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franze

>its engineers were using HTML5, a programming language that ...

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In context that seemed a reasonable attempt to get the point across to a lay audience.

You can't expect a mass audience to understand what a "markup" language is.

HTML + CSS is Turing complete

Magic the Gathering is Turing complete. That doesn't mean you should refer to it as a programming language.

Sure you do not need to refer to it as a programming language. But:

1) Doing so is not technically wrong

2) For a certain (non-technical) audience, "programming language" is something that "tells the computer to do things"

So, it is both correct and a helpful description for the target audience.

Nitpicking is out of order here.

Or pivot from exchanging Magic the Gathering Cards online into banking Bitcoins online.

Any link on how Magic the Gathering is Turing complete? The only thing I could find is how to represent a Turing machine with Magic cards.

http://www.toothycat.net/~hologram/Turing/HowItWorks.html

That's not a valid game state. It's like saying chess is Touring complete when played on an infinite board.

By this argument, x84_64 assembly isn't Turing complete because it needs finite memory...

Which is technically correct, just not very useful.

My Philosophy of Computer Science professor argued that you could prove anything was Turing complete, by suitably "gerrymandering the inputs" of your definition.

What that actually means, I'm not sure. I know how gerrymandered congress is, and they couldn't possibly get enough work done to be Turing complete.

That's what I've ment, it's not 'Magic the Game' but inventing rules [1] for magic card handling that represents a Turing machine.

[1] "A Rotlung Reanimator makes a messenger token for Alex."

That depends, the user still has to click the mouse to make it do stuff.

Further evidence that the new yorker is where one goes to find finely written bullshit.

An esoteric audience isn't going to pay their bills and the non-esoteric one can figure out what they mean just fine.

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