Re: [fonc] Final STEP progress report?

2013-01-04 Thread Dale Schumacher
Kind of like music starts at 9pm :-) We're all anxious to see the results of your work. Thanks (in advance) for sharing it. On Fri, Jan 4, 2013 at 10:51 AM, Alan Kay alan.n...@yahoo.com wrote: It turns out that the due date is actually a due interval that starts Jan 1st and extends for a few

[fonc] Debugging Actor Systems

2012-07-02 Thread Dale Schumacher
A discussion of logging, testing and reasoning to establish confidence in actor-based systems. http://www.dalnefre.com/wp/2012/07/debugging-actor-systems/ ___ fonc mailing list fonc@vpri.org http://vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc

[fonc] “Sleeping Barber” in Humus

2012-04-23 Thread Dale Schumacher
Do a little yak shaving with an actor-based approach to the Sleeping Barber problem. http://www.dalnefre.com/wp/2012/04/sleeping-barber-in-humus/ ___ fonc mailing list fonc@vpri.org http://vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc

[fonc] Futures and Capabilities

2012-03-25 Thread Dale Schumacher
Exploring explicit Futures and using Object Capability Security to control access http://www.dalnefre.com/wp/2012/03/futures-and-capabilities/ ___ fonc mailing list fonc@vpri.org http://vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc

Re: [fonc] Error trying to compile COLA

2012-02-28 Thread Dale Schumacher
On Mon, Feb 27, 2012 at 5:23 PM, Charles Perkins ch...@memetech.com wrote: I think of the code size reduction like this: A book of logarithm tables may be hundreds of pages in length and yet the equation producing the numbers can fit on one line. VPRI is exploring runnable math and is

Re: [fonc] Implementing Actors in Kernel

2012-02-17 Thread Dale Schumacher
actor behaviors as Iteratees, is that something you've explored as well? Cheers, √ On Fri, Feb 17, 2012 at 5:29 AM, Dale Schumacher dale.schumac...@gmail.com wrote: When Steele and Sussman wanted to explore Actors, they built an evaluator in LISP.  Their work eventually resulted in Scheme

[fonc] Fibonacci Machine

2011-11-09 Thread Dale Schumacher
Thanks for disseminating the latest report. It is, as always, an inspiration to see all the fine work being done. I can hardly wait to play with the final system, and perhaps extend and build on it. One of the first things I did was re-create (in Humus) the Fibonacci Machine from the Nile

Re: [fonc] The Language Barrier

2011-08-23 Thread Dale Schumacher
You might also find David Harel's article Can Programming Be Liberated, Period? (http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.147.3837) interesting. He takes quite a different approach to specification of system behavior, as well as programming in general.

Re: [fonc] Richard Gabriel Guy Steele, 50 in 50 talk

2011-06-25 Thread Dale Schumacher
On Sat, Jun 25, 2011 at 6:00 AM, BGB cr88...@gmail.com wrote: ... the more a language moves towards being practical and useful, the more it will likely tend to resemble more mainstream languages. which I suspect more work through a sort of long-term distilation/refinement process, where useful

Re: [fonc] Alternative Web programming models?

2011-06-13 Thread Dale Schumacher
On Mon, Jun 13, 2011 at 4:50 AM, BGB cr88...@gmail.com wrote: however, unlike full image-based development, the app will generally forget everything that was going on once it is exited and restarted. I think this is one of the most annoying features of our current computer systems. If I have

Re: Persistence and the Great Horse Trade (was Re: [fonc] Alternative Web programming models?)

2011-06-13 Thread Dale Schumacher
On Mon, Jun 13, 2011 at 2:21 PM, Casey Ransberger casey.obrie...@gmail.com wrote: Comments below. On Jun 13, 2011, at 6:00 AM, Dale Schumacher dale.schumac...@gmail.com wrote: On Mon, Jun 13, 2011 at 4:50 AM, BGB cr88...@gmail.com wrote: however, unlike full image-based development, the app

[fonc] Re: Electrical Actors?

2011-06-06 Thread Dale Schumacher
On Sun, Jun 5, 2011 at 8:13 PM, Casey Ransberger casey.obrie...@gmail.com wrote: On Jun 5, 2011, at 4:25 PM, Dale Schumacher dale.schumac...@gmail.com wrote: If someone has, I would sure like to hear about it!  There was the Apiary machine, but I don't think that was ever physically built, only

[fonc] Re: Electrical Actors?

