Wentz: I was having a mathy discussion in ##programming

Gangloff: And it was, well, silly

Geho: The “Number” type in JavaScript is a 64 bit floating point number as defined in an IEEE spec.

Ishikawa: Because a spec is a spec, its defined by humans to be a certain thing

Silberman: And humans have defined anything to the power of 0 as 1, whether its the spec or infinity or whichever

Alrais: But, i ask, is javascript a turing complete language?

Penner: Turing complete isn’t hard.

Demetree: The lambda calculus is turing complete.

Seargent: If you can implement the lambda calculus, you are turing complete.

Velez: You can implement the lambda calculus with just two Stacks.

Friddle: A JS array implements everything a Stack needs.

Brian: You can have multiple JS arrays at the same time.

Isla: Ergo, JS is turing complete.

Carotenuto: So, turing basically proves that a function hi,x where it is 1 if program ix halts, and 0 otherwise does not exist

Mellencamp: In terms of the halting problem, right?

Eidemiller: Er, he’s proving that h does not exist

Hengen: At least, according to the wikipedia explanation of his proof

Cadotte: Which is, well, wikipedia

Moake: What about ix = powerx,0

Kocian: How can you prove a general program converges onto a value if you cannot prove that it converges.

Senechal: What do you mean by not being able to prove that it halts/converges?

Broder: Have you solved the halting problem? 😛

Trevithick: Maybe i’m just insane

Scollard: What’s next? P != NP?

Glanden: Well i know what you mean, i guess the question is better phrased in what context

Sager: The halting problem states that it is impossible to know whether an arbitrary program halts converges or executes forever diverges.

Trobridge: Well it’d require a program that could read a program

Dustman: You’re asking now if it’s possible to know if that same arbitrary value halts converges onto a specific value.

Hirshberg: Same arbitrary function **

Firkey: Same arbitrary program **

Kypuros: Since we cannot even know if it’ll halt, how can we know it will halt on a specific value?

Golojuch: Well why can’t we know if it’ll halt? the power function by definition halts, it can be defined recursively

Demny: What it halts on is a bit subjective

Troise: Oh wait, you’re asking a different question.

Rojos: I’m focusing on h being the power function

Inacio: I was reading ix = powerx, 0 differently. 😛

Flenner: Yes, it’s possible to know about certain specific functions.

Enget: We always know that powerx, 0 halts given x : floating point number

Muro: Well, if a program was designed around that

Goudeau: If we know the structure of a program, we can generally know if it will halt or not.

Ramaswamy: I guess that’s like saying if there’s a program designed around a halting function, which still definitely halts

Straley: But it gets sorta recursive. a program that can read a program

Stotesberry: A program that can read a program that can read a program

Strycker: S/program/function/ ?

Pablo: Welcome to metaprogramming and tool authorship.

Mish: But that’s life right? it goes in a circle until an exception is defined

Romane: I’ve always enjoyed tool making and system design

Fack: Does system design fall under metaprogramming?

Barge: Programming about programming, yeah

Difilippo: But what is a design but a formula or a “program” for a program