[djaouen]

I think his point is, that there are (due to the limits of longs/BigInts) only a finite number of configurations before an integer overflow. I am not qualified to present an argument against, but I think there are some programs for which the computation time would be greater than the age of the universe. For example, “Print all possible configurations of this 4k monitor”.

[pantantrant]

Yes, this infinite loop solver would take longer than the universe's age to print all possible configurations of this 4k monitor, but it would take a finite amount of time as opposed to infinite. (Provided that the integer n is big enough as a arbitrary precision fixed point unsigned integer)

[djaouen]

I think (and I am no expert here, so correct me if I am wrong) that, when it comes to actually written programs, there is little difference between “actually infinite” and “practically infinite”. This is like saying the probability of any particular real number being given by a float is zero because floats are only countable infinite (practically) rather than uncountable infinite. I don’t know, maybe I am talking out of my ass, tho lol