Re: [fonc] Physics and Types

On 8/6/2011 7:27 PM, Simon Forman wrote: On Fri, Aug 5, 2011 at 2:48 AM, Alan Kay wrote: That was my thought when I first saw what Seymour Papert was doing with children and LOGO in the 60s. I was thinking about going back into Molecular Biology, but Seymour showed that computers could *really*

Re: [fonc] Physics and Types

On Fri, Aug 5, 2011 at 4:20 AM, Chris Warburton wrote: > On Friday 05 August 2011 11:43:04 BGB wrote: >> On 8/4/2011 6:19 PM, Alan Kay wrote: >> > Here's the link to the paper >> > >> > http://www.vpri.org/pdf/rn2005001_learning.pdf >> >> inference: >> it is not that basic math and physics are fun

Re: [fonc] Physics and Types

On Fri, Aug 5, 2011 at 2:48 AM, Alan Kay wrote: > That was my thought when I first saw what Seymour Papert was doing with > children and LOGO in the 60s. I was thinking about going back into Molecular > Biology, but Seymour showed that computers could *really* be important as > unique vehicles for

Re: [fonc] Physics and Types

On 8/5/2011 12:46 PM, Wesley Smith wrote: typically, vector multiplication is treated as either dot-product or cross-product (with cross-product only existing in certain numbers of dimensions, such as 3 and 7, and "sort of" in 2). This is exactly why I said "vector algebra considered harmful".

Re: [fonc] Physics and Types

On Friday 05 August 2011 20:22:21 BGB wrote: > On 8/5/2011 11:56 AM, Wesley Smith wrote: > >> vectors are nice though. > >> for example, in the book I had, some aspects of the topic were expressed > >> in terms of a mess of trigonometry which wouldn't really work correctly > >> in 3D. some of these

Re: [fonc] Physics and Types

> typically, vector multiplication is treated as either dot-product or > cross-product (with cross-product only existing in certain numbers of > dimensions, such as 3 and 7, and "sort of" in 2). This is exactly why I said "vector algebra considered harmful". The cross product is actually a shado

Re: [fonc] Physics and Types

On 8/5/2011 11:56 AM, Wesley Smith wrote: vectors are nice though. for example, in the book I had, some aspects of the topic were expressed in terms of a mess of trigonometry which wouldn't really work correctly in 3D. some of these topics were fairly simple/elegant-looking if expressed with vect

Re: [fonc] Physics and Types

> vectors are nice though. > for example, in the book I had, some aspects of the topic were expressed in > terms of a mess of trigonometry which wouldn't really work correctly in 3D. > some of these topics were fairly simple/elegant-looking if expressed with > vectors. > > so, linear systems and ve

Re: [fonc] Physics and Types

On 8/5/2011 6:13 AM, Ondřej Bílka wrote: On Fri, Aug 05, 2011 at 03:43:04AM -0700, BGB wrote: On 8/4/2011 6:19 PM, Alan Kay wrote: Here's the link to the paper [1]http://www.vpri.org/pdf/rn2005001_learning.pdf inference: it is not that basic math and physics are fundame

Re: [fonc] Physics and Types

the alien" etc can easily be handled informally and also acted out with the children's bodies, etc. Cheers, Alan > >From: Ondřej Bílka >To: Fundamentals of New Computing >Sent: Friday, August 5, 2011 6:13 AM >Subject: Re: [fonc] Phys

Re: [fonc] Physics and Types

On Fri, Aug 05, 2011 at 03:43:04AM -0700, BGB wrote: >On 8/4/2011 6:19 PM, Alan Kay wrote: > > Here's the link to the paper > [1]http://www.vpri.org/pdf/rn2005001_learning.pdf > >inference: >it is not that basic math and physics are fundamentally so difficult to >underst

Re: [fonc] Physics and Types

On Friday 05 August 2011 11:43:04 BGB wrote: > On 8/4/2011 6:19 PM, Alan Kay wrote: > > Here's the link to the paper > > > > http://www.vpri.org/pdf/rn2005001_learning.pdf > > inference: > it is not that basic math and physics are fundamentally so difficult to > understand... > but that many clas

Re: [fonc] Physics and Types

On 8/4/2011 6:19 PM, Alan Kay wrote: Here's the link to the paper http://www.vpri.org/pdf/rn2005001_learning.pdf inference: it is not that basic math and physics are fundamentally so difficult to understand... but that many classes portray them as such a confusing and incoherent mess of not

Re: [fonc] Physics and Types

>To: Fundamentals of New Computing >Sent: Thursday, August 4, 2011 10:33 PM >Subject: Re: [fonc] Physics and Types > >Oh awesome! Thank you both.  That's got to be one of the single most >profound uses of computers I've ever run across. > >Warm regards, >~Simon

