A proof that Unix utility sed is Turing complete

clanrebornsx wrote: post #2

Isn't this the same racist guy who once made a WhatsApp kiosk and was surprised why it's getting popular among the people who really need it.

I vouched for this because even though it's somewhat misguided, I want to know how this person came to this conclusion.

This is the event referenced: https://scroll.in/magazine/864603/desperate-for-whatsapp-ten...

He was unintentionally DDoSed. He made it right. What's the problem?

Re: A proof that Unix utility sed is Turing complete

#5

Post by kccqzy » Fri, Feb 15, 2019, 4:59 AM UTC

sed really is a powerful utility. I once wrote a tool in sed that strips HTML tags leaving just plain text as a fun exercise. Naturally it can't handle complicated cases but for many simple use cases it works. The code, though, is basically unreadable.

Re: A proof that Unix utility sed is Turing complete

#6

Post by airstrike » Fri, Feb 15, 2019, 5:02 AM UTC

kccqzy wrote: post #5

sed really is a powerful utility. I once wrote a tool in sed that strips HTML tags leaving just plain text as a fun exercise. Naturally it can't handle complicated cases but for many simple use cases it works. The code, though, is basically unreadable.

Any chance you could share that? Wouldn't mind giving it a whirl in this one side project I just started...

Re: A proof that Unix utility sed is Turing complete

#7

Post by mises » Fri, Feb 15, 2019, 5:27 AM UTC

clanrebornsx wrote: post #2

Isn't this the same racist guy who once made a WhatsApp kiosk and was surprised why it's getting popular among the people who really need it.

How was what he did racist?

Re: A proof that Unix utility sed is Turing complete

#8

Post by fouc » Fri, Feb 15, 2019, 5:30 AM UTC

voltagex_ wrote: post #4

clanrebornsx wrote: post #2

Isn't this the same racist guy who once made a WhatsApp kiosk and was surprised why it's getting popular among the people who really need it.

I vouched for this because even though it's somewhat misguided, I want to know how this person came to this conclusion. This is the event referenced: https://scroll.in/magazine/864603/desperate-for-whatsapp-ten... He was unintentionally DDoSed. He made it right. What's the problem?

Interesting article!

He definitely came across as incredibly ignorant about India in the beginning, and started out with a negative viewpoint.

Ultimately he finally figured out what was going on and corrected his views, and was finally able to help indians use whatsapp from their JIO phones.

He was almost too honest in the article, since it kind of makes him look bad. But I appreciate that honesty.

Re: A proof that Unix utility sed is Turing complete

#9

Post by fouc » Fri, Feb 15, 2019, 5:32 AM UTC

This article was submitted before in 2012. It was recently updated.

from 7 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3855616

Re: A proof that Unix utility sed is Turing complete

#10

Post by wilsonrocks » Fri, Feb 15, 2019, 5:38 AM UTC

Has anyone written a kind of Turing machine gateway API, where people write an adaptor to the API and you can then use the gateway to use any Turing machine backend to run any other(Turing complete) program.

Would be interesting to see e.g. how fast Microsoft Word runs on a sed based backend.