Information which entered the machine through deliberate user action shall never be destroyed or otherwise rendered inaccessible except as a result of deliberate user action to that end. No user action shall lead to the destruction of information unless said destruction is the explicit and sole purpose of the action. If all non-volatile storage space […]
Assuming physically-intact hardware, the user shall retain full control of the machine at all times. In particular, the handling of the keyboard, mouse, and other human interface devices must take absolute priority over all other processing. The user shall have the ability to issue commands and receive immediate confirmation of said commands at all times, […]
As a child, I was quite fond of old-fashioned Lego bricks. One very endearing but rarely discussed property of such bricks is their durability, bordering on the indestructible. Almost any abuse inflicted on a Lego structure will, at worst, leave you with a pile of bricks entirely like the one you started with. Even the most […]
Charles Moore, the venerable inventor of FORTH, has this to say regarding the likely-dim future of technology: Complexity is the problem. Moving it from hardware to software, or vice versa, doesn’t help. Simplicity is the only answer. There was a product many years ago called the Canon Cat. It was a simple, dedicated word processor; done […]
The modern high-level-language programmer thinks (if he is of the thinking kind) of low-level system architecture as a stubborn enemy, or, at best, a harsh and indifferent force of nature. Anyone who suggests that everyday desktop apps ought to be written directly in a CPU’s native instruction set is viewed as much the same kind […]
How many other programming-culture buzzwords could be similarly decomposed? I find it interesting that PGP never caught on, yet storing one’s personal information on disks belonging to strangers has.
Historical note (Jan. 7, 2014) – This ancient post still gets several hundred to a thousand page views per month! And, unsurprisingly, the Clojure community still replies to the criticisms therein with… only insults. This is what comes of a product fundamentally brain-damaged at birth. I find Clojure revolting. It is the most explicit to […]
Lamport: “The Future of Computing: Logic or Biology?” “We understand automobiles. There are no homeopathic automobile repair shops, that try to repair your car by putting infinitesimal dilutions of rust in the gas tank. There are no automotive faith healers, who lay their hands on the hood and pray. People reserve such superstitions for things […]
The image on the left is the original 1890s NYC grid of power and telegraph cables, built by a hodgepodge of competing wire-running firms. A blizzard blew all of it down, causing chaos. After this, the city decreed that all cables are to be buried and passed regulations governing how it is to be done. […]
Yossi Kreinin throws down the gauntlet to all those who believe that a CPU ought to be designed specifically around the needs of high-level languages: Do you think high-level languages would run fast if the stock hardware weren’t “brain-damaged”/”built to run C”/”a von Neumann machine (instead of some other wonderful thing)”? You do think so? […]
