Turing Compliant?

[C.Laurence Gonsalves]

On 02 Sep 1999 10:05:38 +0200, Stephan Houben <stephan at pcrm.win.tue.nl> wrote:
> David Oppenheimer <davidopp at megsinet.net> writes:
> 
> > What the heck does Turing Compliant mean?  I've heard discussion that
> > Python is not Turing Compliant.  Is this true and why would this be an
> > important consideration for someone who is programming in Python?
> 
> I'm sorry. I'm probably to blame for this.
> Someone asked a question whether Python was suited for his goals, without ever
> mentioning what his goals where. So I asked him what his goals where, and
> -as a joke- if Turing Completeness was perhaps required. 
> 
> Every programming language is Turing Complete. This is a bit like when 
> somebody asks which car he should buy, and I ask him if it is supposed to be
> able to drive. So it was a lame joke, and it confused people.

Actually, there are programming languages that are not Turing complete.
I've heard of at least one of them. The language was not Turing complete
because it lacked any form of loops or recursion, and you couldn't
generate code that you would later execute. The one advantage was that
you would be guaranteed that every program would terminate.

I never had to use this language myself, but one of my friends claimed
to have written a "compiler" that compiled into this language. Of
course, since the destination language was not Turing complete, neither
was the source language. So there you go, two programming languages that
were not Turing Complete.

I would agree with the statement that every *useful* programming
language is Turing Complete...

-- 
  C. Laurence Gonsalves            "Any sufficiently advanced
  clgonsal at kami.com                 technology is indistinguishable
  http://www.cryogen.com/clgonsal/  from magic." -- Arthur C. Clarke