4 ms·

They wrapped Dijkstra and Scholten's predicate transformer semantics [2] in a monad[1]! This almost irrationally pleases me. I'd really love the general concept

by User23 2y ago

They wrapped Dijkstra and Scholten's predicate transformer semantics [2] in a monad[1]! This almost irrationally pleases me. I'd really love the general concept to get wider traction too. While it's particularly useful for this kind of deep language design, a weakest precondition calculus be used manually when writing code[3] without any particular additional effort once proficiency has been achieved. To use an analogy, it's like the old trick of solving a maze by starting at the end and working backward. Often it ends up being considerably easier. [1] https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-1-4612-3228-5 https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-1-4612-3228-5 [2] https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2499370.2491978 https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2499370.2491978 [3] It pretty much boils down to looking at your code and asking yourself "what has to be true for this to work?" and then writing code that ensures whatever is necessary is true for all possible code paths. Naturally that means limiting possible code paths. There's just one more reason why spaghetti code is bad.

082349872349872 2y ago
> looking at your code and asking yourself "what has to be true for this to work?" Wait a moment: are there people who write and ship code without continually asking this question, at least to handwaving precision?
- chuckadams 2y ago
  They internalize it with tacit assumptions and let runtime exceptions deal with it when the assumptions are violated. We all do this to some extent, and not just in programming, but many people are a lot more YOLO about it when the language allows it (see “duck typing”)
- vinnyvichy 2y ago
  It takes effort for me to compute whether grandfather is de gauche or de droite.. the better question to ask yourself continuously is whether: does this noise (spaghetti/imprecision in this context) improve or remove performance ((0-1) though the 2 questions are related; it's enough to point out that if necessity is the mother of invention, then paradox is the father of discovery)? (0-1) https://quillette.com/2022/04/05/noise-a-flaw-in-human-judgment-a-review/ https://quillette.com/2022/04/05/noise-a-flaw-in-human-judgm... https://www.newscientist.com/article/2431131-buildings-that-include-weak-points-on-purpose-withstand-more-damage/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/2431131-buildings-that-...
  - 082349872349872 2y ago
    thanks for these and the other (sps)! atm I'm busy altering the position of matter at or near the earth's surface relative to other matter, so it may be a week or two before I'm back to the more intellectual exercise of altering the truthiness of symbols in strings or graphs relative to other symbols...
    - vinnyvichy 2y ago
      Ah what shall we do if our beloved HN weren't an obligate asynchrotroph :) Passive consumption recommendation (fit for travel plausibly even) is: to «Das Glasperlenspiel» the postpostmodern (but merely pre-eschatological) riposte could only be «Anathem» --- had to complete the commutative diagram. (0)https://ironichles.livejournal.com/56695.html https://ironichles.livejournal.com/56695.html
      - 082349872349872 2y ago
        Ah, but the kernel between Hesse and Stephenson is fairly large; I'd say Hesse has a large idea (Berlin's "hedgehog") towards which his characters and plots and settings all work, while Stephenson has a cornucopia of small ideas (Berlin's "fox") and his characters and plots and settings are largely excuses to get them all out of his head and down in print. My diagram would be: (Exercise: who is the contemporary hedgehog X?) Hesse ---------> Pynchon | | | | V V X ----------> Stephenson Compare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyril_M._Kornbluth#Personality_and_habits https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyril_M._Kornbluth#Personality... (and some of YT's more discursive HN commentary). [to what degree are foxes cohedgehogs, or hedgehogs cofoxes? can we get the plurality of ideas of a fox by reversing arrows such that each of the fox's multiple ideas maps back, in the image, to a shared thematic point?]
        vinnyvichy 2y ago
        Will have to woolgather/think about this, but I wonder if it might not be easier (for now, for me) to frame your question(s) in terms of a short exact sequence, with Hesse squarely in the middle, of course. I agree that Pynchon was more or less an aloof observer of the von Neumann denouement.. maybe you can have Lem in your corner depending on how optimistic you think he is, but I would put Kim Stanley Robinson in that corner (been thinking about the Mondragon Accord). The median HN'er, I don't know, Iain Banks/Gibson. Feel free to take it to another level with some cryptic pointers (/arrows) :) H https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation#Mondragon_in_fiction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation#Mondrago... And checkout KSR's influences. I admit to not having read <<DGPS>> in its entirety (or any majority,really) -- reason being that I read Demian E2E and surmised that the apple hedgehog didn't land too far from the tree fox. Trying to reconsider now :)

