daly

88 ms·

841.
by daly 9y ago
Mathematica
842.
by daly 9y ago
Axiom, Maxima (DOE), and Macsyma (Symbolics) are large systems. Axiom is a FOSS computer algebra system implemented in about 1.2 million lines of Common Lisp. Axiom relies heavily on the ability to dynamically define and re-define functions
843.
by daly 9y ago
I wrote an article on hobby robots (I was working for Unimation at the time, the company that invented robots). Sadly I can't seem to find the issue online.
844.
by daly 9y ago
For a really cool syntax check out hello world written in the Whitespace language: http://daly.axiom-developer.org/hello.w No, it's not a blank page. It's a page of spaces, tabs, and newlines but it compiles and r
845.
by daly 9y ago
So, backup to tape... Story there. I did a backup system on the mainframe to tapes. The first issue was that the machine room operators would 'recycle' the tapes they dismounted. So while we thought we had backups, the operators j
846.
by daly 9y ago
Which reminds me... When I moved from front panel switches to hooking up a teletype I ran into a problem. The teletype was a current-loop device ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_current_loop_interface ) and the co
847.
by daly 9y ago
When I worked at IBM Research we got access to the latest hardware (IBM RS/6000) and the latest software (AIX), written by guys down the hall. This machine was "blazingly fast" for its time and had a useful feature for us. Yo
848.
by daly 9y ago
My first industrial programming job was at Unimation. Grab the edge of the table. Line up your wrist and your forearm. You'll discover that you can move your wrist/forearm combination without moving your hand. That is, there are m
849.
by daly 9y ago
Out-of-position welding occurs when you have a seam between two pieces of metal and the seam is not horizontal. Companies would spend a lot of money to build fixtures to rotate their equipment in mid-air so seams could be flat and they did
850.
by daly 9y ago
Unimation had the first 2-arm robot, a research project for Ford. I was in charge of programming the Nova (Data-General) computer (by toggle swithes first, and then by paper tape). We were assembling a transmission control unit. It changed
851.
by daly 9y ago
The robot had a 'teach mode'. You used a hand controller to move the robot to a position, pressed a 'teach' button, and then moved to a new position. The values from the 6 position encoders were written to the next memor
852.
by daly 9y ago
I worked for Unimation, the company that invented Robots. The 'research lab' consisted of myself and Ming. We were, I believe, the first people to ever connect a computer to a robot. It was a PDP-1103 ( https://en.wikipe
853.
by daly 9y ago
An old programming meme is the "Halt-and-Catch-Fire" bug. It turns out that this is a real bug. The X11 system used to require knowledge of monitor characteristics in order to install it. So you had to know things about the clock
854.
by daly 9y ago
I was a mainframe systems programmer. Every so often the system would crash. Step 1 was to visit the machine room and look for the toolbox. The on-site IBM maintenance guy would randomly power down and open cabinets to perform "prevent
855.
by daly 9y ago
Apparently Hacker News cannot handle Whitespace. The hello.w sources is at http://daly.axiom-developer.org/hello.w There are two programs that exist to create the language. The 'towhite' program turns any ASCII fi
856.
Whitespace Language
1 points by daly 9y ago|1 comments
857.
by daly 9y ago
Another subtle point (one of many) involves transfer of knowledge. My most recent system "learned" by self-modification (similar in concept to growing new synapse connections but done by self-modifying code). This kind of modifica
858.
by daly 9y ago
I've worked in a lot of AI-related projects and was around when the AI winter arrived. These various techniques that currently work by training, either supervised or self-training, can have fatal flaws. Take, for example, some high-tec
859.
by daly 9y ago
Look up and learn Demming's 14 points ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsF-8u-V4j4 ) Bob's Oath's cannot improve programming. Demming can.
860.
by daly 9y ago
Number 8, software estimates are complete nonsense. Read https://www.quora.com/profile/Lishi-He/Programming/Lets-take... I worked at a startup. Just before I was hired they bid on a fixed-cost 5 programmer, 5
861.
by daly 9y ago
I agree. Everyone can code. Everyone can do plumbing (but I want a master plumber for my high-rise). Everyone can do welding (but I want a master welder for my super-tanker). Everyone can do surgery (but I want a doctor to actually do it).
862.
by daly 9y ago
Google is planning to completely trust a computer to drive? Have they never used a computer? http://downdetector.com/status/google/map
863.
by daly 9y ago
<sarcasm> Great. You've got a new tool with incompatible options that will require rewriting network scripts worldwide. </sarcasm> Can you provide a good TECHNICAL reason why ifconfig fails to perform the task it perfo
864.
by daly 9y ago
Probably the most difficult area in the CL standard is handling pathnames. There are so many possible pitfalls. FFI is an area that, despite best efforts, is likely not a good candidate for inclusion in a standard. It would be better to hav
865.
by daly 9y ago
Yes, I can derive more than just the worst case complexity (which was all he wanted) as I did in class. But the interview was short and the interviewer had clearly just graduated from college where Data Structures was probably his last clas
866.
by daly 9y ago
On the TIRES project ( http://daly.axiom-developer.org/cmu/book.pdf ) we used Scone ( http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~sef/scone/ ), a knowledge representation system as the core structure. Rules based on
867.
by daly 9y ago
Hard? I never finished a paid project in Grad school because of a compiler error (PL/I 'copy like' bug). On my first job they gave me a paper tape containing the binary to control a robot... no source available... and I had t
868.
by daly 9y ago
A Standard. One thing that has not been mentioned here. The lisp community came together and created a standard. I maintain code from the 1980, part of which is in Common Lisp and part of which is in C. The C code breaks. The latest failure
869.
by daly 9y ago
Sadly Dave's Sandwich was not a Ham Sandwich, said the topolgist.
870.
by daly 9y ago
It is not clear but it appears you have discovered that it is possible to create circular lists, that is, a list that contains itself. This isn't a flaw, it is a feature. Using circular lists it is possible to create "infinite lis

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