[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message]

Re: Decidability


decidability
Miles Sabin wrote:
>...
> Of _course_ there are subsets of arithmetic which are decidable.

Now we're making progress. According to my limited research, first order 
diophantine equations are decidable. Which is to say that it IS likely 
possible to put a constraint of the form "height*width*depth=area".

 > ...
> The first question relates to expressive power: make the restrictions 
> too severe and it can be impossible or very difficult to say the things 
> you want to say.

Of course. But business documents tend to use very simple equations. Add 
up some numbers and multiply by the sales tax. I think that first order 
equations do fall on the right side of the 80/20 rule.

> The second points to the fact that the 'finite' in 'finite decision 
> procedure' can be very, very, very big indeed. Who cares if a decision 
> procedure will terminate in finite time if we'll all be long dead 
> before it's done? Practically speaking, the system might as well be 
> undecidable: decidability != feasibility.

Of course. But I do not believe that solving linear equations in N 
variables is computationally infeasible!

  * http://www.cs.sunysb.edu/~algorith/files/linear-equations.shtml

By the way, you accused me of using a paper to demonstrate something 
that was contrary to the authors intent. I responded demonstrating that 
I was saying the same thing he was. Do you now agree? I was not happy 
with the implication that I would abuse someone's work to prove 
something unrelated to what they were saying.

  Paul Prescod


PURCHASE STYLUS STUDIO ONLINE TODAY!

Purchasing Stylus Studio from our online shop is Easy, Secure and Value Priced!

Buy Stylus Studio Now

Download The World's Best XML IDE!

Accelerate XML development with our award-winning XML IDE - Download a free trial today!

Don't miss another message! Subscribe to this list today.
Email
First Name
Last Name
Company
Subscribe in XML format
RSS 2.0
Atom 0.3
 

Stylus Studio has published XML-DEV in RSS and ATOM formats, enabling users to easily subcribe to the list from their preferred news reader application.


Stylus Studio Sponsored Links are added links designed to provide related and additional information to the visitors of this website. they were not included by the author in the initial post. To view the content without the Sponsor Links please click here.

Site Map | Privacy Policy | Terms of Use | Trademarks
Free Stylus Studio XML Training:
W3C Member
Stylus Studio® and DataDirect XQuery ™are products from DataDirect Technologies, is a registered trademark of Progress Software Corporation, in the U.S. and other countries. © 2004-2013 All Rights Reserved.