Is this a true statement?

[David C. Ullrich]

On Mon, 25 Jun 2001 11:37:00 -0400 (EDT), "Steven D. Majewski"
<sdm7g at Virginia.EDU> wrote:

>
>
>On 25 Jun 2001, Martin von Loewis wrote:
>
>> The point is that a program that writes a device driver is not the
>> device driver itself. Instead, the program that writes a device driver
>> is typically called 'compiler' or 'linker'. You can certainly write
>> compilers and linkers in Python, and some people have actually done so.
>> 
>> However, 'writing a program that generates a device driver' is not at
>> all the same as 'writing a device driver'.
>
>Both methods involve writing an abstract specification for a device
>driver in some language, which gets transformed by a chain of several
>programs into an actual device driver. 
>
>If you write it in macro-assembler, macro statements get expanded into
>basic assembler. Would you say that you can't write a device driver
>in macro -- only in assembler ? 
>
>What we mean by writing a device driver (in some language) is 
>describing a device driver. This all seems to be an argument
>over whether the map is or is not the territory. 
>
>
>Despite the fact that he waited till I conceded to him to concede 
>and leave me out on a limb :-),

Sorry. Didn't actually mean to concede anything regarding any
actual matters of fact. I realized that the reason that so
many comments were making no sense to me is that people were
using a definition of "write a device driver in X" that I
didn't realize was the definition being used. Conceded only
that _given_ that definition then of course you cannot write
a device driver in Python. I didn't mean to concede that
it was the "right" definition - arguing over the "correctness"
of definitions is too silly even for me, definitions are
what they are, by definition.

> I think David made an interesting
>point about Turing equivalence -- it's reach is a bit farther than
>I had thought: A device driver *IS* a computable function of a
>textual description of a device driver. 
>
>However, I still object to folks throwing around *unqualified* 
>statements about the equivalence of all programming languages -- 
>Turing equivalence is still a rather narrow form of equivalence,
>and it doesn't at all imply that anything you can do in one language,
>you can do it another -- unless you have a very curious definition
>of "do" that perhaps only involves talking about doing. 
>
>( In this particular case, the specification of the problem: 
>  "write a device driver" was so loose as to allow such an 
>  impractical solution. If someone else wants to challenge that
>  notion, I'll be sure to be more specific of the requirements 
>  next time! ) 
>  
>
>-- Steve Majewski 
>
>( And I DO wish more languages had adopted Intercal's "Please" 
>  statement -- it would make programs so much nicer to read! )
>
>



David C. Ullrich
*********************
"Sometimes you can have access violations all the 
time and the program still works." (Michael Caracena, 
comp.lang.pascal.delphi.misc 5/1/01)