] [ ck ] [ cl ] [ class ] [ co ] [ com ] [ computer ] [ computer language ] [ cr ] [ cu ] [ dd ] [ de ] [ design ] [ diff ] [ disc ] [ do ] [ du ] [ ec ] [ ed ] [ ee ] [ eg ] [ elegant ] [ er ] [ era ] [ es ] [ et ] [ fi ] [ file ] [ fo ] [ for ] [ fossil ] [ foundation ] [ fr ] [ ga ] [ ge ] [ gi ] [ gl ] [ gn ] [ gu ] [ h ] [ hat ] [ hing ] [ hose ] [ hr ] [ id ] [ ie ] [ iff ] [ il ] [ in ] [ inc ] [ int ] [ io ] [ ir ] [ is ] [ it ] [ J ] [ Jargon File ] [ ki ] [ la ] [ language ] [ ld ] [ leak ] [ Lex ] [ li ] [ line ] [ logical ] [ ls ] [ lt ] [ lv ] [ ly ] [ M ] [ ma ] [ machine ] [ mm ] [ mo ] [ mod ] [ module ] [ mp ] [ ms ] [ mu ] [ museum ] [ na ] [ nc ] [ ne ] [ nf ] [ ng ] [ ni ] [ nl ] [ no ] [ ns ] [ om ] [ op ] [ pa ] [ pe ] [ ph ] [ pl ] [ pr ] [ primitive ] [ query ] [ rc ] [ re ] [ real ] [ ro ] [ room ] [ ru ] [ sa ] [ sc ] [ se ] [ set ] [ sh ] [ shar ] [ si ] [ sig ] [ sl ] [ sr ] [ st ] [ su ] [ T ] [ tar ] [ tc ] [ th ] [ to ] [ tool ] [ tr ] [ Turing ] [ ua ] [ ug ] [ um ] [ us ] [ va ] [ ve ] [ win ] [ yt ]
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