"[The computer] has a Von Neumann architecture, which consists of a program (the book of instructions), some memory (the papers and file cabinets), a CPU which follows the instructions (the man), and a means to write symbols in memory (the pencil and eraser). A machine with this design is known in theoretical computer science as "Turing complete", because it has the necessary machinery to carry out any computation that a Turing machine can do, and therefore it is capable of doing a step-by-step simulation of any other digital machine."
Compare to the introduction to the actual Wikipedia article on Turing completeness:
"In computability theory, a collection of data-manipulation rules (an instruction set, programming language, or cellular automaton) is said to be Turing complete if and only if such system can simulate any single-taped Turing machine. Classical Turing-complete systems include context-sensitive grammars, recursive functions and lambda calculus."
Really, Wikipedia? That's how you introduce Turing completeness? Very helpful.
I think it is a safe bet that anyone coming to the Wikipedia page for a formal definition of Turing completeness would be willing to jump to a section titled, for instance, "Formal Definition", whereas a casual visitor who had seen the phrase and popped over to Wikipedia for some background will likely be turned off and go elsewhere.
Introductions are for introducing. Get technical later, even if it means sacrificing some precision up front.
I think it is a safe bet that anyone coming to the Wikipedia page for a formal definition of Turing completeness would be willing to jump to a section titled, for instance, "Formal Definition", whereas a casual visitor who had seen the phrase and popped over to Wikipedia for some background will likely be turned off and go elsewhere.
Introductions are for introducing. Get technical later, even if it means sacrificing some precision up front.
