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Is it only me who thought this was going to be about a programming language! I visited St.Catherine's before, you can get there pretty easy from Sharm el-Sheik

Is it only me who thought this was going to be about a programming language! I visited St.Catherine's before, you can get there pretty easy from Sharm el-Sheikh in the Sinai on your way to climb mount Sinai. you can go there for sunrise, it involves an early rise and a bit of a hike but it's beautiful at sunrise. St. Catherine's is also host to what is considered the burning bush. buhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burning_bush#Location https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burning_bush#Location

vortico 9y ago
Before I clicked the link, I thought it would be about the dead WEB language invented by Donald Knuth to author TeX, which is one of the longest running software libraries in the open source world. :-)
seanmcdirmid 9y ago
Someday in a Vernor Vinge-ish future, software archeologists could discover a dead programming language that is being used at the core of their ancient starship's libraries.
- CharlesDodgson 9y ago
  lol we're clearly on the same wavelength I just finished Reading Rainbow's End. Funny after reading it was one of those books I enjoyed thinking about after reading it. The reading of it wasn't that enjoyable. I didn't like the style.
- throwaway7645 9y ago
  I'm curious what we would even use to run a true starship that needs to be 100% reliable for decades. Maybe Rust will be a good candidate some day? I think it needs to have that speed & safety, but be much higher level.
  - setr 9y ago
    I doubt the language picked will have significant impact; reliability will mostly depend on the extensiveness/correctness of simulations. And presumably with sufficient coverage (and at the scale, we require it) memory bugs will be the least of our safety worries
  - seanmcdirmid 9y ago
    I'm guessing full AI that can maintain itself. Vernor Vinge assumes the singularity hasn't and will never happen, but most fanciful and pragmatic visions of the far future don't make that assumption.

vortico 9y ago

Before I clicked the link, I thought it would be about the dead WEB language invented by Donald Knuth to author TeX, which is one of the longest running software libraries in the open source world. :-)

seanmcdirmid 9y ago

Someday in a Vernor Vinge-ish future, software archeologists could discover a dead programming language that is being used at the core of their ancient starship's libraries.

CharlesDodgson 9y ago
lol we're clearly on the same wavelength I just finished Reading Rainbow's End. Funny after reading it was one of those books I enjoyed thinking about after reading it. The reading of it wasn't that enjoyable. I didn't like the style.
throwaway7645 9y ago
I'm curious what we would even use to run a true starship that needs to be 100% reliable for decades. Maybe Rust will be a good candidate some day? I think it needs to have that speed & safety, but be much higher level.
- setr 9y ago
  I doubt the language picked will have significant impact; reliability will mostly depend on the extensiveness/correctness of simulations. And presumably with sufficient coverage (and at the scale, we require it) memory bugs will be the least of our safety worries
- seanmcdirmid 9y ago
  I'm guessing full AI that can maintain itself. Vernor Vinge assumes the singularity hasn't and will never happen, but most fanciful and pragmatic visions of the far future don't make that assumption.