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I'm actually reading this article while in a two-day introduction to PLC programming. It's been pretty fascinating, and is an interesting view into earlier days

I'm actually reading this article while in a two-day introduction to PLC programming. It's been pretty fascinating, and is an interesting view into earlier days of programming... ...From here, I definitely feel like there's something "we" missed in how these systems work, and the situations they describe. But there's also a great deal that they've missed - and are stuck in the 80s. I think the big one is that these systems (PLC visual programming environments) don't let me make my own domain-specific languages, and that's maybe the killer app of modern code. But there's also some interesting bits - there's something that looks like agent-based programming: There's a series of environments, and you have a function (agent) that modifies an environment. You point it at each the environments, just like a loop, and it does it's thing, like a weird cross between functional and state-based, that works because it's all a form of stigmergy.

mcphage 11y ago
> stigmergy This is a new word for me—thanks :-)
- AnimalMuppet 11y ago
  It's a word that dictionary.com doesn't know. Anybody got a (ELI5-ish) definition?
  - RangerScience 11y ago
    Wikipedia: Stigmergy is a mechanism of indirect coordination between agents or actions. The principle is that the trace left in the environment by an action stimulates the performance of a next action, by the same or a different agent. I usually think of it as "communication through modification of the environment". And agent observes their environment, makes a decision about how to modify it, modifies it. The same or a different agent then does the same. Instead of a central authority dictating tasks, each agent knows the complete plan, and compares the current state to the plan to find the next step, then does it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant_colony_optimization_algorithms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant_colony_optimization_algori... is how I first learned about the idea, and remains a good introduction.

mcphage 11y ago

> stigmergy This is a new word for me—thanks :-)

AnimalMuppet 11y ago
It's a word that dictionary.com doesn't know. Anybody got a (ELI5-ish) definition?
- RangerScience 11y ago
  Wikipedia: Stigmergy is a mechanism of indirect coordination between agents or actions. The principle is that the trace left in the environment by an action stimulates the performance of a next action, by the same or a different agent. I usually think of it as "communication through modification of the environment". And agent observes their environment, makes a decision about how to modify it, modifies it. The same or a different agent then does the same. Instead of a central authority dictating tasks, each agent knows the complete plan, and compares the current state to the plan to find the next step, then does it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant_colony_optimization_algorithms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant_colony_optimization_algori... is how I first learned about the idea, and remains a good introduction.