by User23 2y ago

082349872349872 2y ago

> looking at your code and asking yourself "what has to be true for this to work?" Wait a moment: are there people who write and ship code without continually asking this question, at least to handwaving precision?

chuckadams 2y ago
They internalize it with tacit assumptions and let runtime exceptions deal with it when the assumptions are violated. We all do this to some extent, and not just in programming, but many people are a lot more YOLO about it when the language allows it (see “duck typing”)
vinnyvichy 2y ago
It takes effort for me to compute whether grandfather is de gauche or de droite.. the better question to ask yourself continuously is whether: does this noise (spaghetti/imprecision in this context) improve or remove performance ((0-1) though the 2 questions are related; it's enough to point out that if necessity is the mother of invention, then paradox is the father of discovery)? (0-1) https://quillette.com/2022/04/05/noise-a-flaw-in-human-judgment-a-review/ https://quillette.com/2022/04/05/noise-a-flaw-in-human-judgm... https://www.newscientist.com/article/2431131-buildings-that-include-weak-points-on-purpose-withstand-more-damage/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/2431131-buildings-that-...
- 082349872349872 2y ago
  thanks for these and the other (sps)! atm I'm busy altering the position of matter at or near the earth's surface relative to other matter, so it may be a week or two before I'm back to the more intellectual exercise of altering the truthiness of symbols in strings or graphs relative to other symbols...
  - vinnyvichy 2y ago
    Ah what shall we do if our beloved HN weren't an obligate asynchrotroph :) Passive consumption recommendation (fit for travel plausibly even) is: to «Das Glasperlenspiel» the postpostmodern (but merely pre-eschatological) riposte could only be «Anathem» --- had to complete the commutative diagram. (0)https://ironichles.livejournal.com/56695.html https://ironichles.livejournal.com/56695.html
    - 082349872349872 2y ago
      Ah, but the kernel between Hesse and Stephenson is fairly large; I'd say Hesse has a large idea (Berlin's "hedgehog") towards which his characters and plots and settings all work, while Stephenson has a cornucopia of small ideas (Berlin's "fox") and his characters and plots and settings are largely excuses to get them all out of his head and down in print. My diagram would be: (Exercise: who is the contemporary hedgehog X?) Hesse ---------> Pynchon | | | | V V X ----------> Stephenson Compare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyril_M._Kornbluth#Personality_and_habits https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyril_M._Kornbluth#Personality... (and some of YT's more discursive HN commentary). [to what degree are foxes cohedgehogs, or hedgehogs cofoxes? can we get the plurality of ideas of a fox by reversing arrows such that each of the fox's multiple ideas maps back, in the image, to a shared thematic point?]
      - vinnyvichy 2y ago
        Will have to woolgather/think about this, but I wonder if it might not be easier (for now, for me) to frame your question(s) in terms of a short exact sequence, with Hesse squarely in the middle, of course. I agree that Pynchon was more or less an aloof observer of the von Neumann denouement.. maybe you can have Lem in your corner depending on how optimistic you think he is, but I would put Kim Stanley Robinson in that corner (been thinking about the Mondragon Accord). The median HN'er, I don't know, Iain Banks/Gibson. Feel free to take it to another level with some cryptic pointers (/arrows) :) H https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation#Mondragon_in_fiction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation#Mondrago... And checkout KSR's influences. I admit to not having read <<DGPS>> in its entirety (or any majority,really) -- reason being that I read Demian E2E and surmised that the apple hedgehog didn't land too far from the tree fox. Trying to reconsider now :)