Bootstrap ancestry
in [UK Mac]
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From: Adrian Tuddenham on 19 Jun 2010 11:05 Justin C <justin.1006(a)purestblue.com> wrote: > In article <883cceFgicU1(a)mid.individual.net>, Chris Ridd wrote: > > What sort of blind alleys would we avoid? > > Copper telephone lines to each house - we'd put fibre optic in from the > outset! ....and when the mains fails during an emergency situation...? -- ~ Adrian Tuddenham ~ (Remove the ".invalid"s and add ".co.uk" to reply) www.poppyrecords.co.uk
From: Richard Tobin on 19 Jun 2010 11:35 In article <1jkc61q.hn8x3g1r4yuieN%real-address-in-sig(a)flur.bltigibbet.invalid>, Rowland McDonnell <real-address-in-sig(a)flur.bltigibbet.invalid> wrote: >> The newsreader I am using now was compiled several years ago on a PPC >> Mac, using gcc. That gcc was no doubt compiled by Apple using another >> copy of gcc they had compiled. A few generations back, they probably >> cross-compiled gcc, perhaps on a 68000 Mac or Next computer. A few >> generations before that, gcc was compiled on a Vax using the BSD C >> compiler. That C compiler descended from Richie's original C compiler >> - I'm not sure whether that was written in B or assmebler. If you >> keep going back, you will eventually come to a program made, not >> begotten, entered using switches with nothing but hardware behind >> them. >> >> I could have followed many branches instead of just the compilers - >> the editors, assemblers, linkers and operating system used along the >> way, not to mention the computers they ran on. Every program has a >> branching and converging bootstrap ancestry. >Why say that? I don't see that's the case at all. Sorry, which bit don't you see is the case at all? The last bit? >I don't think it's sensible to suggest that a program written from >scratch without prior code in it is descended from other code, even if >it's written using a compiler or whatnot. If the problem is the word "descended", use some other term. I just mean the transitive closure of the programs used to produce it. -- Richard
From: Rowland McDonnell on 19 Jun 2010 12:56 Richard Tobin <richard(a)cogsci.ed.ac.uk> wrote: > Rowland McDonnell <real-address-in-sig(a)flur.bltigibbet.invalid> wrote: > > >> The newsreader I am using now was compiled several years ago on a PPC > >> Mac, using gcc. That gcc was no doubt compiled by Apple using another > >> copy of gcc they had compiled. A few generations back, they probably > >> cross-compiled gcc, perhaps on a 68000 Mac or Next computer. A few > >> generations before that, gcc was compiled on a Vax using the BSD C > >> compiler. That C compiler descended from Richie's original C compiler > >> - I'm not sure whether that was written in B or assmebler. If you > >> keep going back, you will eventually come to a program made, not > >> begotten, entered using switches with nothing but hardware behind > >> them. > >> > >> I could have followed many branches instead of just the compilers - > >> the editors, assemblers, linkers and operating system used along the > >> way, not to mention the computers they ran on. Every program has a > >> branching and converging bootstrap ancestry. > > >Why say that? I don't see that's the case at all. > > Sorry, No you're not - why try to deceive in this way? >which bit don't you see is the case at all? The last bit? Yep. Actually, all of it - but mostly the last bit: "Every program has a branching and converging bootstrap ancestry." I've written code without any ancestry at all. In some cases: machine code, hand-compiled, and entered via bloody binary switches into a very simple single-board Z80 computer I threw together once. I've done even that. > >I don't think it's sensible to suggest that a program written from > >scratch without prior code in it is descended from other code, even if > >it's written using a compiler or whatnot. > > If the problem is the word "descended", use some other term. <pained> So what you're saying is that you want me to re-write what you wrote so that it's not longer total bullshit but instead is accurate? Look, just say what you mean: if you didn't mean `descended', what did you mean? > I just > mean the transitive closure of the programs used to produce it. I can see nothing that permits any meaning to be attached to the intersection of the concepts of transitive closure with that of computer software. Perhaps you might consider writing something that's meant to make sense rather than belittle with bullshit bafflement? Rowland. -- Remove the animal for email address: rowland.mcdonnell(a)dog.physics.org Sorry - the spam got to me http://www.mag-uk.org http://www.bmf.co.uk UK biker? Join MAG and the BMF and stop the Eurocrats banning biking
