"One of the sad memories of my life is a visit to the celebrated mathematician and inventor, Mr Babbage. He was far advanced in age, but his mind was still as vigorous as ever. He took me through his work-rooms. In the first room I saw parts of the original Calculating Machine, which had been shown in an incomplete state many years before and had even been put to some use. I asked him about its present form. 'I have not finished it because in working at it I came on the idea of my Analytical Machine, which would do all that it was capable of doing and much more. Indeed, the idea was so much simpler that it would have taken more work to complete the Calculating Machine than to design and construct the other in its entirety, so I turned my attention to the Analytical Machine.'"
"After a few minutes' talk, we went into the next work-room, where he showed and explained to me the working of the elements of the Analytical Machine. I asked if I could see it. 'I have never completed it,' he said, 'because I hit upon an idea of doing the same thing by a different and far more effective method, and this rendered it useless to proceed on the old lines.' Then we went into the third room. There lay scattered bits of mechanism, but I saw no trace of any working machine. Very cautiously I approached the subject, and received the dreaded answer, 'It is not constructed yet, but I am working on it, and it will take less time to construct it altogether than it would have token to complete the Analytical Machine from the stage in which I left it.' I took leave of the old man with a heavy heart."
-- Lord Moulton -- Marcus Denker -- denker@iam.unibe.ch http://www.iam.unibe.ch/~denker
Um...Amen!? I have, in the past several years, sort of moved from a Myers-Briggs ENFP, which likes to start things but gets bored and does not finish, to an ENFJ, which says "let's make a decision and do it!"
So my question is, what is the problem that you think should be worked on that prompted you to send this? Or, rather, what are the unfinished machines you refer to?
Thanks...they will like this at work (Six Sigma...process improvement...focus on a well defined problem...scope creep...etc...)
Rob
On Sun, Mar 30, 2008 at 4:09 PM, Marcus Denker denker@iam.unibe.ch wrote:
"One of the sad memories of my life is a visit to the celebrated mathematician and inventor, Mr Babbage. He was far advanced in age, but his mind was still as vigorous as ever. He took me through his work-rooms. In the first room I saw parts of the original Calculating Machine, which had been shown in an incomplete state many years before and had even been put to some use. I asked him about its present form. 'I have not finished it because in working at it I came on the idea of my Analytical Machine, which would do all that it was capable of doing and much more. Indeed, the idea was so much simpler that it would have taken more work to complete the Calculating Machine than to design and construct the other in its entirety, so I turned my attention to the Analytical Machine.'"
"After a few minutes' talk, we went into the next work-room, where he showed and explained to me the working of the elements of the Analytical Machine. I asked if I could see it. 'I have never completed it,' he said, 'because I hit upon an idea of doing the same thing by a different and far more effective method, and this rendered it useless to proceed on the old lines.' Then we went into the third room. There lay scattered bits of mechanism, but I saw no trace of any working machine. Very cautiously I approached the subject, and received the dreaded answer, 'It is not constructed yet, but I am working on it, and it will take less time to construct it altogether than it would have token to complete the Analytical Machine from the stage in which I left it.' I took leave of the old man with a heavy heart."
-- LordMoulton
Marcus Denker -- denker@iam.unibe.ch http://www.iam.unibe.ch/~denker
On 30.03.2008, at 22:18, Rob Rothwell wrote:
Um...Amen!?
I have, in the past several years, sort of moved from a Myers-Briggs ENFP, which likes to start things but gets bored and does not finish, to an ENFJ, which says "let's make a decision and do it!"
So my question is, what is the problem that you think should be worked on that prompted you to send this?
Or, rather, what are the unfinished machines you refer to?
