alankay1

Lots ...

Molecular Biology of the Cell

Notes on a Synthesis of Form

etc

Worth comparing to Dan Ingalls' Lively Kernel https://www.lively-kernel.org/

I like "computer science" when doing real "computer science". Science is making explanatory models from and about phenomena and looking for more phenomena.

Most of the time I think I'm "designing".

In English "sciencing" can be a verb. And there's the great line from "The Martian" -- "I'm going to have to science the shit out of this!"

Most of what is between most people's ears

Sure ...

And, early adopters will often adopt poor ideas -- they are mostly just early.

Tell me the stories, and I'll comment on them.

If you are computing on a $1000 computer, you are computing in the past. Part of the idea here is that you want to do research and development on supercomputers of the present that will give you the resources that will be available at lower prices in the future.

With salaries as they are today -- and real estate much worse -- it is actually more expensive to fund the same kinds of research today.

The past was similar to today in that most people in computing back then were orbiting around some local vendor's and local fads notions of computing. And it was a lot harder to make computers and other tools back then. It wasn't a crazy professor having an impact back then, but a whole research community that was required to make an impact.

Hi Mark

Actually, this is not quite true about Smalltalk code (which is linked to its class). But referring to things is also done via variables and selectors of various kinds, and these are names which have to be locally known. Smalltalk can also find quite a few things by description (for example it can find things like the "sine function" via examples of inputs and outputs).

A big part of getting into reading is making choices of "this book, this time". And finding ways to do lots of reading (of pretty much anything ...)

Keep on turning the crank ...

What if you need something but don't know its name or URL? Etc.

Modularity is: what is the minimum you need to know to make use of a module, and what is the minimum that a module needs to know to help you?

Making this good is one of the secrets of scaling

I didn't mean "look" but what they do for the user ...

It would be very good if we starting to do real engineering and real science wrt software and most design ...

Why don't you try to pick a few, and I'll try to comment?

There was quite a bit of discussion about this on the HN gig about my long ago "reading list"

I will just reply that many of my best friends wound up at SFI and I've had a long association, etc.

And that -- I think you realize this -- what I was advocating is something simpler than the "Big History" idea ...

Sure

We had a lot of fun with Trygve and we all learned a lot. I'm glad that they've been pushing at these issues.

I don't dispute the figure, but in most cases when I say that phrase I'm trying to be hyperbolic to make a different point

It's worth thinking about what scales and what doesn't scale so well. For example, names are relatively local conventions. We could expect to have to find better ways to describe resources, or perhaps "send processes rather than messages". Think about what's really interesting about the way Parc used what became Postscript instead of trying to define a file format for "documents" for printers ... (a programming language can have far few conventions and be more powerful, so ...)

How can you find it?

The association between "patterns" and interpretation becomes an "object" when this is part of the larger scheme. When you've just got bits and you send them somewhere, you don't even have "data" anymore.

Even with something like EDI or XML, think about what kinds of knowledge and process are actually needed to even do the simplest things.

"Cops need criminals"

"Doctors need disease"

Things have happened in the past when passionate and confident people with chops have decided to do something. These have not always correlated with "What is actually needed" (often not) but they usually get things into a state where people who are mainly trying to advance their own goals see some advantage (including "tech chic").

We are certainly not in a position where this can't happen a few more times.

Looking back, I've been struck not by how few really good researchers there are, but more so by how few really good managers of researchers there have been, and even more so by how really really few good funders there have been.

Maybe too simplistic, but in my view great funding has caused great stuff. So the funders should get the gold medals rather than the researchers! (Think about it: the good funders give out the gold in advance knowing full well that if even if they are very luckly 70% of the gold will turn to lead in just a few years!)

It's not the learning process that is in question, but the ramifications of really extending the industrial revolution to distributing broken code.

(No language has ever been more set up to allow tinkering with everything for the purpose of learning than Smalltalk -- I think you probably realize this.)

I think most people would not recognize most exiting OSs in use by your definition in your second paragraph.

Answered (obliquely) elsewhere in this AMA

Could you list something to read please?

Good insights -- and check out Alex Warth's "Worlds" paper on the Viewpoints site -- this goes beyond what PIE could do with "possible worlds" reasoning and computing ...

I have every reason to like Actors! But think about scaling for a while, ...

The lack of science is because most people are not only not interested in science, but really don't understand what it is.

Yes, but what should the web actually be? And how can it be gotten there, etc.

Yes