Re: [fonc] Physics and Types

.pdf > Cheers, > Alan > > > From: Martin McClure > To: Fundamentals of New Computing > Sent: Thursday, August 4, 2011 3:46 PM > Subject: Re: [fonc] Physics and Types > > On 08/03/2011 08:10 PM, Simon Forman wrote: > >> On the ot

Re: [fonc] Physics and Types

Here's the link to the paper http://www.vpri.org/pdf/rn2005001_learning.pdf Cheers, Alan > >From: Martin McClure >To: Fundamentals of New Computing >Sent: Thursday, August 4, 2011 3:46 PM >Subject: Re: [fonc] Physics and Types >

Re: [fonc] Physics and Types

On 08/03/2011 08:10 PM, Simon Forman wrote: On the other hand, there's a story (I believe it's in one of the VPRI documents but I couldn't locate it just now) about children using their machines to take pictures of a falling object and then analyzing the pictures and deducing for themselves the

Re: Thread Clarification (Re: [fonc] Physics and Types)

On 8/4/2011 1:35 PM, David Barbour wrote: On Thu, Aug 4, 2011 at 12:43 PM, BGB > wrote: it is a straightforward interpretation of scope: both lexical and dynamic scope cross code boundaries with no effects on their behavior. this makes an issue for "as

Re: Thread Clarification (Re: [fonc] Physics and Types)

On Thu, Aug 4, 2011 at 12:43 PM, BGB wrote: > it is a straightforward interpretation of scope: > both lexical and dynamic scope cross code boundaries with no effects on > their behavior. > this makes an issue for "async { ... }", as the scope is retained across > thread boundaries. > > altering

Re: Thread Clarification (Re: [fonc] Physics and Types)

On 8/4/2011 7:55 AM, David Barbour wrote: On Thu, Aug 4, 2011 at 1:53 AM, BGB > wrote: if the parent thread sees its "thread-local" variable change when a child-thread assigns to it, this is a problem. it is a natural result though of the basic semantics.

Re: Thread Clarification (Re: [fonc] Physics and Types)

On Thu, Aug 4, 2011 at 1:53 AM, BGB wrote: > > if the parent thread sees its "thread-local" variable change when a > child-thread assigns to it, this is a problem. it is a natural result > though of the basic semantics. > If a problem is a natural result of *your* language's semantics, then fix y

Re: Thread Clarification (Re: [fonc] Physics and Types)

On 8/4/2011 1:06 AM, David Barbour wrote: On Thu, Aug 4, 2011 at 12:10 AM, BGB > wrote: The new thread should inherit the entire dynamic scope - logically, a local copy thereof. If there are object references mixed in, then the new thread now

Re: Thread Clarification (Re: [fonc] Physics and Types)

On Thu, Aug 4, 2011 at 12:10 AM, BGB wrote: > The new thread should inherit the entire dynamic scope - logically, a local >> copy thereof. If there are object references mixed in, then the new thread >> now has a copy of these references, but the reference variables initially >> point to shared o

Re: Thread Clarification (Re: [fonc] Physics and Types)

On 8/3/2011 9:43 PM, David Barbour wrote: On Wed, Aug 3, 2011 at 7:24 PM, BGB > wrote: If you have dynamic scope, you do not need TLS. some people could potentially get annoyed or complain about having to re-declare their thread-local dynamic vari

Re: Thread Clarification (Re: [fonc] Physics and Types)

On Wed, Aug 3, 2011 at 7:24 PM, BGB wrote: > > If you have dynamic scope, you do not need TLS. > > > some people could potentially get annoyed or complain about having to > re-declare their thread-local dynamic variables when spawning a thread. > The new thread should inherit the entire dynamic s

Re: [fonc] Physics and Types

On Wed, Aug 3, 2011 at 7:32 AM, Chris Warburton wrote: > On Tuesday 02 August 2011 00:43:57 BGB wrote: >> On 8/1/2011 3:24 PM, Simon Forman wrote: >> > On 7/27/11, Chris Warburton  wrote: >> >> (maybe relevant but no really to comment). >> >> >> Another reason I would argue against something like

Re: Thread Clarification (Re: [fonc] Physics and Types)

On 8/3/2011 5:13 PM, David Barbour wrote: On Wed, Aug 3, 2011 at 1:04 PM, Igor Stasenko > wrote: it is pointless to spawn more than hardware can do, because these threads will just wait own turn to claim one of free cores and meanwhile just consume resource

Re: Thread Clarification (Re: [fonc] Physics and Types)

On Wed, Aug 3, 2011 at 1:04 PM, Igor Stasenko wrote: > it is pointless to spawn more than hardware can do, because these threads > will just wait own turn to claim one of free cores and meanwhile just > consume resources > I agree, with exceptions: * blocking FFI calls * FFI that uses thread loc

