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  • From: Arthur Nascimento <tureba AT gmail.com>
  • To: sm-users AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [SM-Users] menuconfig for casts
  • Date: Sat, 17 Dec 2005 02:15:16 -0200

2005/12/17, Andrew <afrayedknot AT thefrayedknot.armory.com>:
> I dont know when that last was, but you are *not* asked to reconfigure
> xorg "over and over again". Unless you invoke cast repeatedly, or run
> sorcery from like 3 years ago. A spell is processed exactly once.
> Any questions, such as an optional dependency defaults to 'y' after the
> first time you say so.

I have been trying to use SM for quite a while, not sure it has been 3
years, but it could be. Also, I did invoke cast repeatedly, since it
kept failing all the time just as Thomas has been describing. Every
time I did a recast I changed the options I picked (both on the
configure step and on the command line) to see if I could get anywhere
else.
I did have to reconfigure xorg many times, but right now I am not sure
they were on the same cast or not, I do believe they were. Even if
they weren't, if they happened only on recasts, it is still a pain to
do it. It really would have been great to just have all the choices
remembered and change them at will on a non-linear way.

> Actually I meant what I said, bash is a turing complete language. I dont
> know what your definition of turing complete is, I've never heard one
> talked about them this way. 'sorcery' as a program or set of programs is
> not a turing complete language in it of itself, it uses a turing complete
> language though. Spells are given full access to bash, which again,
> is turing complete. Bash includes loops, conditionals and recursion and
> random access to memory. A turing machine is simply a state machine with
> access to an infinitly long linear tape a read/write head, and a mechanism
> to move the tape in either direction. Believe it or not, bash, as a
> programming language provides this. Although, we're insulated by the
> typical programming abstractions. Note that even brainf*ck is a turing
> complete language, and its only got 8 instructions.
[...]
> I dont think theres really a concept of "a little bit of turing
> completeness". Real computers are turing machines, a cpu and its memory is
> exactly what a turing machine is, its a state machine and a tape (and
> yes in practice, its not infinitly long). Programming languages tend to
> provide useful abstractions over a bare turing machine, or work as
> several turing machines combined. However, they are still turing machines
> at heart.

Thanks, Andrew. Really. You actually made me look into the old book
once more. I remembered the whole thing a little bit wrong. Luckily I
won't have any more tests on that.
Which reminds me: that is all very abstract and theoretical, not
useful in day-to-day living and certainly of no use for Thomas, so why
did you have to mention it? I mean, it really does not matter if
sorcery is turing-complete or not, from any point of view, for anyone.
Thomas had no way of knowing what that meant, unless of course if you
explained, but I doubt you were going to if I hadn't intervened. So he
was left at a disadvantage. Really, why? I was just helping a fellow
frustrated sm-user in keeping up with the conversation, since I
thought unfair the terms of the discussion. In this case I think a
wrong explanation such as mine is better than none, specially since
all that turing talk was really not needed in the first place. I did
have in mind that I had forgotten most of what I originally knew, but
as I said, better than nothing in this case.

Thanks
Arthur

p.s.: I really am thankful for your explanation - it refreshed my memory.



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