...it's all just smoke and mirrors? Ultimately, any program running in 99% of the computers out there today is running the old fetch-execute cycle on a Von Neuman architecture: A processor fetches the next instruction, executes it, stores the result, and goes to the next instruction. Atop that, we've layered: Subroutines, Modules, Functional Programming, Structured Programming, Object-Orientation (Objects, Inheritance, Polymorphism, Composition/Aggregation), Closures, Atoms, Processes, Multithreading, Semaphores, etc. We're desperately trying to make the digital computer be more than the sum of its parts, just as a living human brain is somehow more than a collection of neurons and synapses. We *desperately* want abstractions...need them, in fact. That's the whole point of the progression from bare binary programming, through assembly, to high-level languages, etc.--abstraction. The speed and capacity of computers grows. The speed and capacity of the minds of progra...
Actually they did have samples - a greek salad composed of coloured peppers, vinaigrette, and goat cheees. Unfortunately I'm allergic to two of those three things and you were rubbing the maximum mini by found on road dead by that point so I didn't bother pointing it out. S'ok. usually they have nut bread when we walk so I wasn't expecting much anyway.
ReplyDeleteForgot all about that...yeah, the Ford Flex outside did catch my attention :-)
ReplyDeleteNothing like an overwrought station wagon with mediocre gas mileage that bastardizes styling cues from other vehicles (most notably, the Mini Clubman)