5 ms·
Bryan Cantrill interviews Arthur Whitney (2009)
- dang 7y agoA thread from 2014: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8476120 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8476120 A couple from 2009: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=650149 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=650149 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=561443 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=561443 I remember seeing that at the time but didn't notice who was the interviewer!
- akkartik 7y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=561443#562884 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=561443#562884 Does anybody know how array languages handle pointers and trees?
- refset 7y agoI believe Aaron Hsu's work on tree processing for Co-dfns [0] is a novel example of tree handling - a data parallel compiler for efficient compilation on a GPU using extensive tree-oriented "nanopass" transformations [1]. [0] https://github.com/Co-dfns/Co-dfns https://github.com/Co-dfns/Co-dfns [1] https://dyalog.tv/Dyalog18/?v=hzPd3umu78g https://dyalog.tv/Dyalog18/?v=hzPd3umu78g
- akkartik 7y agoHoly crap, that video is mind-blowing. Thank you! I was vaguely aware of Co-dfns before, but now it's squarely on my radar.
- vchak1 7y agoJohn Earnest also details how trees are handled in K (an array based language invented by Arthur Whitney). https://github.com/JohnEarnest/ok/blob/gh-pages/docs/Trees.md https://github.com/JohnEarnest/ok/blob/gh-pages/docs/Trees.m...
- RodgerTheGreat 7y agoI also wrote a paper about recursive combinators which touches on these ideas a bit: http://archive.vector.org.uk/art10501740 http://archive.vector.org.uk/art10501740 And I translated some of Aaron Hsu's APL ideas into k5. With a little massaging they work just as well: https://github.com/JohnEarnest/ok/blob/gh-pages/examples/key.k https://github.com/JohnEarnest/ok/blob/gh-pages/examples/key...
- geocar 7y agoIf you have cycles in your graph, you can build a tree out of a vector of indices, or as a table of parent/child node keys. The former is what John Scholes does[1], and the latter has plenty of common SQL examples. [1]: https://youtu.be/DsZdfnlh_d0 https://youtu.be/DsZdfnlh_d0 If you have a non-cyclic tree (e.g. a 256-trie) you can nest it directly: @/ will traverse to nodes, and COW keeps updates from trashing memory too much. However trees are rarely the best data structure: Binary search on a sorted list can beat b-trees simply because the end of the search will already be in cache, so for a routing table of IP address ranges, I use something like: ipStart where ipStart bin x
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- mushufasa 7y ago"In C I never learned to use the debugger so I used to never make mistakes,"
- aasasd 7y agoI can sort of sympathize with that sentiment. I'm not a C guy, but I've become so tired of setting up the stack for a new freelance project and/or running the log-and-debug dance, that it's often easier to just read through the code carefully, ‘running’ it in my head―the problem might jump out at me and I'll know where to dig. (Also helps with estimates before anything is done, and with filtering questionable projects.) As they say, “It's one dollar for hitting it with the hammer, a hundred for knowing where to hit.”
- lelf 7y agoThe pdf is easier to read and contains photos: https://dl.acm.org/ft_gateway.cfm?id=1531242&ftid=316753&dwn=1 https://dl.acm.org/ft_gateway.cfm?id=1531242&ftid=316753&dwn...
- xylolfrei 7y agoBryan Cantrill is a far left SJW cuck. Down-voted.
- jdkee 7y agoImagine all the brainpower that is used for financial engineering. Because it serves the moneyed interests.
- ncmncm 7y agoSome people call it automated stealing. Taxed, it would collapse. Usage of APL-related languages in finance, KDB in particular, is always exaggerated. Where it is used, it is amazingly slow.
- zerozerocool 7y agoIt wouldn't be a hacker news kdb thread without exaggerated claims about kdb's exaggerated performance. When you say KDB is "amazingly slow" in real life, you're either talking about your own attempt at KDB, or make-believe KDB. Expensive, terse, and 'amazingly slow' software would not be exist, let alone be competitive.
- bcantrill 7y agoSo, one interesting detail about this interview: audio was recorded. The version in print is abridged, and I would love for the ACM to release the audio -- if only for the incredibly long (and mind-blown) pause after Arthur told me that he felt that the closest analogue to software is poetry...
- eternalban 7y ago...which explains his language design choices. Stronger contenders for the "software analogue" remain film, theater, music, and architecture.