2009/10/1 Andrew Coppin <andrewcop...@btinternet.com>: > Eugene Kirpichov wrote: >> >> 2009/10/1 Andrew Coppin <andrewcop...@btinternet.com>: >> >>> >>> Sure. But what is a computer program? It's a *list of instructions* that >>> tells a computer *how to do something*. And yet, the Haskell definition >>> of >>> sum looks more like a definition of what a sum is rather than an actual, >>> usable procedure for *computing* that sum. (Of course, we know that it >>> /is/ >>> in fact executable... it just doesn't look it at first sight.) >>> >> >> Well, we are not writing computer programs directly, even in C, that's >> what compilers are for. >> That's why I find arguments about the sequential essence of computer >> programs to be weak. >> > > It might be a better argument to say that human thinking is fundamentally > sequential; parallel computers have been around for a little while now... >
I don't buy this argument, either; human thinking is far too broad a concept to say that it is simply "sequential". If it were sequential, it could barely express non-sequential concepts, and natural languages would have rather few of them, which we all know is false. > _______________________________________________ > Haskell-Cafe mailing list > Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org > http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe > -- Eugene Kirpichov Web IR developer, market.yandex.ru _______________________________________________ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe
