4 ms·

It’s interesting and cool to see how long it took, and how many people it took, for the abstraction of matrices and matrix algebra to develop (in addition to ho

by dahart 4y ago

It’s interesting and cool to see how long it took, and how many people it took, for the abstraction of matrices and matrix algebra to develop (in addition to how well-traveled the road was before the people we’ve attributed to and named some of these techniques after). What this makes me wonder is: what abstractions might be in progress today but incomplete? Maybe it’s a fun thought experiment and there’s no way to know because the ideas haven’t occurred to anyone, or maybe some people already do have an idea but won’t ultimately be remembered for it when our progeny is able to explore it a little more deeply and explain it a little more clearly. Or, I don’t know, maybe the period of history where some things get forgotten is now over?

jtimdwyer 4y ago
If you have not, you may be interested in reading Thomas Kuhn's book -- The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.
jiggawatts 4y ago
> What this makes me wonder is: what abstractions might be in progress today but incomplete? Category Theory, especially how it relates to programming language and API design. We’re building pyramids like the Egyptians did, and we’re impressed without ourselves and our grand achievements just like they were. The Egyptians built a wonder of the world before the invention of the wheel! That’s what programming feels line to me. We’re well paid labourers chiselling away at stone with crude tools. We’re convinced ourselves that we live in the future because we have copper tools instead of just wood and stone. The most amazing thing about the computer revolution is that it hasn’t happened yet.
- mellosouls 4y ago
  The Egyptians built a wonder of the world before the invention of the wheel! The wheel predates the Great Pyramid at Giza by perhaps a thousand years.
  - jiggawatts 4y ago
    AFAIK they didn't use them much for the construction of the pyramids, the stones were dragged over earth that they sprinkled with water for lubrication. Which just reinforces my point. In the field, I've found that the majority of developers never use a debugger, the type built into modern IDEs. Even back in the year 2000 that surprised me, but now? It's like watching people shovelling dirt by hand while standing next to a hydraulic digger.
    - andromeduck 4y ago
      Debuggers aren't really that useful for debugging complex systems with a lot of moving parts, e.g threaded code or code ith actors/agents or opaque references/layers or edge cases in hot code in particular. It also doesn't work terribly well if reproductions are timing sensitive or requires non local environment. Time travel debuggers - which essentially record every stack frame and dump either continuously or the last 1-2ms before some trigger is quite a bit better but that's a lot closer to logging everything than typical debuggers.
- simplotek 4y ago
  > The Egyptians built a wonder of the world before the invention of the wheel You might find this link interesting https://journals.uair.arizona.edu/index.php/jaei/article/view/19145 https://journals.uair.arizona.edu/index.php/jaei/article/vie...
benibela 4y ago
Graphs can be abstracted as matrices It is often forgotten, but can make some algorithms faster

by dahart 4y ago

jtimdwyer 4y ago

If you have not, you may be interested in reading Thomas Kuhn's book -- The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.

jiggawatts 4y ago

> What this makes me wonder is: what abstractions might be in progress today but incomplete? Category Theory, especially how it relates to programming language and API design. We’re building pyramids like the Egyptians did, and we’re impressed without ourselves and our grand achievements just like they were. The Egyptians built a wonder of the world before the invention of the wheel! That’s what programming feels line to me. We’re well paid labourers chiselling away at stone with crude tools. We’re convinced ourselves that we live in the future because we have copper tools instead of just wood and stone. The most amazing thing about the computer revolution is that it hasn’t happened yet.

mellosouls 4y ago
The Egyptians built a wonder of the world before the invention of the wheel! The wheel predates the Great Pyramid at Giza by perhaps a thousand years.
- jiggawatts 4y ago
  AFAIK they didn't use them much for the construction of the pyramids, the stones were dragged over earth that they sprinkled with water for lubrication. Which just reinforces my point. In the field, I've found that the majority of developers never use a debugger, the type built into modern IDEs. Even back in the year 2000 that surprised me, but now? It's like watching people shovelling dirt by hand while standing next to a hydraulic digger.
  - andromeduck 4y ago
    Debuggers aren't really that useful for debugging complex systems with a lot of moving parts, e.g threaded code or code ith actors/agents or opaque references/layers or edge cases in hot code in particular. It also doesn't work terribly well if reproductions are timing sensitive or requires non local environment. Time travel debuggers - which essentially record every stack frame and dump either continuously or the last 1-2ms before some trigger is quite a bit better but that's a lot closer to logging everything than typical debuggers.
simplotek 4y ago
> The Egyptians built a wonder of the world before the invention of the wheel You might find this link interesting https://journals.uair.arizona.edu/index.php/jaei/article/view/19145 https://journals.uair.arizona.edu/index.php/jaei/article/vie...

benibela 4y ago

Graphs can be abstracted as matrices It is often forgotten, but can make some algorithms faster