2011-06-05 Thread Dale Schumacher
On Sun, Jun 5, 2011 at 5:23 PM, Casey Ransberger casey.obrie...@gmail.com wrote: Has anyone taken the actor model down to the metal? If someone has, I would sure like to hear about it! There was the Apiary machine, but I don't think that was ever physically built, only simulated. This is a

[fonc] Parsing Expression Grammars, part 4 (Left-recursion considered harmful)

2011-05-01 Thread Dale Schumacher
Parsing Expression Grammars, part 4 (http://bit.ly/iVXPEJ) addresses the issue of left-recursive grammars, often used for left-associative arithmetic operators. Accumulating a value via iteration is proposed as an appropriate solution for recursive-descent parsers like PEGs.

[fonc] Parsing Expression Grammars, part 2

2011-03-07 Thread Dale Schumacher
Parsing Expression Grammars, part 2 (http://bit.ly/gDrbmi) goes beyond simple matching with semantic values, predicates and actions. ___ fonc mailing list fonc@vpri.org http://vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc

[fonc] Parsing Expression Grammars, part 1

2011-02-14 Thread Dale Schumacher
Parsing Expression Grammars, part 1 (http://bit.ly/gR9Xdu) describes an actor-based PEG implementation that illustrates the use of multiple continuations to manage flow control. It also shows several examples of lazy-initialized executable specifications.

[fonc] Playing the Stooge with Humus

2011-01-10 Thread Dale Schumacher
After many requests, I've finally built an online simulator/debugger to let people experiment with Humus. I've just published a brief tutorial Playing the Stooge with Humus (http://bit.ly/gYL4cm) to showcase the new simulator environment. Here's your chance to try some hands-on examples.

[fonc] Evaluating Expressions, part 7 – Tra nsactions and Exceptions

2010-12-06 Thread Dale Schumacher
I just posted the final piece of the meta-circular Humus evaluator. Evaluating Expressions, part 7 – Transactions and Exceptions (http://bit.ly/fl6Z3O) Throughout the series, I've had the opportunity to present a wide variety of powerful language constructs. Of course, concurrent

Re: [fonc] Describing Semantics

2010-11-23 Thread Dale Schumacher
Another way to define semantics is the kernel language approach where the kernel language has a formal (possibly Operational) semantics. Van Roy and Haridi used this in CTM [1] for Oz/Mozart. My Humus language [2] is a sort of kernel language based on a pure implementation of the Actor model.

[fonc] Evaluating Expressions, part 6 – Act or Primitives

2010-11-20 Thread Dale Schumacher
Implementing language features using Actors has reached the point where the actor primitives themselves can be described meta-circularly. http://bit.ly/9KfHLI ___ fonc mailing list fonc@vpri.org http://vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc

[fonc] Evaluating Expressions, part 4 – Pat tern Equations

2010-10-10 Thread Dale Schumacher
Pattern equations extend the use of pattern matching to the realm of definitions. These are true equations which establish equality relationships, sometimes in a conditional context. Unlike most computer languages, these equations exhibit symmetric treatment of both sides of the equation.

[fonc] Evaluating Expressions, part 2 – Con ditional Special Form

2010-09-05 Thread Dale Schumacher
Conditional special forms implemented via pattern matching rather than Boolean predicates and lambda abstractions defined in terms of pattern matching (http://bit.ly/9VZtIH) ___ fonc mailing list fonc@vpri.org http://vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc

[fonc] Evaluating Expressions, part 1 – Cor e Lambda Calculus

2010-08-20 Thread Dale Schumacher
Evaluating Expressions, part 1 – Core Lambda Calculus http://bit.ly/cImxrf (http://www.dalnefre.com/wp/2010/08/evaluating-expressions-part-1-core-lambda-calculus/) With only a handful of actor behaviors, this article shows how to create a behavior-driven evaluator for pure lambda calculus

[fonc] What is message-passing?

2010-07-19 Thread Dale Schumacher
I've just published the second part of a two-part article exploring what we mean when we say message-passing (http://bit.ly/9y0NkV). Specifically, I illustrate implementations of Synchronous Rendezvous [1] and Object-Oriented Method Invocation [2] in terms of asynchronous actor messaging. [1]

Re: [fonc] Re: [PiLuD] Actors in Clojure — Why Not ?

