hxa7241

30 ms·

211.
by hxa7241 16y ago
> ensure the integrity of the program through revision Yes, that is what I am thinking: each step is like sending the signal through a noisy channel (that also does some transforming -- it is not an exact analogy). But testing doesn't s
212.
by hxa7241 16y ago
There is not really a difference in software. The 'what' is defined by the 'how'. Imagine you had a very clear idea of the 'what', so complete that it could be used to test every possible output of the 'how' -- in which case, you already kn
213.
by hxa7241 16y ago
I suppose testing could be understood as a special error-correcting code for a particular noisy information processor -- humans writing software. But then one must begin to wonder, are they doing that job very well? Testing does not seem to
214.
by hxa7241 16y ago
Testing is a bit odd. It has practical value, but 'philosophically' it does not seem to make any sense. When you are about to write some code and a test for it, you are starting with one piece of information: what you want the code to do. S
215.
by hxa7241 16y ago
> people must be able to reap the benefits of their mind/creativity to survive --> people must control the produce of their work/creativity to survive There is the flaw: the second does not follow from the first. There is no necess
216.
by hxa7241 16y ago
> if we lose control chances are we can't make a living - which is why the law enforces your property rights That is a circular justification. People can only make a living from IP because of the law, so one cannot then justify the exis
217.
by hxa7241 16y ago
> You could also the same thing about anything. That is not accurate. Many laws -- those we probably most respect -- are grounded on actual basic factual effects. They have a justification prior to conventional or legal constructs. For
218.
by hxa7241 16y ago
You seem to be suggesting we should learn to submit to IP and its restriction on copying. This would be a sad and very wrong direction. We should have cultural norms that encourage and support both production and copying -- they are bot
219.
by hxa7241 16y ago
There is a fundamental difference: copying, in itself, renders no such harm as normal property infractions. Consider the underlying necessary facts. If you take a material object from me, you have deprived me. If you copy that object, you h
220.
by hxa7241 16y ago
They really do have a different moral status though. Copyright and IP are purely pragmatic commercial arrangements. Any wrongness in infringement comes solely from it simply being against the rules of a particular game we have decided to pl
221.
by hxa7241 16y ago
Any system where support or funding for production does not depend on restricting copying: those should be inspirations for alternatives. Open-source/free software, Wikipedia, the BBC, science/academic research . . . The internet is a commu
222.
by hxa7241 16y ago
It would be better to step further back and separate copying from production. People should contribute to production and be able to freely copy what is produced. The two are not really in conflict, in fact they are mutually supportive. Co
223.
by hxa7241 16y ago
A Kantian view is an improvement: there is some of both sides. We bring a particular structure of perception to the external phenomena, and it matches to some degree the 'regularities' in those external phenomena. And this describes softwar
224.
Should there be hard limits on program part sizes?(hxa.name)
1 points by hxa7241 16y ago|0 comments
225.
by hxa7241 16y ago
Software is a logical construction. It is a structure of parts that have determinate behaviours, put together to serve a particular purpose. It realises intent by assembling objective materials. When you build software you are building a ma
226.
by hxa7241 16y ago
. . . or MiniLight: http://www.hxa.name/minilight/ is an alternative: it is larger -- averaging 650 lines -- but it is available in 9 different languages -- and is a more complete renderer that you can put your own scenes into. (I am work
227.
by hxa7241 16y ago
> certainly newspaper editors put a lot of time and creative work into headline writing But that is not the basis of copyright. The purpose (mechanism-wise) of copyright is this: keep prices high enough to allow producers to cover costs
228.
by hxa7241 16y ago
What are you suggesting? That before, or outside, copyright law there was no creative production? Copyright might assist production (though the evidence is shaky), but to say it is a sine qua non is flat out wrong.
229.
by hxa7241 16y ago
> Access to the privately owned lake is scarce for artificial reasons. Again, No. Ultimately, access is limited by physical limits: not everyone can easily travel to the lake and not everyone can fit in or around it. These things do not
230.
by hxa7241 16y ago
> If you have a piece of land with oil in the ground then what makes that oil scarce is the government artificially protecting your property rights No. What makes it scarce is that it is some limited number of kilograms of oil. If two p
231.
by hxa7241 16y ago
It is not really Facebook particularly, it is a general problem. There is a deep structural opposition between the internet and the corporate/commercial model of the last 200 years since the industrial revolution. With the internet, the ess
232.
by hxa7241 16y ago
They are both about control of data, yes, but privacy is about you controlling it, and centralisation is about someone else controlling it. Technically they have some resemblance, but in human usage they are practically opposites.
233.
by hxa7241 16y ago
No, it would not be 'cool', in any sense. It is not engaging with the matter in an intelligent way. There is a problem here, but it is not 'piracy'. It is that the laws, and consequent ways of doing business, don't work properly when everyo
234.
by hxa7241 16y ago
> Formalisms can be impractically formal. The level of precision required by machines is beyond even what most mathematicians are used to casually (i.e., pen and paper, or at a blackboard). If you had to do math like you write code, mat
235.
by hxa7241 16y ago
What makes 'natural language' 'natural' is not really the appearance, it is what it is used for . A natural language is one used for communicating between humans. It only works the way it does because of what is on the other end of it -- a
236.
by hxa7241 16y ago
1. Write for the computer 2. Write for the human
237.
by hxa7241 16y ago
You left out the set-up line: "Fundamentally, there are 10 things about software:"
238.
by hxa7241 16y ago
As Wittgenstein said, "language is a form of life" -- it is not just a system of encoding. But something like Photoshop filters for text style might be possible. You can imagine the cheesy use of, say, gothic-romanticising, like overdone HD
239.
by hxa7241 16y ago
OK, what I am saying is that the original statement only makes sense because it has an implication of maintaining coherence -- but it doesn't actually bring that important point out. It is not quite the simplifying, per se, that is diffic
240.
by hxa7241 16y ago
> it's easier to make a simple thing more complex than it is to make a complex thing more simple Ha, yes, sort-of. That seems immediately right, but when you consider it, it doesn't quite make sense, in those words. To make something mo

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