Re: Thread Clarification (Re: [fonc] Physics and Types)

On Wed, Aug 3, 2011 at 9:57 AM, BGB wrote: > maybe some good alternative is needed to the traditional "threading and > locks" model so prevalent in modern mainstream languages. [...] now whether any of this could make threading easier to use... I really have > little idea... maybe there is so

Re: Thread Clarification (Re: [fonc] Physics and Types)

On 8/3/2011 1:04 PM, Igor Stasenko wrote: On 3 August 2011 21:04, BGB wrote: sorry, just trying to clarify a few points... ... sadly, the "async" modifier was used in the first incarnation of BGBScript (2004-2006), but was never fully reimplemented when the language was later re-implemented

Re: Thread Clarification (Re: [fonc] Physics and Types)

On 3 August 2011 21:04, BGB wrote: > sorry, just trying to clarify a few points... > > > On 8/3/2011 9:57 AM, BGB wrote: >> >> >> in my own language, there is the "async" modifier which can >> (theoretically) be used for a lot of this: >> "async function foo(x, y) { ... }" >> where calls to foo im

Thread Clarification (Re: [fonc] Physics and Types)

sorry, just trying to clarify a few points... On 8/3/2011 9:57 AM, BGB wrote: in my own language, there is the "async" modifier which can (theoretically) be used for a lot of this: "async function foo(x, y) { ... }" where calls to foo implicitly create their own thread. "async bar(x, 3);"

Re: [fonc] Physics and Types

On 8/3/2011 7:32 AM, Chris Warburton wrote: On Tuesday 02 August 2011 00:43:57 BGB wrote: On 8/1/2011 3:24 PM, Simon Forman wrote: On 7/27/11, Chris Warburton wrote: (maybe relevant but no really to comment). Another reason I would argue against something like types based on Physics is th

Re: [fonc] Physics and Types

On Wednesday 27 July 2011 20:54:48 David Barbour wrote: > On Wed, Jul 27, 2011 at 10:41 AM, Chris Warburton > > > wrote: > > > > Locality: Mentioned in passing for relativity, but locality is a very > > useful property that holds for most Physics: stuff happens because of > > stuff nearby. > >

Re: [fonc] Physics and Types

On Tuesday 02 August 2011 00:43:57 BGB wrote: > On 8/1/2011 3:24 PM, Simon Forman wrote: > > On 7/27/11, Chris Warburton wrote: > > (maybe relevant but no really to comment). > > >> Another reason I would argue against something like types based on > >> Physics is that Physics tries to work out

Re: [fonc] Physics and Types

On 8/1/2011 3:24 PM, Simon Forman wrote: On 7/27/11, Chris Warburton wrote: (maybe relevant but no really to comment). Another reason I would argue against something like types based on Physics is that Physics tries to work out the inconceivable ways that the Universe actually behaves by s

Re: [fonc] Physics and Types

On 7/27/11, Chris Warburton wrote: > > Physics is certainly useful in various computing contexts, especially > statistical physics. Useful concepts include: > > Statistical mechanics: Time-evolution of averaged quantities (such as > entropy) in a system with bounded energy. This is useful for rand

Re: [fonc] Physics and Types

Check out David Reed's 1978 MIT thesis "NetOs" about just such issues. Cheers, Alan From: David Barbour To: Fundamentals of New Computing Sent: Wed, July 27, 2011 12:54:48 PM Subject: Re: [fonc] Physics and Types Very nice survey, Chris. T

Re: [fonc] Physics and Types

Casey, You can see physical types in ontologies. There are many ontological approaches, starting from the religious beliefs of Plato and Aristotle ("one true essence of things") thru Semantic Web hipe ("one true logic of things") to the more practical ontological languages. http://en.wikiped

Re: [fonc] Physics and Types

Very nice survey, Chris. Thank you for it. Many people consider that 'reversibility' will become hugely important for pushing hardware and software much further, e.g. with respect to energy conservation, which is important for pushing computers ever smaller. An excellent paper on this subject was

Re: [fonc] Physics and Types

On Tue, 2011-07-26 at 19:28 -0700, Casey Ransberger wrote: > Please forgive - not a physicist. > > Ian mentioned something about a Bose-Einstein Condensate for computer > programming once, and this really jumped out at me. > > I've seen math and I've seen biology applied, at least in metaphor,

[fonc] Physics and Types

Please forgive - not a physicist. Ian mentioned something about a Bose-Einstein Condensate for computer programming once, and this really jumped out at me. I've seen math and I've seen biology applied, at least in metaphor, to our problems. I can't think of a lot of stories about applying phy