Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> 
> I don't know much about the formal theory of computation though. I 
> always assumed that "computable function" just meant "function that can 
> be computed by a computer". Apparently the definition is much less 
> general that than...
> 

Not really!  Formally you tend to consider only functions which take a 
single natural number as input and provide a single number as output. 
This may seem restrictive, but remember that everything on your computer 
can be considered as being as represented by integers (in binary) 
anyway, so it's not really a restriction at all.

As for the `function' part of `computable function' you of course mean 
something which only takes an input and provides an output, and thus 
doesn't allow for user interaction and the such, but you can always 
model user interaction as simply providing the inputs to a an 
appropriately defined proper function so even this isn't really a 
restriction.

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