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Right, except what got me thinking is that "programs" can be conceptually seen as a sequence of "instructions" to the computer. Whereas it is more difficult to
by galaxyLogic 4y ago
Right, except what got me thinking is that "programs" can be conceptually seen as a sequence of "instructions" to the computer. Whereas it is more difficult to think of data as "instructions". Data is more like a model of the world, than a set of "instructions".
- Jtsummers 4y agoIt is, but it also influences how the software and hardware actually execute, making it a kind of program. Essentially every program that accepts any kind of data is really operating as a virtual machine, a software specified computer. It interprets the data and performs actions conditioned on that input. mp3 files are instructions to an audio producing "computer", mp4 to an audio/video "computer". Whether it's a software description of the machine or a hardware implementation. Zip files are data, but when run through a decompression program they determine what gets decompressed (the program determines how) making them instructions for the decompression computer. The text of a text file opened in an editor providing rendering instructions. TCP packets are data, but they influence the TCP state machine, which is an explicit rendering of the idea that the software (sometimes hardware in this case) is describing a computer and the data (packets) represent instructions that effect the state of that computer. However, this interpretation is usually not explicit so the manner of these virtual machines is ad hoc and ill-specified (if at all).