Re: Industry versus academia

["Timothy Rue" <address@hidden>]

Lately there has been a good bit of interesting activity on this LL1 list.

The choices I have are: To not respond, to respond with solution
directions, or to respond in a very constrained cryptic manner due to the
Intellectual Property land grab that is honestly not helped by a defunct
patent system.

I do not like the unfair preditory waring tactics of MS nor the anti-trust
deal they apparently made with the US governement regarding their "gaming"
methodologies, such as what seems to be being applied in the "terror of
war" game.

But stifling the solution is no solution at all. Be it by direct IP claims
or indirect suppression of innovation via threat of IP theift/wrongful
ownership claims.

So what to do, that we all might geniuinely advance our use of computers
in a productive direction? Yeah, there are MS people here.

There have been over 3000 programming languages created in less than the
75 years. This in comparision to documented human to human based languages
is certainly exposure of a tower of babel. The tower of babel Matthew
Estes "Lexicon." thread beginning points to.

As much as I do not like MS, they did put forth the attempt to take the
babel and boil it down to a non-confliction integrated sum total of
programming language concepts and datatypes. This being the Common
Language Infrastructure (CLI) and translation/conversion stage into the
Common Intermediate Language (CIL) which in theory is supposed to only
need a Run Time Engine to make useful.

But what I'm getting at is that the CLI and CIL pretty much make out that
a programming language is like a GUI, just an interface. And with the CLI
you can in theory make up any language you want, so long as you properly
interface it with the CLI/CIL..

This non-conflicting integrated sum total of programming concepts and
datatypes could have and perhaps should have, been done by some genuine
software science collective, rather than the profit by any means (right or
wrong) machinery of MS.

Perhaps it still should be.... Who says MS has it right? Or what's the
hook, line and sinker, they employed in the CLI?

I decided to post my response to the current activity of the LL1 list
attached to this message, though any number of other posts would have also
worked, it was this message that contained:

On 21-Feb-03 19:57:59 Sundar Narasimhan <sundar@ascent.com> wrote:

[snip]

>There's a better explanation -- one that was taught me by Inaki
>Garabieta (back at the MIT lab when I used to work w/ robots). "There
>comes a point in time, when you have a NC milling machine, a lathe,
>drills, an autoclave and a bunch of other tools.. in your basement. At
>that point, you reach a point where you don't need more
>machines.. because, if you need something .. you just build it. And if
>you don't have the tools or machines to build it.. well, you can build
>those too!" He was a master machinist.

[snip]

I found it to be a very good analogy of what the software industry seems
to want to avoid letting out to the public.

Unlike expensive machinist machinery, that most people either couldn't or
wouldn't afford, not to mention learn to use, software is made of bits and
bits don't cost hardly anything at all and of which the biggest "learning"
factor is that of an intentional constantly changing vocabulary, or babel.

If you can't bedazzel them with brilliance, baffel them with bull shit.
But in any event, dumb them down.

How easy it has been to hide the simple fact that computers are in fact,
automation machines. Where programming is the act of taking complexity,
made up of simpler things, and making it usable and reusable in a manner
that allows ease of use, by the user and regardless of what skill level or
usage position the user has (from developer to consumer.) And this act of
programming.... it's inherently recursive in it's nature.

There is no level of simplicity or complexity anywhere in this spectrum
that is an exception to this. Simply because that IS the Point and Purpose
of the tool we call a computer. Machines we use to Automate complexity, so
to make simple in use and reuse.

What makes hiding the simple facts, what should otherwise be obvious, so
easy to do? I could list perhaps an endless list but it all boils down to
"The ability to deceive and mislead via fabricated abstractions" be it
deception of others or oneself, or both.

What I'm getting at, is that in using the analogy of a machinist reaching
a point where they have enough tools to make any other tool they want,
there is a point we should have already reached in regards to the
automation machines we call computers, that would allow even the typical
user to ..... automate anything they want, be it from the view of creating
a new program to a more refined view of integrating existing
functionality.

And I sure as hell ain't talking about Visual Basic, but rather wide scope
perspective and understanding about computers, automation machines, and
their accessable use in general by the public at large, as a matter of
genuine science, fact and application or use of.

Putting things together is NOT an exclusive IP of anyone, as we all put
things together from being kids putting blocks together to rocket
Scientist putting things together to figure out how to put other things
together, Full Spectrum!

Language is only as useful as it's agreed upon meaning and use, but is
created in order to communicate. But language is not a requirement of
Putting things together. For a kid putting blocks together is not
communicating any language, but just acting, doing. And sure... you can
describe it via language, what the kid is doing, but it is secondary,
dependant upon the doing.

I have no doubt that most of those on this list are skilled enough at
abstraction manipulation to pursue a dumbing down of what all is written
here. Of course, it's inherent in the field where you make up your own
languages, vocabularies and meanings...and even change it as you go along.

But the illusion of having some exclusive to putting things together, even
with computer functionality, is NOT going to continue.

Someone else refered to the aviation industry, suggesting a self verifying
language needs to be created.

But it's not the aviation industry, it is the aerospace industry and the
direction is that of auto-coding. Not quite self verifying, as self
verifying is not possible, least not until we figure out how to create an
interface between human mental-telepathy and machine self coding.... for a
program can self verify, but that doesn't verify it got the human intent
right.

Anyway, this aerospace autocoding direction..... it should never have
started out at that end of the tech spectrum, but rather should have
started out at the home hobbist end of the spectrum, where human life is
not on the line.

Only that would be contridictary to the back asswardness of the software
industry. The intent to dumb down.....others from whom you than extract
value from so to charge to do what they should be able to do for
themselves. But you have convinced them that they can't via communication
tools, from manipulating human to human abstraction meanings to
programming language application over complexities....

That's right.... A kid cannot put blocks together if you deny them such
blocks to begin with.

It's not a matter of whether or not things are going to change, but how
long it's going to take. Moving from the use of Roman Numerals to the
easier and more calculating powerful Hindu-Arabic Decimal System took
three hundred years. Probably due to two factors. One being the
established elitist of Roman Numeral Accountants industry (even then
business needed accountants) and their ability to make difficult sounding
resistance to the concept of zero, nothing, emptyness, void, etc....
having a value as a place holder.

Protecting Vested Interest.....

Note: Without the integration of the concept of zero, we wouldn't have
computers today. Just think of where we can go, once we get past the
illusions we seem so stuck in with our vested interest in dumbing others
down to hold exclusive the act of putting things together via computers.

And who wants to own the IP of ....in analogy ... zero?

---
Timothy Rue @ http://threeseas.net

Am I insulting? Or just tired of being insulted?