From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.1.3 (2006-06-01) on yquem.inria.fr X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=0.3 required=5.0 tests=AWL autolearn=disabled version=3.1.3 X-Original-To: caml-list@yquem.inria.fr Delivered-To: caml-list@yquem.inria.fr Received: from mail3-relais-sop.national.inria.fr (mail3-relais-sop.national.inria.fr [192.134.164.104]) by yquem.inria.fr (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2202ABBAF for ; Thu, 21 Aug 2008 15:52:31 +0200 (CEST) X-IronPort-Anti-Spam-Filtered: true X-IronPort-Anti-Spam-Result: ArQCAFgQrUiYToBnjWdsb2JhbACSHAEBAQEJBQgYBaM1gWY X-IronPort-AV: E=Sophos;i="4.32,245,1217800800"; d="scan'208";a="16170275" Received: from mailgate2.iss.soton.ac.uk ([152.78.128.103]) by mail3-smtp-sop.national.inria.fr with ESMTP/TLS/DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA; 21 Aug 2008 15:52:30 +0200 Received: from [152.78.96.56] (alpha.kk.soton.ac.uk [152.78.96.56]) (authenticated bits=0) by mailgate2.iss.soton.ac.uk (8.13.8/8.13.4) with ESMTP id m7LDqIWc020040 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA bits=256 verify=NO); Thu, 21 Aug 2008 14:52:22 +0100 Message-ID: <48AD7312.6040504@soton.ac.uk> Date: Thu, 21 Aug 2008 14:52:18 +0100 From: "Dr. Thomas Fischbacher" User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.7.12) Gecko/20060607 Debian/1.7.12-1.2 X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: DooMeeR Cc: "caml-list@yquem.inria.fr" Subject: Re: [Caml-list] Haskell vs OCaml References: <48AC00EC.80503@soton.ac.uk> <48AD2BBD.7010702@doomeer.com> In-Reply-To: <48AD2BBD.7010702@doomeer.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Greylist: Sender succeeded SMTP AUTH authentication, not delayed by milter-greylist-3.0 (mailgate2.iss.soton.ac.uk [152.78.128.103]); Thu, 21 Aug 2008 14:52:22 +0100 (BST) X-ISS-MailScanner-Information: Please contact Serviceline@soton.ac.uk for more information X-ISS-MailScanner: Found to be clean X-ISS-MailScanner-SpamCheck: X-Spam: no; 0.00; haskell:01 ocaml:01 ocaml:01 anvil:98 hammer:98 tea:98 wrote:01 caml-list:01 thesis:01 thesis:01 precisely:01 languages:03 languages:03 programming:03 programming:03 DooMeeR wrote: >>What are the advantages/disadvantages when comparing a fork to a spoon? > > From Church's thesis, one can easily answer this question: they are > equivalent. > > The reduction is quite easy. A fork can be reduced to a spoon using a > fire, an anvil and a hammer, and a spoon can be reduced to a fork using > a saw. So, why at all bother with OCaml if it's equivalent to Basic anyway, or machine language, for that matter? Church's Thesis is often cited for precisely this purpose of cutting off discussions related to differing aspects of programming languages -- sometimes this may even seem a Pawlowian reflex reaction. However, I think Church is a red herring here, as the important aspects of programming languages are not at the language:machine interface, but at the human:language interface. The design of a milk carton certainly does not matter a lot for how well it manages to store milk -- pretty much all of them do that quite well. But it certainly does matter for the question whether I'll spill milk all over the table when I try to put some into my tea (as I did this morning). -- best regards, Thomas Fischbacher t.fischbacher@soton.ac.uk