Comment by sasaf5
3 years ago
I don't like computers because the halting problem has no solution. This is why every software-based product will always have annoying varying latencies. My automatic watch, my piano, and my light switches will always respond immediately because they are not turing complete.
A smartwatch, a virtual synthesizer, and IoT switches will invariably fail to respond immediately one day. And because of that I will always activate them with anxiety.
That's why I don't like computers.
Ever heard of real-time systems? edit: man this place is filling up with pseudo-intelligent naysayers at an alarming pace.
How can a system solve the halting problem?
The halting problem states that it's impossible to prove if any arbitrary program halts. This has no relevance to latency of real software. Software is laggy because programmers pile up abstractions without caring about latency, not because of an abstract mathematical theorem. It's possible to write hard real-time software with provable latency bounds.
5 replies →
You don’t have to solve the halting problem to have consistent latency - you are conflating distinct concepts. The fact that a computer can’t check if an arbitrary program will eventually halt does not preclude the existence of programs that halt with exactly the same number of instructions every single time.