Building a dataflow graph with Python

mattkeeter.com

67 pointsmkeeter3 comments

Something I learned by going down the daraflow rabbit hole is that it makes digital computing act like analog computing. That is, if you try to model this type of system to be capable of an if statement and Boolean expressions, you really end up "back at the beginning" of digital computing, with an environment that strains to produce a simple state machine.

But if your state can be abstracted, the architecture allows for some clean, straightforward building blocks.

That's an interesting connection to point out, thank you.

I have no real understanding or even awareness of analog computing. I recall leafing through an old textbook on chemical engineering earlier this year (as I was looking for practical applications of graph theory), and read a little about the use of analog computing to solve ODEs, and being pretty surprised.

This might be an interesting read: "Handbook of Analog Computation" [1].

[1] http://www.analogmuseum.org/library/handbook_of_analog_compu...

It's spreadsheet liberateD from a 2d grid. Just sub "name" for "A1" etc and there you go!

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