4 ms·

Tell HN: Maarten van Emden died on January 4, 2023

158 points by herodotus 4y ago

Maarten was a good friend and colleague of mine for many years. Maarten was a pioneer of the field, and was especially known for his work on Prolog and on Constraint Programming. During his retirement, he wrote several superb articles which you can find on the site "A Programmers Place" (https://vanemden.wordpress.com/ https://vanemden.wordpress.com/). Maarten, I will miss our many lively discussions!

082349872349872 4y ago
My condolences; I was taken with both https://arxiv.org/pdf/1810.11673.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/1810.11673.pdf and https://vanemden.wordpress.com/2018/07/21/dijkstra-and-logic/ https://vanemden.wordpress.com/2018/07/21/dijkstra-and-logic... (especially wrt the latter, I've suspected that EWD had been attempting to redo with OR/EQL the dual of what EE's had long been doing —whether in knowledge or in ignorance of Zhegalkin— with AND/XOR)
dang 4y ago
Some previous threads can be found at https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=comments%3E0%20vanemden.wordpress.com&sort=byDate&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
- 082349872349872 4y ago
  https://vanemden.wordpress.com/2009/12/27/what-is-computer-science/ https://vanemden.wordpress.com/2009/12/27/what-is-computer-s... > computer science [ed: in a theory dept!] is mathematics, but much of it is the mathematics that mathematicians are not interested in. Not to multiply van Emden's examples to excess, but constructive logics (without excluded middle) are also in the category of "classy if your dept. is CS; trashy if your dept. is MA". How about Foundational Type Theories?
kragen 4y ago
this is a terrible loss and i appreciate you letting us know
satvikpendem 4y ago
Back when I was still in college, I took a class that was called Organization of Programming Languages. We started with Ruby. I liked how simple it was, Python-like yet still expressive and clever. We then moved onto OCaml, where we built an interpreter for a toy implementation of C. The ability to use recursion to define your problems was invaluable, especially as parsing and lexing is inherently a recursive affair. At last, we arrived at Prolog. I had never heard of this language before, but it was intriguing. It took the declarative approach of some other languages and put it into overdrive. You're telling me I don't have to do any work, that I can just set up my constraints and the language itself would automatically figure out the solution? It was like magic to me. I've always liked Prolog and declarative languages from then on, and it taught me that computers are indeed powerful, if we merely allow them to solve problems on our behalf. I thank your friend Maarten on the work he did on Prolog and on the influence he surely had on me through that work. May he rest in peace.
djmips 4y ago
What a superb mind - and then I find out only now that he was a professor at a local university. I wish we had connected in real life.
nmadden 4y ago
This is sad news. My condolences. I enjoyed his blog very much. He will be missed.
eternalban 4y ago
My condolences and may he dwell in peace. And thank you for the link. I lazily clicked on the first (his last article’s) link* and hours later my mind is still engaged with his words. He zeroed in on a matter (kinds of intelligence) that’s been a recent preoccupation of mine; his hypothesis of partial ordering of intelligence hits the precisely correct distinguishing note in my opinion. Since you were friends, would be interested to know his thoughts on the full scope of Polanyi’s tacit knowledge (that he mentioned in his remarks on “AI”) which included metaphysical aspects. ~ * (this really should be a top level post.) “AI” : what’s in a name? | Maarten van Emden | 2019 https://vanemden.wordpress.com/2019/10/20/ai-whats-in-a-name/ https://vanemden.wordpress.com/2019/10/20/ai-whats-in-a-name...

158 points by herodotus 4y ago

082349872349872 4y ago

My condolences; I was taken with both https://arxiv.org/pdf/1810.11673.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/1810.11673.pdf and https://vanemden.wordpress.com/2018/07/21/dijkstra-and-logic/ https://vanemden.wordpress.com/2018/07/21/dijkstra-and-logic... (especially wrt the latter, I've suspected that EWD had been attempting to redo with OR/EQL the dual of what EE's had long been doing —whether in knowledge or in ignorance of Zhegalkin— with AND/XOR)

dang 4y ago

Some previous threads can be found at https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=comments%3E0%20vanemden.wordpress.com&sort=byDate&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

082349872349872 4y ago
https://vanemden.wordpress.com/2009/12/27/what-is-computer-science/ https://vanemden.wordpress.com/2009/12/27/what-is-computer-s... > computer science [ed: in a theory dept!] is mathematics, but much of it is the mathematics that mathematicians are not interested in. Not to multiply van Emden's examples to excess, but constructive logics (without excluded middle) are also in the category of "classy if your dept. is CS; trashy if your dept. is MA". How about Foundational Type Theories?

kragen 4y ago

this is a terrible loss and i appreciate you letting us know

satvikpendem 4y ago

Back when I was still in college, I took a class that was called Organization of Programming Languages. We started with Ruby. I liked how simple it was, Python-like yet still expressive and clever. We then moved onto OCaml, where we built an interpreter for a toy implementation of C. The ability to use recursion to define your problems was invaluable, especially as parsing and lexing is inherently a recursive affair. At last, we arrived at Prolog. I had never heard of this language before, but it was intriguing. It took the declarative approach of some other languages and put it into overdrive. You're telling me I don't have to do any work, that I can just set up my constraints and the language itself would automatically figure out the solution? It was like magic to me. I've always liked Prolog and declarative languages from then on, and it taught me that computers are indeed powerful, if we merely allow them to solve problems on our behalf. I thank your friend Maarten on the work he did on Prolog and on the influence he surely had on me through that work. May he rest in peace.

djmips 4y ago

What a superb mind - and then I find out only now that he was a professor at a local university. I wish we had connected in real life.

nmadden 4y ago

This is sad news. My condolences. I enjoyed his blog very much. He will be missed.

eternalban 4y ago

My condolences and may he dwell in peace. And thank you for the link. I lazily clicked on the first (his last article’s) link* and hours later my mind is still engaged with his words. He zeroed in on a matter (kinds of intelligence) that’s been a recent preoccupation of mine; his hypothesis of partial ordering of intelligence hits the precisely correct distinguishing note in my opinion. Since you were friends, would be interested to know his thoughts on the full scope of Polanyi’s tacit knowledge (that he mentioned in his remarks on “AI”) which included metaphysical aspects. ~ * (this really should be a top level post.) “AI” : what’s in a name? | Maarten van Emden | 2019 https://vanemden.wordpress.com/2019/10/20/ai-whats-in-a-name/ https://vanemden.wordpress.com/2019/10/20/ai-whats-in-a-name...