TITLE: Which model of computation is "the best"?
QUESTION [11 upvotes]: In 1937 Turing described a Turing machine. Since then many models of computation have been decribed in attempt to find a model which is like a real computer but still simple enough to design and analyse algorithms.
As a result, we have dozen of algorithms for, e.g., SORT-problem for different models of computation. Unfortunately, we even cannot be sure that an implementation of an algorithm with running time $O(n)$ in a word RAM with bit-vector operations allowed will run faster than an an implementation of an algorithm with running time $O(n \cdot \log{n})$ in a word RAM (I am talking about "good" implementations only, of course).
So, I want to understand which of existing models is "the best" for designing algorithms and I am looking for an up-to-date and detailed survey on models of computation, which gives pros and cons of models and their closeness to reality.

REPLY [2 votes]: Since you're interested in running times this is probably not what you're after, but IMHO the best model of real-life computation is a machine consisting of communicating finite-state automata or of communicating Turing machines.
Consider a parallel machine consisting of n communicating Turing machines. Each Turing machine has a tape, consisting of squares, and a head which can read from and write on any given square.  Also, any Turing machine, in addition to its usual states, has available to it n-1 special states where it can read, at that instant, what another of the machine's heads happen to be reading. (e.g. the nth Turing machine has n-1 states, and if it were in special state i, it reads what the ith Turing machine is reading at that moment).  The 
parallel machine obviously can be programmed to include all normal deterministic computation (just program the first TM to do something), but with reasonable assumptions it also includes non-deterministic (or if you prefer, non-computable) behaviour.  
For instance, consider a parallel machine with just two machines. And consider this program.  One machine shifts between a square reading a 0 and a 1, while the other machine shifts to the end of its input, and then it reads whatever the first machine's head happens to be reading. It then outputs this digit.  Obviously what the parallel machine outputs depends on the speeds with which the respective machines operate. It is therefore non-deterministic.  That is, the same program will behave differently depending on which 2-TM parallel machine you run it on, because the speed at which a TM processes a step determines the behaviour.  
Or look it this way.  Consider two computers attached to a printer.  It is non-deterministic who will print on the printer first, a feature which cannot be modeled correctly by a single Turing machine.