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3:14:03
beach
For the past few days, I have been working on cleaning up the bootstrapping procedure. The purpose of this cleanup is to make sure that phase X (for X = 3, 4, 5 at least) starts by creating environment EX, in order to fill it during the phase so that it contains all the generic functions and classes in CLOS. In order to do that, it needs to refer to environments EX-1, EX-2, but it will have no need for EX+1.
3:16:12
beach
This cleanup will take a few more days, because I want to do it in small increments, so that I am sure that I don't break anything. I could have done it in bigger chunks if the debugging tools we have available in the first-class global environments had been more sophisticated, but they aren't, and it is still unclear to me how many bootstrapping-specific tools we should provide.
3:26:25
beach
So apparently even David Patterson think that Unix was the first operating system written in a "high-level" programming language (as opposed to assembler).
3:27:27
beach
I watch most of a talk entitled "A New Golden Age for Computer Architeture: History, Challenges, and Opportunities"
3:29:37
mfiano
"First, existing techniques for building software make extensive use of high-level languages with dynamic typing and storage management. Unfortunately, such languages are typically interpreted and execute very inefficiently."
3:29:56
beach
I watch these things when I do my daily physical exercise. Reading is less practical then.
3:31:16
beach
And he also said some other stuff that worried me, namely something like "software technology provides inspiration for new hardware technology", and if Python is a basis for that, I am really worried.
3:36:07
beach
pjb: I suppose Patterson can be forgiven for that ignorance, since he is not a software or OS person.
3:39:20
pjb
Already, in the early 80s I was interested in computer history (I read all the SICOB newspapers of the 70s), but I feel that nowadays a computer history course should be given to all CS students…
3:40:08
mfiano
It seems all static vs dynamic/low vs high-level language comparisons just parrot what is heard by uneducated people, notably, people who never heard of Lisp.
3:40:48
beach
mfiano: Yes, it was not at all as good as I had expected. I read the CACM article some time ago, too, and was also disappointed.
3:45:21
beach
Again, Patterson can be forgiven for his ignorance, given that he is not a software person, but then he is influential, so someone ought to educate him.
3:47:00
beach
On a more positive note, Robert C Martin, a.k.a. "Uncle Bob", after a lifelong career in software is now convinced that Lisp (in the form of Clojure, but still) is the preferred future.
3:50:21
beach
The influential power of Uncle Bob in industrial circles should not be underestimated.
4:25:46
hayley
Is that the David Patterson associated with RISC and RISC-V who was Dave Ungar's advisor?
4:31:51
hayley
Reading the logs, Patterson had some involvement with Berkeley Smalltalk and Smalltalk on a RISC from memory.
4:37:26
splittist
It should be possible (a simple matter of Somebody(TM) doing the work) to put together a Computer History for Undergraduates resource with links to papers and videos, once the organizing principle(s) had(ve) been established. So much learning goes on outside of lectures and official coursework these days (and, frankly, ever since the invention of the university).
4:55:46
beach
I didn't know he was Ungar's advisor, but that would be an example of the student surpassing the advisor, which is fortunately very common.
4:57:33
beach
splittist: Yes, but a historic description is not enough. Someone has to have remarks on the reason for certain states of things, and the reasons for why things change.
4:59:11
beach
Otherwise, you get this descriptive style that most OS books have, and which I hate. "And this is now processes work" instead of "And then there is this unfortunate thing called a process. It is unfortunate because it was required for the following reasons (that no longer exist)"
5:00:10
pjb
for example, the mother of all demos, apart from its futuristic aspect, also gives a lesson on how you can travel into the future in CS, by mobilizing a lot of computing resources. This is still done nowadays, with the use of big clusters (cf. eg. the work on VR at nVidia).
6:35:25
splittist
All historical accounts have a context and a point of view. The best ones provide striking context and have a strong point of view. The insidious ones pretend not to have a point of view.
6:43:39
mfiano
I would like to ammend my statement above. "uneduated" was a poor choice of a word, since one can be well educated and still not have been aware of Lisp enough, especially in the joke that is the education system of the US. Perhaps "mis-informed" would be better.
6:50:11
mfiano
Point being was that the same arguments are repeated over and over again as some purported facts.