CitC 04: The Stack
It's turtles all the way down.
Folksonomies: literacy coding code
Memes
24 JAN 2014
Ada Lovelace Describes the Analytical Engine
The distinctive characteristic of the Analytical Engine, and that which has rendered it possible to endow mechanism with such extensive faculties as bid fair to make this engine the executive right-hand of abstract algebra, is the introduction into it of the principle which Jacquard devised for regulating, by means of punched cards, the most complicated pattems in the fabrication of brocaded stuffs. It is in this that the distinction between the two engines lies. Nothing of the sort exists in...It is a loom, but for weaving equations.
24 DEC 2013
Turing's Two Great Insights
Alan Turing, the father of the modern computer, began by thinking about the highly conscious and deliberate step-by-step calculations performed by human “computers” like the women decoding German ciphers at Bletchley Park. His first great insight was that the same processes could be instantiated in an entirely unconscious machine, with the same results. A machine could rationally decode the German ciphers using the same steps that the conscious “computers” went through. And the uncons...Alison Gopnik on how the father of the computer realized machines could do the work of women "computers," and how much of hte human brain was like a computer.
11 MAY 2013
Plato's Theory of Forms and Object Oriented Programming
In the theory of forms, Plato posits that there were these things called "forms," and a form is basically an abstract concept that represents some sort of object that exists. Then these objects were basically some sort of particular thing that has form-ness of some kind. So you can almost think of this as like a class and an instance basically, where you have the general definition and then the specific one. And then those objects also have attributes, which is some sort of quality. Whenever...Plato's idea of forms and objects with that formness is very similar to the concept in OOP, with classes and objects.
21 APR 2011
Guy Steele: Computers are Too Complex to Know it All
I guess to me the biggest change is that nowadays you can't possibly know everything that's going on in the computer. There are things that are absolutely out of your control because it's impossible to know everything about all the software. Back in the '7Os a computer had only 4,000 words of memory. It was possible to do a core dump and inspect every word to see if it was what you expected. It was reasonable to read the source listings of tine operating system and see how that worked. And I ...Folksonomies: programming computer science
Folksonomies: programming computer science
It was once possible to know all aspects of the computer, but the system has grown too large and complex for that now.
References
24 JAN 2014
Ada, the Enchantress of Numbers
Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book: Toole, Betty Alexandra (2010-10-14), Ada, the Enchantress of Numbers, Betty Alexandra Toole, Retrieved on 2014-01-24Source Material [books.google.com]
19 DEC 2013
This Will Make You Smarter
Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book: Brockman , John (2012-02-14), This Will Make You Smarter, HarperCollins, Retrieved on 2013-12-19Source Material [books.google.com]
Folksonomies: science
Folksonomies: science
21 APR 2011
Coders at Work: Reflections on the Craft of Programming
Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book: Seibel , Peter (2009-09-16), Coders at Work: Reflections on the Craft of Programming, Apress, Retrieved on 2011-04-21Source Material [codersatwork.com]
30 NOV -0001
OOP and the History of Philosophy
Proceedings of Meetings and Symposia>Speech: Klabnik, Steve (02/2013 ), OOP and the History of Philosophy, Heroku's Waza 2013, Retrieved on 2013-05-09Source Material [vimeo.com]
Folksonomies: computer science philosophy
Folksonomies: computer science philosophy