Well, Marcus would have to answer that himself. But there are a lot on unfinished projects around Squeak, like the half dozen or so GUI builders, and you can certainly think of more. OTOH this problem is not specific to Squeak, it is just the reality of a lot of unpaid development work which people do for fun, a.k.a. CADT:
http://www.jwz.org/doc/cadt.html
- Bert -
Bert,
Please, could you be more concrete, what means: "people do for fun"? (CADT - is not an explanation ..as it is joking) I could argue that the all significant projects were doing by people not for getting "fun" from the "developement or any other process" (aka "masturbation", if seriously), but with the generous, unselfish ideas of "changing the around world" and continuing themeselves in project's "childs". Don't think that all people just working for money or for "fun" while eating chocolate, gaming and drinking beer after work.. and believe, that nothing "fun" for the rest of the world couldn't be expected from such work (paid or unpaid)..
Best regards, Nikolay Suslov
On Mon, Mar 31, 2008 at 10:13 AM, Bert Freudenberg bert@freudenbergs.de wrote:
Well, Marcus would have to answer that himself. But there are a lot on unfinished projects around Squeak, like the half dozen or so GUI builders, and you can certainly think of more. OTOH this problem is not specific to Squeak, it is just the reality of a lot of unpaid development work which people do for fun, a.k.a. CADT:
http://www.jwz.org/doc/cadt.html
- Bert -
On 31.03.2008, at 17:10, Nikolay Suslov wrote:
Bert,
Please, could you be more concrete, what means: "people do for fun"? (CADT - is not an explanation ..as it is joking) I could argue that the all significant projects were doing by people not for getting "fun" from the "developement or any other process" (aka "masturbation", if seriously), but with the generous, unselfish ideas of "changing the around world" and continuing themeselves in project's "childs". Don't think that all people just working for money or for "fun" while eating chocolate, gaming and drinking beer after work.. and believe, that nothing "fun" for the rest of the world couldn't be expected from such work (paid or unpaid)..
I was not implying that - I was referring to the many abandoned projects, not the active, flourishing ones. Again, Marcus would have to be more specific what specifically he had in mind. One example of "the perfect is the enemy of the good" are the series of JIT compiler implementations, none of which were finished, so Squeak still pretty much has the same interpreter it had ten years ago. The positive way of expressing CADT would be "burn the disk packs" and in particular in a research environment that is indeed the best you can do. It's simply a different motivation - do you build to have, or do you build to know? The latter does not require completion to be successful.
- Bert -
Best regards, Nikolay Suslov
On Mon, Mar 31, 2008 at 10:13 AM, Bert Freudenberg <bert@freudenbergs.de
wrote:
Well, Marcus would have to answer that himself. But there are a lot on unfinished projects around Squeak, like the half dozen or so GUI builders, and you can certainly think of more. OTOH this problem is not specific to Squeak, it is just the reality of a lot of unpaid development work which people do for fun, a.k.a. CADT:
http://www.jwz.org/doc/cadt.html
- Bert -
Bert Freudenberg wrote:
I was not implying that - I was referring to the many abandoned projects, not the active, flourishing ones. Again, Marcus would have to be more specific what specifically he had in mind. One example of "the perfect is the enemy of the good" are the series of JIT compiler implementations, none of which were finished, so Squeak still pretty much has the same interpreter it had ten years ago.
Uhm, isn't *that* just a precise argument to the opposite? Incremental improvements instead of half-finished research projects? Instead of rewriting the VM everytime and not quite finishing it ever, the speed f the VM has doubled over the last ten years:
0 tinyBenchmarks; Squeak1.1: '82740788 bytecodes/sec; 3818244 sends/sec'
0 tinyBenchmarks; Squeak3.8: '191760299 bytecodes/sec; 5460228 sends/sec'
Coincidentally, some of these improvements (like the at-cache) are direct results of the more researchy efforts.
Cheers, - Andreas
The positive way of expressing CADT would be "burn the disk packs" and in particular in a research environment that is indeed the best you can do. It's simply a different motivation - do you build to have, or do you build to know? The latter does not require completion to be successful.
