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The title of this post is very unfair to Alan, who has made important contributions. For example the SmallTalk browser was extremely innovative leading to mode

The title of this post is very unfair to Alan, who has made important contributions. For example the SmallTalk browser was extremely innovative leading to modern Integrated Development Environments that have taken over software development. Also, SmallTalk was the first to use Simula class hierarchies for graphics, which are now used everywhere. Objects as conceived in Simula-67 are not universal primitives of digital computation. However this was remedied in 1972 with the invention of Actors. It is very important that Actors rigorously formalize the rules for digital computation. See the following: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3418003 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3459566 In this way, computer systems themselves can participate in discourse with humans about the nature of digital computation and associated software systems. Every important scientist (including Einstein) made numerous errors. Fermi received the 1938 Nobel prize [Fermi 1938] for the discovery of the nonexistent elements “Ausonium” and “Hesperium”, which were actually mixtures of barium, krypton and other elements. I have made quite a number of errors myself, although I am certainly not of the caliber of Einstein or Fermi! It is important to find and rectify errors ASAP. In order to make progress, we must make errors. Reusable Scalable Intelligent Systems cannot be implemented using the current common programming practice of stateless sever code + relational data base. See the following: https://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=3428114

mpweiher 7y ago
Hello Professor Hewitt, Hmm...I don't quite understand your criticism, particularly as you yourself point out that "every important scientist (including Einstein) made numerous errors", and go on to describe some of those errors. The fact that Alan is a towering figure who has contributed more to this field than I (and most people) can ever hope shouldn't mean that we cannot point out where we believe such an error was made, should it? That's not how science, even computer science, is supposed to work. As a matter of fact, it seems even more important in the case of such an influential figure. Of course the article points out that it was (a) a "brilliant" (quote from the article) construction and (b) the fact that it was wrong wasn't really Alan's fault, because he didn't have any large computer networks to look at, so (c) using the same brilliant construction with up-to-date inputs gets you a better answer. The claims you make about the impossibility of things that are clearly being done seem a bit strange.

mpweiher 7y ago

Hello Professor Hewitt, Hmm...I don't quite understand your criticism, particularly as you yourself point out that "every important scientist (including Einstein) made numerous errors", and go on to describe some of those errors. The fact that Alan is a towering figure who has contributed more to this field than I (and most people) can ever hope shouldn't mean that we cannot point out where we believe such an error was made, should it? That's not how science, even computer science, is supposed to work. As a matter of fact, it seems even more important in the case of such an influential figure. Of course the article points out that it was (a) a "brilliant" (quote from the article) construction and (b) the fact that it was wrong wasn't really Alan's fault, because he didn't have any large computer networks to look at, so (c) using the same brilliant construction with up-to-date inputs gets you a better answer. The claims you make about the impossibility of things that are clearly being done seem a bit strange.