Thanks very much. Virtually all that is good about STEPS is due to the rest of the members of the team, but I'm happy to be the stand in here.
All I can say, is that it is not about code, and I'm pretty sure that playing with code won't help STEPS. In many ways it's about *escaping* from code! Escaping from thinking in terms of code. It's about concepts in dynamic relation, that beg to be represented clearly, and then be put into a runnable form, most often via a new language made for the purpose. But the gang is doing some very good stuff right and we plan to put it out for playing and scrutiny by the end of the year. (Still, playing with code won't help much ....) Though I'm guessing that mathematics in its main sense is not the only way to make real progress on this project, trying to "find math" for the main parts of this system has paid off really well so far. In other words, one does not get a great scupture by debugging clay or being lucky with marble. It's much more about design and vision than the way most software is done today. The tricky parts so far are to find "near neighbors" to relational math that can serve both as math and also be run well enough to at least be used to prototype. This will be easier to criticize when we tack together our "Frankenstein Monster". This should allow us to see how several parts "should really be done", etc. If we actually start to understand this process -- so we can do it more readily -- then something good will have been accomplished by the STEPS project. Cheers, Alan ----------------- From: brian ford <bri...@gmail.com> To: Fundamentals of New Computing <fonc@vpri.org> Sent: Sat, May 8, 2010 3:29:23 PM Subject: Re: [fonc] Any newer FoNC distribution ? Hi Alan, On Sat, May 8, 2010 at 3:03 PM, Alan Kay <alan.n...@yahoo.com> wrote: > I'm happy that you are interested. But take a look again at the goals of > STEPS, and think about less than 10 people trying to cover as much ground as > possible with just 5 years to do all this. It takes a fair amount of time > just to write the NSF report each year, and there simply are no extra person > hours to be at all tidy about making throw away materials comprehensible. I have been following for a couple years now and thoroughly enjoy reading about your work. I am grateful to everyone working on this for their dedication and contribution as I have been inspired repeatedly by different aspects of this endeavor. > > However, we would not turn up our nose (quite the opposite) to anyone who > was willing to do enough work to actually contribute deep thoughts on any > parts of this. Have you seen http://github.com? What would you think about creating a "steps" or "vpri" project there and just tossing some code into different repos? If there are no IP issues, the code does not even have work, compile, anything. Those of us who are interested could then fork the projects and contribute our fixes or ideas directly in code. Ultimately, it does not matter if the code is throw-away. It is more the potential to inspire that is important. I am sure, based on the eruption of interest that I have periodically seen on this list and the wide diversity of those present, that we could probably create some interesting things even with throw away code. I'd suggest you should be less worried about functioning programs with nice READMEs and installation guides for five platforms and more about just letting us go, "oh, ahh, interesting!" and run with some code. Also, we would all agree that if stuff doesn't work, it's up to all of us to help out on the list in answering the questions. I think this is already happening, so don't feel like you need to babysit us. :) Either way, thanks so much for all the boxes outside of which you have forced me to think. Cheers, Brian > > Cheers, > > Alan > > > ________________________________ > From: Kevin DeGraaf <ke...@degraaf-consulting.com> > To: Fundamentals of New Computing <fonc@vpri.org> > Sent: Sat, May 8, 2010 2:44:42 PM > Subject: Re: [fonc] Any newer FoNC distribution ? > > So can I correctly infer from your comment that they haven't been > published externally yet? I see numerous mentions to specific source > code files, images, projects, etc. that I can find nowhere in any of > the mentioned publicly visible source code repositories. Ian's idst > project hasn't been modified in more than a year, aside from one > trivial change a month ago. > > I have been very excited about this project since I discovered it a > couple of years ago, and have been really looking forward to your > progress and results as you move into the application framework > aspects. As one of the original developers on Microsoft Access, I > have a very strong personal interest in this area. Even if it is > temporary exploratory work in progress, seeing how it is developing on > a more current basis would be of great interest to me and I believe > others. If any external assistance could be rendered to help > accomplish keeping current work visible on github or something > equivalent, I would be happy to volunteer. My personal hope was to > use some of the more recent progress in informing some exploratory > projects of my own. Thanks, > > Kevin. > > On Fri, May 7, 2010 at 10:40 AM, Alan Kay <alan.n...@yahoo.com> wrote: >> As the president of RAND said to the Air Force general "Research is like >> roulette, nothing counts until the ball drops!" >> >> >> ________________________________ >> From: Kevin DeGraaf <ke...@degraaf-consulting.com> >> To: Fundamentals of New Computing <fonc@vpri.org> >> Sent: Fri, May 7, 2010 10:26:42 AM >> Subject: Re: [fonc] Any newer FoNC distribution ? >> >> Yes, I have looked through that. I am referring specifically to the >> DBJr project, and related code or projects (LBox, Lesserphic2, your >> Text Field rules system, etc.). I see Nile/Gezira out there, but >> nothing specific to DBJr, although maybe I am just not looking in the >> right place. Thanks, >> >> Kevin. >> >> On Fri, May 7, 2010 at 10:18 AM, Dan Amelang <daniel.amel...@gmail.com> >> wrote: >>> On Fri, May 7, 2010 at 10:06 AM, Kevin DeGraaf >>> <ke...@degraaf-consulting.com> wrote: >>>> Also, any chance the source code for any of the current projects >>>> mentioned in the report might become publicly available to look at? >>>> If they are out there, they are well hidden. Thanks, >>> >>> Hello Kevin, >>> >>> On the vpri.org homepage, there is a button with the label "software." >>> That gets you to the source code of some of the projects. >>> >>> Dan >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> fonc mailing list >>> fonc@vpri.org >>> http://vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc >>> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> fonc mailing list >> fonc@vpri.org >> http://vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> fonc mailing list >> fonc@vpri.org >> http://vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc >> >> > > _______________________________________________ > fonc mailing list > fonc@vpri.org > http://vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc > > > _______________________________________________ > fonc mailing list > fonc@vpri.org > http://vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc > > _______________________________________________ fonc mailing list fonc@vpri.org http://vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc
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