2010-06-22 Thread Dale Schumacher
The example of implementing a queue (using a serializer) is definitely part of a meta-circular definition of actor behavior. Serializers are one of the critical mechanisms identified by Hewitt, et. al. long ago. I believe that maintaining multiple virtual configurations of actors provides

[fonc] Re: [FRIAM] Actors in Clojure — Why Not?

2010-06-22 Thread Dale Schumacher
On Sun, Jun 20, 2010 at 12:44 AM, Saul Caganoff scagan...@gmail.com wrote: It strikes me that the actor model is very closely related to a lot of the principles I have used with MOM and I'm keen to get hands-on with an actor-based programming language to try it out and explore the parallels.

Re: [fonc] Actors in Clojure — Why Not?

2010-06-19 Thread Dale Schumacher
, but does not excuse hand-wavy explanations. Looking forward to your future blogging! Cheers, Z-Bo On Fri, Jun 18, 2010 at 10:58 PM, Dale Schumacher dale.schumac...@gmail.com wrote: Published: Actors in Clojure — Why Not? (http://bit.ly/9ZUXaQ) http://www.dalnefre.com/wp/2010/06/actors

Re: [fonc] Re: [PiLuD] Actors in Clojure — Why Not ?

2010-06-19 Thread Dale Schumacher
Hi David, I've actually read quite a bit of your actor-related material and I'm aware of your criticisms. I respect the fact that your opinion has grown out of experience, rather than just thought-experiments. However, my own experimentation has led me to different conclusions. To be clear, the

[fonc] Actors in Clojure — Why Not?

2010-06-18 Thread Dale Schumacher
Published: Actors in Clojure — Why Not? (http://bit.ly/9ZUXaQ) http://www.dalnefre.com/wp/2010/06/actors-in-clojure-why-not/ This article provides a counterpoint to Rich Hickey's rationale for not including actor-based concurrency in Clojure. ___ fonc

[fonc] Solving “Same Fringe” with Stream Ge nerators

2010-06-04 Thread Dale Schumacher
Published: Solving “Same Fringe” with Stream Generators http://www.dalnefre.com/wp/2010/06/solving-same-fringe-with-stream-generators This article explores mutable and immutable streams on the way to building a solution to the same-fringe problem based on incremental fringe generation and

[fonc] Composing Actors

2010-05-22 Thread Dale Schumacher
Groups of collaborating actors can be treated as a single actor with the help of a serializer. My new article Composing Actors (http://www.dalnefre.com/wp/2010/05/composing-actors/) describes a generic transparent serializer for request-response services built from actors. Code samples are

Re: [fonc] An actor-based environment for prototyping

2010-05-12 Thread Dale Schumacher
On Tue, May 11, 2010 at 3:16 AM, Michael FIG mich...@fig.org wrote: Hi, Dale Schumacher dale.schumac...@gmail.com writes: I'll have to give some thought to the larger-scale blackboard mechanism.  It seems like it will take a few combined abstractions to get there. I have a relatively

Re: [fonc] An actor-based environment for prototyping

2010-05-11 Thread Dale Schumacher
:37 PM, Dale Schumacher dale.schumac...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Alan, Thanks for the encouragement.  After a little searching I found Naming and Synchronization in a Decentralized Computer System, D. P. Reed, 1978 [1].  Is that the paper you had in mind?  It looks interesting, but I haven't had

Re: [fonc] An actor-based environment for prototyping

2010-05-10 Thread Dale Schumacher
in object design and communication. Cheers, Alan [1] http://www.iam.unibe.ch/~ducasse/FreeBooks/SmalltalkHistoryHOPL.pdf From: Dale Schumacher dale.schumac...@gmail.com To: Fundamentals of New Computing fonc@vpri.org Cc: Tristan Slominski tristan.slomin

Re: [fonc] An actor-based environment for prototyping

2010-05-09 Thread Dale Schumacher
On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 8:39 PM, Steve Dekorte st...@dekorte.com wrote: On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 6:38 PM, Dale Schumacher Are the messages that a Humus actor sends internally (calling methods on itself, etc) also asynchronous? And if so, does this mean that a given instance will never need more

Re: [fonc] Parameterized Word Tagging: Any interest?

2008-07-30 Thread Dale Schumacher
Adrian correctly pointed out that tagging is a time/space trade-off. I did demonstrate that different processors did perform differently by varying tagging schemes. Yes, the current tagging scheme (with 0 as nil) seemed to perform best in your benchmark. But will it make a difference for