- Bert -
Best regards, Nikolay Suslov
On Mon, Mar 31, 2008 at 10:13 AM, Bert Freudenberg bert@freudenbergs.de wrote:
Well, Marcus would have to answer that himself. But there are a lot on unfinished projects around Squeak, like the half dozen or so GUI builders, and you can certainly think of more. OTOH this problem is not specific to Squeak, it is just the reality of a lot of unpaid development work which people do for fun, a.k.a. CADT:
http://www.jwz.org/doc/cadt.html
- Bert -
On 01.04.2008, at 11:44, Andreas Raab wrote:
Bert Freudenberg wrote:
I was not implying that - I was referring to the many abandoned projects, not the active, flourishing ones. Again, Marcus would have to be more specific what specifically he had in mind. One example of "the perfect is the enemy of the good" are the series of JIT compiler implementations, none of which were finished, so Squeak still pretty much has the same interpreter it had ten years ago.
Uhm, isn't *that* just a precise argument to the opposite? Incremental improvements instead of half-finished research projects?
Err, I think you read me backwards, or I was imprecise. Yes, that is exactly the argument for incremental improvement. The Squeak VM is quite fast for a pure interpreter.
What we will never know is if the first Jitter had been incrementally improved rather than being abandoned like all its successors, it may have surpassed the current interpreter performance by far. The downside is that it would inherently be much more complex - the interpreter strikes a nice balance here.
Anyway, we seem to agree that incremental improvements is precisely what gets you usable near-term pink-plane results, and I think that was the gist of Marcus' message, too.
- Bert -
Instead of rewriting the VM everytime and not quite finishing it ever, the speed f the VM has doubled over the last ten years:
0 tinyBenchmarks; Squeak1.1: '82740788 bytecodes/sec; 3818244 sends/sec'
0 tinyBenchmarks; Squeak3.8: '191760299 bytecodes/sec; 5460228 sends/sec'
Coincidentally, some of these improvements (like the at-cache) are direct results of the more researchy efforts.
Cheers,
- Andreas
The positive way of expressing CADT would be "burn the disk packs" and in particular in a research environment that is indeed the best you can do. It's simply a different motivation - do you build to have, or do you build to know? The latter does not require completion to be successful.
- Bert -
Best regards, Nikolay Suslov
On Mon, Mar 31, 2008 at 10:13 AM, Bert Freudenberg <bert@freudenbergs.de
wrote:
Well, Marcus would have to answer that himself. But there are a lot on unfinished projects around Squeak, like the half dozen or so GUI builders, and you can certainly think of more. OTOH this problem is not specific to Squeak, it is just the reality of a lot of unpaid development work which people do for fun, a.k.a. CADT:
http://www.jwz.org/doc/cadt.html
- Bert -
Anyway, we seem to agree that incremental improvements is precisely what gets you usable near-term pink-plane results, and I think that was the gist of Marcus' message, too.
- Bert -
This is the anticipation of value effect Kent Beck mention in its books. The unit tests help to make incremental improvments and anticipate value. For a company could be value delivered so customer satisfaction and $$ in the other hand for an open software community it would be motivation for volunteers/users.
It's good we talk about our volunteering economy because we are not a big number of people so we must embrace and understood efficiency in this regard,
Sebastian
Bert Freudenberg wrote:
What we will never know is if the first Jitter had been incrementally improved rather than being abandoned like all its successors, it may have surpassed the current interpreter performance by far. The downside is that it would inherently be much more complex - the interpreter strikes a nice balance here.
The first jitter had the advantage of being cross-platform, but as I had predicted it only improved performance by around 50% which is less than what we got by making the interpreter better. The second jitter (known as Jitter3) was actually finished as far as I can tell. There was still some stuff to be done, but it was no worse in that regard than Unicode or Traits support in current Squeak. There simply was not enough interest for it to be adopted.
