css-turing-machine VS HTML-as-programming-language

> Technically html + css + user interaction can be turing complete: https://github.com/brandondong/css-turing-machine

Turing completeness is about what computations can be expressed, not what user interactions can be performed. The lambda calculus is Turing complete, but, if I whip up a lambda calculus interpreter and don't give it a print statement, then you'll never know anything about the computations it's performing.

Allow css in there and you get this

Seems like regex is not turing complete, bit its not a programming langauge ether. I thought i remembered that it was, i listed as one of the joke langauges as i know someome showed that PowerPoint is turing complete, but i think i mixed up regex and CSS here(that again is not a programming langauge but is in fact turing complete: https://github.com/brandondong/css-turing-machine)

It is definetly a borderline case (because of the need for clicking) , but html + css combined can be used to simulate the rule 110 automaton. Therefore it is possible to simulate a turing machine which means that it is in fact turing complete.

I understand CSS and I've done a fair bit of webdesign myself. CSS has evolved to the point where it can be used abusively. Hell some consider it turing complete (https://github.com/brandondong/css-turing-machine). From ads, to fingerprinting, to exploits there are valid reasons for wanting a little less functionality while still allowing for some basic styling. I mean, it's cool that there are computer games written in pure CSS and other neat tricks, but sometimes you just want a browser to behave itself even in hostile spaces. If that makes my locked down browser a "horse drawn cart" I'm happy to trot forward.

Yeah, someone even made a basic Turing machine to demonstrate it. As u/sext-scientist said, you have to click a button to perform each operation, but technically this means that you could write any program using HTML+CSS. Though the user might need an autoclicker to run even a "Hello World" program.

So, if this thing has HTML-like syntax, can we now call HTML a programming language? Syntax is a lot, and other differences are abysmal, as we estabilished!

now, you might point out that a python script that just says print("hello world") is pretty similar to an HTML file, in that it more or less contains the data it displays, just with a few decorators. however, i would argue that the print function very specifically means to write a certain string of characters to stdout, not just display them. now you could say that catting the hello world python script also writes "hello world" to stdout, but honestly if you write a program whose entire purpose is to be catted out and not executed, then it's not really programming. similarly, if you write an html file that is then interpreted by a program as instructions (such as this), then you're programming. it's all about intended use: making a png to be interpreted in piet is programming, but making a png to be set as your computer background is not.

After a quick search I found this

Wrong. https://github.com/HTML-as-programming-language/HTML-as-programming-language