CMPSC 32 Chapter Notes - Chapter 1: Late Binding, Turing Machine, Programming Paradigm
Document Summary
Provides a form of abstraction similar to techniques used to solve everyday problems. New way of thinking about what it means to compute, about how we can structure information, and communicate our intentions to each other and to the machine. Languages we speak (including artificial languages, ie. those used in programming computers) influence the way in which we view the world. The language in which a programmer thinks a problem will be solved will fundamentally affect the way in which the algorithm is developed. Church"s conjecture = any computation for which there exists an effective procedure can be realized by a turing machine. Therefore, any language in which it is possible to simulate a turing machine is sufficiently powerful to perform any realizable algorithm. In a fundamental way, all programming languages are identical. Any idea that can be expressed in one language can, in theory, be expressed in any language.
