Article View: comp.lang.misc
Article #6515Re: Re: Expressive Power - What is it ?
From: Paul Schmidt
Date: Thu, 01 Jun 1989 13:08
Date: Thu, 01 Jun 1989 13:08
44 lines
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2163 bytes
> In article <769@cf-cm.UUCP> ted@computing-maths.cardiff.ac.uk (Ted Lawson) writes:
> >
> > Can anyone provide or (preferably) point-to a definition of,
> > or discussion about, the oft-heard term "Expressive Power" ?
>
> No, this doesn't seem to hold water as a complete definition. Suppose
> that in language A I can form statements of the type S1, S2 and S3. In
> language B I can form statements of the type S2, S3, S4,S5, ...
> S100000.
>
> Then language B can be said to be more expressive than language A,
> but language A is handy if I want to execute statements of the
> form S1.
>
> The definition you suggest does not allow for this sort of case.
> --
> Ken Johnson, AI Applications Institute, 80 South Bridge, Edinburgh EH1 1HN
There have been NO languages such as A and B that have ever been discovered.
If I remember correctly there are only three or four classes of expressive power
that have been discovered. None of these classes intersect, they either contain
a class or are contained in another task. A digram of this as best as I can
remember is:
+-------------------------+
| Recursive |
| +---------------------+ |
| | Partially Recursive | |
| | +-----------------+ | |
| | | ??? | | |
| | | +-------------+ | | |
| | | | ??? | | | |
| | | +-------------| | | |
| | +-----------------+ | |
| +---------------------+ |
+-------------------------+
If you know of any languages such as A and B, please post.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Paul Schmidt USENET: rti!tijc02!pjs269
Texas Instruments PHONE: (615) 461-2461
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Johnson City, TN 37605-1255
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Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!rutgers!mcnc!rti!tijc02!pjs269 From: pjs269@tijc02.UUCP (Paul Schmidt ) Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc Subject: Re: Re: Expressive Power - What is it ? Message-ID: <483@tijc02.UUCP> Date: 1 Jun 89 13:08:43 GMT References: <769@cf-cm.UUCP> <494@skye.ed.ac.uk> Organization: Texas Instr., Johnson City TN Lines: 44