Re: What is wrong with OO ?

[Tansel Ersavas <tansel@rase.com>]

clovis@wartech.com wrote:
> 
> In <5aa0eo$thd@krusty.irvine.com>, adam@irvine.com (Adam Beneschan) writes:
> >In article <32C557F6.532C@rase.com> tansel@rase.com writes:
> 
> You're quite right.  Tansel is acting like quite a pretender on this one, and he
> obviously doesn't know what either a Von Neumann machine is, or what a Turing
> machine is.  A Von Neumann "machine" is really a recommended architecture,
> and really, there aren't many of them.  They feature regular instruction sets,
> with zero duplication of function, and all operations being orthogonal.  The basic
> feature of the Von Neumann machine is all classes of basic arithmetic operation,
> and all classes of comparisions within the two basic numeric types.  The "ideal"
> Von Neumann machine supports natural numbers, integers, reals (actually, length
> limited rational numbers), in which any operation -- add, subtract, multiply, divide
> and compare -- are entirely separate.

I am preparing a Web page with references about the history of computing
that includes pointers to von Neumann architecture and his devised
machine, and the Turing machine, I'll make it available to everybody
when it is ready. On the subject of von Neumann architectures and Turing
machines, I wouldn't recommend that you to jump to conclusions before
seeing the material that I said I would post. 

> The Von Neumann model, while not strictly followed in terms of orthogonality, is
> inherent in every general purpose digital computing machine ever made, even
> the Intel 80x86 family (which does it all, but which is not symmetrical or wholly
> orthogonal; and the same is largely true of RISC, whose primary function is to
> reduce transistor count).

This is precisely my point.

...
 
> In short, all digital computers are essentially just variances on Von Neumann and
> Turing, both of whom were mathematicians interested in computing technology as
> the notion of a code-based computation became available, that is, a computing
> machine which was capable of responding to codes which could control execution
> based on previous results.

Can you point me to one popular CPU that uses a Turing machine as a main
means of computation? Turing machines are conceptually very significant,
especially for showing us that a regular grammar can be used to solve
all practically solvable problems, however their architectural influence
in modern computers is not comparable to the von Neumann architecture.
Some people think or even inacurately quote that von Neumann
architecture is a kind of a Turing machine. Although a Turing machine
can be used to parse and interpret any von Neumann style stored program,
the level of the grammars these two types of machines deal with are
essentially different. A Turing machine deals with a regular grammar,
whereas a von Neumann style stored program uses a context free grammar. 

To anybody interested in Alan Mathison Turing's Turing machines I
recommend this excellent source:
R. Herken, Berlin, FRG (Ed.) "The Universal Turing Machine, A
Half-Century Survey" Springer-Verlag Vienna New York 1995.

...

> None of this is really rocket science.  And it's never ceased to amaze me how many
> of the "hip" guys can't even define the basic terms.

Nobody says it is. Again, I would urge you to wait till I say what I
have to say about these subjects.
 
...

Happy new year to all
Tansel