From: Rowland McDonnell on 19 Jun 2010 12:56 Ian McCall <ian(a)eruvia.org> wrote: > real-address-in-sig(a)flur.bltigibbet.invalid (Rowland McDonnell) said: > > > Ian McCall <ian(a)eruvia.org> wrote: > > > >> ...Taking it all a bit more seriously, I wonder if von Neuman would > >> necessarily have won out. > > > > He didn't `win out' in computer designs, it's just that there was a > > sensible way to approach the job that was easy and practical and so on, > > and everyone did it the same way because of that. > > Yes, that's what I meant. It's just that it has become thought of as a > truism that computers Are Just Like That(tm), Eh? By whom? > whereas as you say there > were other designs around at the time. All the big early digital programmable electronic computers used simple architecture that could be called a von Neumann machine, but so what? That was just for the sake of convenience, because it was the obvious way to do things, and because it worked well. Nothing to do with anyone following anything other than common sense. I don't know of any of the first couple of generations of digital electronic stored program computers which were at all exotic in architecture - the Manchester machines had interesting features, but I don't think you could call 'em exotic, and I don't think they bothered looking at the thoughts of many others on how to build a computer when they started, on account of them working it out for themselves for the most part, based on what they could actually make with what they actually had to hand, this being shortly after WWII. > >> Far back in the mists of time I remember being taught about the > >> Manchester Butterfly, something I curiously can find very little > >> (actually, nothing at all) about on the web. It was a forerunner to all > >> the multicore designs being used at the moment, but was abandoned > >> because the interconnects between its nodes were not fast enough at the > >> time to overcome the cost of signalling a task had been done. > > > > How old was that design, then? > > I wracking my brains, nut must admit I don't actually know if it was a > 50s or 60s design. 50s would not be what I'd expect. A bit too early for that sort of thing, I'd've thought. But don't forget that it was Manchester University that came up with the asynchronous ARM. And, btw, one of the developers on that project said calmly `Why not' when I suggested you couldn't do an completely asychronous computer. Whereupon I thought and thought `Oo-er'. > Information on it is curiously absent from the web, > but I can clearly remember the lecture I was given at university on it. > Always been looking to see if I could find something more concrete on > it since. I've never heard of it until now. > >> The > >> conspiracy theory in me notes that the PS3's cell, itself semi-based on > >> Blue Gene, lists a company called Butterfly amongst its credits and the > >> PS3's/Blue Gene's designs are very Manchester Butterfly, at least as > >> far as I remember it being described to me at University. We'd also > >> have taken things like the Transputer a bit more seriously too. > > > > That one *did* have the high-speed interconnects required. I though we > > always did take the Transputer seriously? Who's the `We' whom you think > > didn't? > > We being the general marketplace, not particular individuals within it. Ah - some mythical entity. So you're talking bullshit in a fashion you want to be unarguable, right? > Transputers never really caught on in a big way, and all was said to be > down to optimising compilers and languages for multithreading and > getting developers to understand it properly. Erm, no, not at all. It was down to the problem of software authors not thinking the right way, down to the development tools being `not normal', and so on. And most importantly: Transputers had the same problem that Macs had up until they went x86: they were /unconventional/, and that was all it took to damn them. Oh yeah, and Inmos being run by a bunch of hopeless tossers without a clue didn't help at all. >Of course, twenty/twenty > five years later we don't have that problem of course, with all > compilers languages having been fully optimised for multithreading and > all developers fully able to take advantage of it without trouble. Phooey. > I > mean, imagine someone in this day and age who just puts things on a > single thread, or who doesn't understand fully how to safely code in a > multithreaded, multicore environment. Ridiculous! > > Err....hmm. Err, hmm, if it were the case that all programmers could do that, then Apple wouldn't have bothered coming up with Grand Central Dispatch. Rowland. -- Remove the animal for email address: rowland.mcdonnell(a)dog.physics.org Sorry - the spam got to me http://www.mag-uk.org http://www.bmf.co.uk UK biker? Join MAG and the BMF and stop the Eurocrats banning biking
From: jim on 19 Jun 2010 13:05
Rowland McDonnell <real-address-in-sig(a)flur.bltigibbet.invalid> wrote: > "Every program has a branching and converging bootstrap ancestry." > > I've written code without any ancestry at all. I doubt that. Not unless you've developed your own CPU from first principles. > > In some cases: machine code, hand-compiled, and entered via bloody > binary switches into a very simple single-board Z80 computer I threw > together once. I've done even that. Z80, eh? Which owes it's instruction set to the Intel 8080. Which was derived from the 8008. Which was derived from the 4004. Jim -- Sent from Jim's iPad |