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From: smryan@clipper.ingr.com (Steven Ryan)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: Will this *thread* ever halt?
Message-ID: <1991Jun25.175521.25651@clipper.ingr.com>
Date: 25 Jun 91 17:55:21 GMT
References: <29254.Jun2219.22.4491@kramden.acf.nyu.edu> <1991Jun22.213750.18954@watserv1.waterloo.edu> <12634.Jun2400.55.0891@kramden.acf.nyu.edu>
Organization: Intergraph Advanced Processor Division - Palo Alto, CA
Lines: 15

>But in *practice* most loops cycle through a very small set of states.
>This is true of nearly all the infinite loops I've seen, both in my code
>and in code I've had to maintain.
>
>There will always exist programs of length n that run for 2^2^{kn}
>steps before stopping. In *practice* very few programs exhibit such
>behavior.

Oh, how faux profund. You can write an analyzer for any practical program.
And what is a practical program? One for which you can write an analyzer.
-- 
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|-And Oliver North married William Secord/and gave birth to a little Teheran.--|