On the Expressive Power of Programming Languages by Shriram Krishnamurthi [PWLConf 2019]

Why HN readers recommended it

Recommended as the approachable way into a precise definition of language expressiveness for language-design arguments.

This is a summary from the source dataset, not an endorsement by Hacker News or the video creator.

Video & recommendation details

Creator / channel

PapersWeLove

Topic

programming language expressiveness

Format

talk

Level

advanced

HN recommenders in dataset

5

HN mentions in dataset

9

Recommendation years in dataset

2020–2026

These counts and years describe the included Hacker News records; they are not YouTube views or the video’s publication date.

From the original HN conversations

Excerpts from the recorded comments. Follow each source for the full comment and surrounding discussion.

• On this notion, a very good talk "On the expressive power of programming languages"[1][2] which attempts to provide a formal basis for distinguishing between expressive power of turning complete languages. [1] [VIDEO] [2] The paper it's based on [LINK]

• Certainly adding call/cc doesn't allow you to represent more computable functions by programs. But there are plenty of internal features of programs that we're interested in, that let us meaningfully distinguish amongst programs that otherwise have the exact same observable behavior. I like coroutines as …

• Worth reading Felleisen’s paper “on the expressive power of programming languages” (or watch this talk [VIDEO] ) which argues that if a language A has a feature that would require global refactoring to implement in language B, then A is more expressive than B.