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I believe computing has 1 concept needed to be understood by programmers: Input & Ouput. That's all programming is.

by _RPM 11y ago

dragonwriter 11y ago
> I believe computing has 1 concept needed to be understood by programmers: Input & Ouput. That's two concepts. So, the two concepts that need to be understood by programmers are Input and Output. And State.
- SapphireSun 11y ago
  Also sequence.
  - munificent 11y ago
    And a ruthless efficiency!
    - antod 11y ago
      I didn't expect that.
- philipov 11y ago
  State is just emergent behavior caused by feeding your output back into your input.
  - inopinatus 11y ago
    Programmers therefore need to understand time.
    - socceroos 11y ago
      However, time is shackled to space. Therefore, all programmers need to understand space.
      - inopinatus 11y ago
        That's interesting, we don't generally consider relativistic effects on computation. There could be an interesting synthesis between Minkowski spacetime, lambda calculus, and Lamport clocks that will either a) show that the fundamental unifying element in the universe is functions (and really annoy at least one side in the disagreements over the Black Hole Information Paradox), or b) make for a terrific Greg Egan novel.
pjmorris 11y ago
My first programming (Fortran!) teacher listed input, storage, decisions, and output as the four concepts needed. Later I learned about Turing machines, same deal.
- eru 11y ago
  Point to where the decisions are in SKI calculus. SKI calculus is as strong as Turing machines and lambda calculus. (If you squint right, you can see the decision making bit. But it's a tight squint.) --- (from Wikipedia:) The evaluation operation is defined as follows: (x, y, and z represent expressions made from the functions S, K, and I, and set values): I returns its argument: Ix = x K, when applied to any argument x, yields a one-argument constant function Kx , which, when applied to any argument, returns x: Kxy = x S is a substitution operator. It takes three arguments and then returns the first argument applied to the third, which is then applied to the result of the second argument applied to the third. More clearly: Sxyz = xz(yz) --- See https://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/ypcu7/hello_world_in_ski_combinator_calculus https://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/ypcu7/hello_world_... for an example program in SKI.
otis_inf 11y ago
> I believe computing has 1 concept needed to be understood by programmers: Input & Ouput. That's all programming is. No, programming is making output from input. Input is just a set of bytes, and output is also a set of bytes.

I believe computing has 1 concept needed to be understood by programmers: Input & Ouput. That's all programming is.

by _RPM 11y ago

I believe computing has 1 concept needed to be understood by programmers: Input & Ouput. That's all programming is.

> I believe computing has 1 concept needed to be understood by programmers: Input & Ouput. That's two concepts. So, the two concepts that need to be understood by programmers are Input and Output. And State.

SapphireSun 11y ago
Also sequence.
- munificent 11y ago
  And a ruthless efficiency!
  - antod 11y ago
    I didn't expect that.
philipov 11y ago
State is just emergent behavior caused by feeding your output back into your input.
- inopinatus 11y ago
  Programmers therefore need to understand time.
  - socceroos 11y ago
    However, time is shackled to space. Therefore, all programmers need to understand space.
    - inopinatus 11y ago
      That's interesting, we don't generally consider relativistic effects on computation. There could be an interesting synthesis between Minkowski spacetime, lambda calculus, and Lamport clocks that will either a) show that the fundamental unifying element in the universe is functions (and really annoy at least one side in the disagreements over the Black Hole Information Paradox), or b) make for a terrific Greg Egan novel.

pjmorris 11y ago

My first programming (Fortran!) teacher listed input, storage, decisions, and output as the four concepts needed. Later I learned about Turing machines, same deal.

eru 11y ago
Point to where the decisions are in SKI calculus. SKI calculus is as strong as Turing machines and lambda calculus. (If you squint right, you can see the decision making bit. But it's a tight squint.) --- (from Wikipedia:) The evaluation operation is defined as follows: (x, y, and z represent expressions made from the functions S, K, and I, and set values): I returns its argument: Ix = x K, when applied to any argument x, yields a one-argument constant function Kx , which, when applied to any argument, returns x: Kxy = x S is a substitution operator. It takes three arguments and then returns the first argument applied to the third, which is then applied to the result of the second argument applied to the third. More clearly: Sxyz = xz(yz) --- See https://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/ypcu7/hello_world_in_ski_combinator_calculus https://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/ypcu7/hello_world_... for an example program in SKI.

otis_inf 11y ago

> I believe computing has 1 concept needed to be understood by programmers: Input & Ouput. That's all programming is. No, programming is making output from input. Input is just a set of bytes, and output is also a set of bytes.