Comment by jcoffland
10 years ago
Yes, this is absolutely correct. If you give up on Turing-completeness you can prove that a subset of programs halt. A computer could search this infinite space for programs that solve a particular problem. However, there may not be a program P in this space that solves the problem in question so the problem of finding P in the subset of provably haltable programs does not necessarily halt.
My argument stands. Unless the halting problem is overcome, there will still be jobs for humans to write Turing-complete programs.
You merely defined halting problem. You did not argue the following:
Turing machine X can produce programs that meets certain specifications => Turing machine X solves the halting problem.
I'm not trying to make that argument.
I'm not trying to make that argument.