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Computers are to manipulate data. Data = representations = abstractions This article is so fundamentally lost that it forgets what computers are for. Compute
by 29athrowaway 2y ago
Computers are to manipulate data.
Data = representations = abstractions
This article is so fundamentally lost that it forgets what computers are for.
Computers exist to implement abstractions.
- dishsoap 2y agoDid you even read it?
- 29athrowaway 2y agoUnfortunately, I did. It is an attempt to approach complexity, cognitive load and high entropy in code, jumping to conclusions prematurely while suggesting a solution that is worse than the problem.
- f1shy 2y agoI would really like to convince you that you are missing something very important. Please try to make sense of the article, reading it again a trying to find cases where it makes sense for you.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- javcasas 2y agoComputers are to manipulate data, not to manipulate a pointer to a pointer to a pointer to a pointer to data. They can do that too, but the cache miss cost already makes that expensive.
- astrobe_ 2y agoYou are confusing too many things. "10" is the representation of a data; "0xA" is another representation of the same data. Not being able to touch something doesn't make it an abstraction. Light is not an abstraction, a contract is not an abstraction. 10 is not an abstraction, it is an ordinal [1]. "Isomorphism" is an abstraction. It doesn't name a particular data or value, but a class of functions that share common properties. A function template or functions written in a dynamically typed language can describe a particular group of isomorphism. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Set-theoretic_definition_of_natural_numbers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Set-theoretic_definition_of_na...
- 29athrowaway 2y agoNumber notations and the glyphs and conventions used in them are abstractions. 10 in a database record of a warehouse system may be an abstraction for 10 items of a given type in a warehouse.
- JadeNB 2y ago> Light is not an abstraction, a contract is not an abstraction. 10 is not an abstraction, it is an ordinal [1]. It seems to me that all of those things very much are abstractions. They are not the utmost level of abstraction, but they are abstractions! (Actually "a contract," which at first I thought was the clearest win, I'm now not sure about. On reflection, it seems like a concretization, turning abstract ideas of trust and reliability into concrete conditions under which the contract has or has not been met.)
- astrobe_ 2y agoAll right, light is an abstraction, contracts are abstractions, 10 is an abstraction, time is an abstraction, and I am an abstraction too. The notion is so fuzzy that everything can be an abstraction in a certain way. The word "abstraction" is a black hole for thoughts. Stay away from it. For instance in this threads and in TFA, people made useful distinctions such as "generalization" or "indirection".
- patrulek 2y agoI kind of agree and i find that is why (other) abstractions should be created around data not around behaviours.
- weMadeThat 2y agoEver read any MS Windows code? The author is relatively clear about good and bad, or rather pointless, abstractions.