Re: Another clueless wikipedia article

examachine@xxxxxxxxx wrote: 
Simon G Best wrote:

[...] What sense does it make to interject this
discussion in an article about computability theory? Isn't the author
supposed to talk about partially recursive functions and what it means
for a number to be computable, what it means to be a function to be
computable, etc.? I think this article isn't the right place for
analyzing the differences and similarities between desktop PCs and
FSMs. [...]

I think you're reading much more into that brief mention of PCs than is really there, or was ever intended. It looks to me much more like an illustrative example of the limits of the computational power of FSMs - entirely on-topic!

The problem with the current state of the article is, it at least
implies to the reader that you can't study desktop PCs by way of Turing
Machines, which is just plain wrong. [...]


It does not imply any such thing.

[...]
Second, the assertion that "all real computers are FSMs" seems
philosophically  unsatisfactory. [...]  The author would IMO have
to stress that by desktop PC he means a device that cannot be extended
in any way, has a fixed RAM chip, and no connection to the outside
world, etc.  [...]

A PC is not the same as a PC combined with an inexhaustible supply of extra memory with the means to add that extra memory as and when needed. A PC itself is a finite state machine. The fact that it could be repeatedly extended into ever larger finite state machines, with more and more states each time, is irrelevant to the fact that it is a finite state machine. There was no need for the author to point out that they don't mean PCs-combined-with-infinitely-large-warehouses-of-extra-memory, because no one would sensibly confuse the term "desktop PC" with such a concept.

Perhaps I'm just nitpicking.

Nitpicking? You're criticising the article for saying things it isn't even saying!

It may be sufficient just to change that
first sentence so it gets the reference right, and perhaps remove the
bit about "all real computers", I really think that bit is problematic.
Because it does imply that all real computers are FSMs and not TMs. [...]

No. That may be what you're (incorrectly) inferring from it, but it's not what it's saying or implying.

:-(

Simon
.