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From: yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: Halting Problem Solved!  Film at 11!  (Was Re: definitions)
Message-ID: <30275@dime.cs.umass.edu>
Date: 8 May 91 23:01:52 GMT
References: <30040@dime.cs.umass.edu> <a8uk215w164w@mantis.co.uk>
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Reply-To: yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken)
Organization: University of Massachusetts, Amherst
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In article <a8uk215w164w@mantis.co.uk> mathew@mantis.co.uk (CNEWS MUST DIE!) writes:
>yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken) writes:
>> The halting problem does not really apply to actual programming languages
>> (i.e. those that are compiled or interpreted into machine code).
>
>I see. So you are claiming that it is possible to write a program to predict
>whether a given piece of code will terminate or not, for any compiled or
>interpreted programming language?
>

Sure. Can it be done in practice, for every language and every program? 
I'll bet, no. But, there is no theoretical reason why a clever design
could not produce a useful programming language with a compiler that
verified termination.  

>
>mathew
>
>