You have pasted an algorithm that is flexible in the final result set. Perl never has any question about ordering of what to do next here. Any wiggle room for this program would be in the flexibility of the algorithm, but when it runs it runs as a DFA. Please keep reading about non-determinism. You will come across the fact that every NFA has an equivalent DFA. It's just how it is. The fact of machines is that they aren't random- ever- and there is zero non-determinism at any given time.

I thought you were saying perl was not parsable. Now you do not know how to define it. By definition, it can be parsed. It's just a lot of work.

The whole bit about the halting problem is this. You cannot write an algorithm to understand a program's output for all possible input without running it. Parsability involves being able to read perl code; I do not see how this person's project has spiraled into declarations that it cannot be parsed. What they should say is, you cannot be a fortune teller of the output of such a program, and we all know that. Any language has that feature. It is neither mystical, magical, nor special to perl, and I believe this statement reinforces the commonly held belief that perl is hard to read.

In reply to Re^5: Unparseability is A Good Thing by Zen
in thread Unparseability is A Good Thing by Jeffrey Kegler

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