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=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 1014db,6154de2e240de72a X-Google-Attributes: gid1014db,public X-Google-Thread: 109fba,baaf5f793d03d420 X-Google-Attributes: gid109fba,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,97188312486d4578 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Thread: fc89c,97188312486d4578 X-Google-Attributes: gidfc89c,public From: ok@goanna.cs.rmit.edu.au (Richard A. O'Keefe) Subject: Re: What's the best language to start with? [was: Re: Should I learn C or Pascal?] Date: 1996/09/11 Message-ID: <515o3b$d7h@goanna.cs.rmit.edu.au>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 179879815 references: <01bb8df1$2e19d420$87ee6fce@timpent.airshields.com> organization: Comp Sci, RMIT, Melbourne, Australia newsgroups: comp.lang.c,comp.lang.c++,comp.unix.programmer,comp.lang.ada nntp-posting-user: ok Date: 1996-09-11T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: "Tim Behrendsen" writes: >Unless I'm mistaken, you seem to regard "procedural" as meaning a >discrete sequence of steps. My definition is a bit more broad; I >see procedural as anything with a procedure; that is, an analog >integrator is a procedural mechanism, even though there is no >sequence of individual steps. Ah. So you have broadened the term "procedural" to the point of uselessness. I worked with analogue computers at one time, and there's a wiring diagram, but there is *nothing* going on in them that I would recognise as a "procedure". >It is similiar to the difference between summation and integration; >one consists of individual sums, the other of an infinite number >of sums. However, both are fundamentally adding. Ever seen a planimeter? One of those neat little gadgets where you determine areas by rolling a little wheel around? You can repeat "it's fundamentally adding" all you like, but that isn't how the gadgets actually _work_. >When I see "Optical Computing", I normally think of gates that use >photons rather than electrons, but I'm guessing you are referring to >what I know as a "data flow" computer, where the data is encoded in >a stream and "flows" through various data transformation mechanisms. I am *not* talking about gates. That might be optronics, but it isn't optical computing. Optical computing is where you have a spatially coded signal and it is processed (FFT and so on) by lenses, mirrors, holograms, and so on. >However, this still requires time. You make a claim above that >"...and since it is non-discrete, with no 'time axis'...". Perhaps >you could explain why non-discrete means it does not require a time >axis, and give an example of *any* algorithm that does not require >a time axis, i.e., does not require time. You have misquoted me and distorted what I was saying. Yes, we are talking about physical devices, so things happen in time. But what I wrote was "with no "time axis" THAT IS USEFUL IN UNDERSTANDING HOW IT WORKS", and that is a very different claim. The optical bench does not vary through time. >> If you _do_ regard optical computing as procedural, then you have >> stretched the term to the point where you are no longer saying anything. >Procedural means "has a procedure." Yes, but fundamental to what everyone in computing except you means by "procedure" is "a discrete sequence of steps". >Nothing in the real world is not procedural, In short, you have have stretched the words 'procedure' and 'procedural' until _everything_ is procedural, _everything_ "has a procedure". This is a good way to win an argument, by ensuring that you are saying nothing. If I re-define 'is blue' to mean 'is a physical object', than I can be sure that no-one can prove me wrong when I say "every phsyical object is blue", but then I haven't _said_ anything. > but we can *express* algorithms non-procedurally. If you are right that _everything_ is procedural, then this cannot be true. If I write down an equation like Del R = 0 [a bc]de (the Bianchi identity, equation 4.10.1 in Penrose & Rindler), then since "nothing in the real world is not procedural" (according to you), and since the picture of that equation before your eyes is "in the real world" (I say the _picture_ of the equation, not the equation), then that picture must be procedural. (I do not know what it means for a picture to be procedural, but we have your word that it is so.) So that picture is procedural, and the attempt to express something "non-procedurally" has failed. In short, the discussion with you has been a waste of time, because you were never making any claim with empirical content, only playing language games. -- Australian citizen since 14 August 1996. *Now* I can vote the xxxs out! Richard A. O'Keefe; http://www.cs.rmit.edu.au/%7Eok; RMIT Comp.Sci.