From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 109fba,baaf5f793d03d420 X-Google-Attributes: gid109fba,public X-Google-Thread: 1014db,6154de2e240de72a X-Google-Attributes: gid1014db,public X-Google-Thread: fc89c,97188312486d4578 X-Google-Attributes: gidfc89c,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,97188312486d4578 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: Craig Franck Subject: Re: What's the best language to start with? [was: Re: Should I learn C or Pascal?] Date: 1996/09/08 Message-ID: <50v6k3$soo@mtinsc01-mgt.ops.worldnet.att.net> X-Deja-AN: 179299931 references: <01bb8df1$2e19d420$87ee6fce@timpent.airshields.com> <4vcac4$gm6@zeus.orl.mmc.com> <01bb8f19$9a89d820$32ee6fce@timhome2> <841797763snz@genesis.demon.co.uk> <322f864d.42836625@news.demon.co.uk> <01bb9bf9$61e9e0e0$87ee6fce@timpent.airshields.com> <50sj6q$aci@mtinsc01-mgt.ops.worldnet.att.net> <01bb9d25$9cb3cb00$32ee6fcf@timhome2> content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii organization: AT&T WorldNet Services mime-version: 1.0 newsgroups: comp.lang.c,comp.lang.c++,comp.unix.programmer,comp.lang.ada x-mailer: Mozilla 1.22ATT (Windows; U; 16bit) Date: 1996-09-08T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: "Tim Behrendsen" wrote: >Craig Franck wrote in article ><50sj6q$aci@mtinsc01-mgt.ops.worldnet.att.net>... >> "Tim Behrendsen" wrote: >> >Bob Cousins wrote in article >> ><322f864d.42836625@news.demon.co.uk>... >> >> >> >> Finally, you or may not consider that the human brain is a biological >> >> computer, and that does not appear to work by fetching instructions >> >> and executing them. So the very concept of instructions executing in >> >> sequence is an illusion created within our own non-digital, >> >> non-sequential, massively parallel active memory analog computer. >> > >> >The human brain works (as far as anyone knows) by electrical patterns >> >flowing through neurons. You have input from your senses which >> >stimulates pathways in your brain, and produces changes in the >> >memory structures, and possibly produces output through muscular >> >manipulations. >> >> Yes, but the *order* of the instructions might be an illusion. >> >> >> * >> () * >> earth star A star B >> >> Say star A is 50 light years from Earth and star B is 100 light >> years away. If A went super nova 50 years ago and B went super nova >> 100 years ago they appear to explode at the same time. Without >> advanced astronomical knowledge you would have no idea of the >> real order in which they exploded. >> >> If I run a program to sum a matrix of 100 numbers on a computer >> with multiple execution units and several concurrent tasks, I >> may have no clue in what order matrix was summed. Dependancies >> will be checked and one or more execution units may be available >> or not. The idea of a descrete number of steps occuring in a fixed >> order would be an illusion for some steps may occur simultaneously. > >This is true, but irrelevent. The point is that a procedure >exists, not that it's a linear procedure. > >> >*There is no view other than the procedural view*. >> > >> >Everything comes down to data transformations over time. You >> >have yet to come up with an example where this is not true, and >> >you won't, simply because you can't eliminate the time axis. An >> >algorithm has to have a beginning and an end, an input and an >> >output, and in the middle is a black box known as the "procedure". >> >> In a sufficently complex vector unit, everything could literally >> happen at once. So what actually happened in the "black box" might >> never be acutally known, at least as far as the order in which things >> occured. You can of coarse enforce inorder execution. > >What does inorder execution have to do with anything? If I have >2 billion operations happening at once, it doesn't change the fact >that operations occurred in a unit of time. My point was that a "time axis" is a vector; it has a direction to it (forward). If a line is a set of points and by anology the points events, it would be dificult to construct one when the order of the points could change. Your challenge above, as you stated it, hinged on "eliminating the time axis". You are correct if the order of events need not be fixed, then the above is irrelevant. If all that is required is "transformations over time" I would probably have to delve into quantum mechanics to find a suitable example. I always associated procedural with "imperative, algorithmic". A query language(say SQL) was non-procedural because you would describe a query or a table, and the SQL system would determine the best way to construct it. You told it what you wanted to see; it figured out the best way to do it. A rule based system would be non-procedural as well. If I have a scheduling program that I create a rule for, say everbody gets every other weekend off, and it creates a schedule in which this is true(if possible) that would be non-procedural as well. I suspect we are using the term in two different ways! >> What if I just randomly guessed at the value of a >> logic function? Is that procedural? How come one number popped into >> my head and not another? > >To answer this question, we need to know what the algorithm >is. Just coming up with a number in your head is an output, >but what problem was solved by your coming up with the number? The point was that any system that had a person coming up with numbers by letting them just "pop into thier heads" as opposed to say, doing math and reporting the results, could not be fully described because we don't know how the numbers are being generated. If this process turned out to non-procedural then the system as a whole could not be described as procedural. Computing pi to 1000 digits is procedural; so is flipping a coin. Saying "pick a number between 1 and 100" is not the same thing. Think of a jury system. You can pick jurists fairly and instruct them on how to deliberate. Nothing forces them to come up with a just verdict. So the system can be described as just (procedural) but in the end was not, because they were not just (procedural). -- Craig clfranck@worldnet.att.net Manchester, NH A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices. -- William James