Re: Perl Quiz of the Week #24 (Turing Machine simulation)

On Wed, Sep 15, 2004 at 11:53:21AM -0400, colin.rafferty-/PgpppG8B+R7qynMiXIxWgC/[email protected] wrote:
>John J. Trammell wrote:
>> On Wed, Sep 15, 2004 at 10:41:14AM -0400, colin.rafferty-/PgpppG8B+R7qynMiXIxWgC/[email protected] wrote:
>>> I would change the specification of the program to allow for a third
>>> argument which is the head's initial location on the tape.  
> 
>>> It's value is any number, positive or negative, which specifies the
>>> head's position relative to the first character of the second
>>> argument.
> 
>> I'd say this is a perfect example of a customization that a user may
>> wish to apply, but this should be implemented via command-line
>> options,
> 
> I disagree.  I think that without it, you cannot specify any finite
> initial state of a turing machine.

Since my proposal is equivalent to yours, differing only in the manner
in which the starting position is communicated to the program, I fail to
understand how this argument justifies your disagreement.