13 Jul
2007
13 Jul
'07
11:18 a.m.
peterv wrote:
with guaranteed termination, of course
Just out of curiosity (not Haskell related): I always get confused when people speak about "guaranteed termination"; what about the halting problem? In which context can one check for "guaranteed termination", as the halting problem says it's not *generally* possible?
The simplest answer to that is 'rule out recursion'. Mind you, that rules out an awful lot of important programs. There are better answers involving restricting the kind of recursion you allow. Google for 'total programming' and also for 'epigram'. Jules