And since it was finished, you can download it (get Squeak 2.3) and run some benchmarks (in Linux machines, at least). Here are the numbers on this machine (3GHz Pentium 4):
2.3 image and normal 2.3 VM - 62,500,000 bytecodes/sec; 4,591,325 sends/sec 2.3 image and Jitter3 VM - 100,000,000 bytecodes/sec; 10,494,459 sends/sec 3.9 image and 3.7 VM - 160,602,258 bytecodes/sec; 7,292,693 sends/sec
The Jitter3 numbers varied wildly, but even the more stable numbers for the normal 2.3 VM are very suspect. The problem is that the old image didn't expect such a fast machine and doesn't seem to loop enough times. But the point is that the code is out there and we can actually run it.
-- Jecel
Marcus Denker wrote:
"One of the sad memories of my life is a visit to the celebrated mathematician and inventor, Mr Babbage. He was far advanced in age, but his mind was still as vigorous as ever. He took me through his work-rooms. In the first room I saw parts of the original Calculating Machine, which had been shown in an incomplete state many years before and had even been put to some use. I asked him about its present form. 'I have not finished it because in working at it I came on the idea of my Analytical Machine, which would do all that it was capable of doing and much more. Indeed, the idea was so much simpler that it would have taken more work to complete the Calculating Machine than to design and construct the other in its entirety, so I turned my attention to the Analytical Machine.'"
"After a few minutes' talk, we went into the next work-room, where he showed and explained to me the working of the elements of the Analytical Machine. I asked if I could see it. 'I have never completed it,' he said, 'because I hit upon an idea of doing the same thing by a different and far more effective method, and this rendered it useless to proceed on the old lines.' Then we went into the third room. There lay scattered bits of mechanism, but I saw no trace of any working machine. Very cautiously I approached the subject, and received the dreaded answer, 'It is not constructed yet, but I am working on it, and it will take less time to construct it altogether than it would have token to complete the Analytical Machine from the stage in which I left it.' I took leave of the old man with a heavy heart."
-- Lord Moulton
Marcus Denker -- denker@iam.unibe.ch http://www.iam.unibe.ch/~denker
Made me think of the story of John Harrison, but he succeeded... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Harrison
Karl
On Mar 31, 2008, at 12:49 AM, karl wrote:
Marcus Denker wrote:
"One of the sad memories of my life is a visit to the celebrated mathematician and inventor, Mr Babbage. He was far advanced in age, but his mind was still as vigorous as ever. He took me through his work-rooms. In the first room I saw parts of the original Calculating Machine, which had been shown in an incomplete state many years before and had even been put to some use. I asked him about its present form. 'I have not finished it because in working at it I came on the idea of my Analytical Machine, which would do all that it was capable of doing and much more. Indeed, the idea was so much simpler that it would have taken more work to complete the Calculating Machine than to design and construct the other in its entirety, so I turned my attention to the Analytical Machine.'"
"After a few minutes' talk, we went into the next work-room, where he showed and explained to me the working of the elements of the Analytical Machine. I asked if I could see it. 'I have never completed it,' he said, 'because I hit upon an idea of doing the same thing by a different and far more effective method, and this rendered it useless to proceed on the old lines.' Then we went into the third room. There lay scattered bits of mechanism, but I saw no trace of any working machine. Very cautiously I approached the subject, and received the dreaded answer, 'It is not constructed yet, but I am working on it, and it will take less time to construct it altogether than it would have token to complete the Analytical Machine from the stage in which I left it.' I took leave of the old man with a heavy heart."
-- Lord Moulton
Marcus Denker -- denker@iam.unibe.ch http://www.iam.unibe.ch/~denker
Made me think of the story of John Harrison, but he succeeded... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Harrison
Except that he did not succeed mostly because of administration and financial problems.
Karl
Mth
Hello...
I can't help the feeling that this is derogatory of the work of Babbage on the grounds that he never completed anything. I thought that without knowing the specifics, it's easy to dismiss the fact that Babbage was trying to do what had not been achieved before. Moreover, I think it is just as easy to miss the fact that we enjoy about 150 years of efficiencies gained in our work processes that were not available at his time.
I suspected there was something wrong here, particularly from what I had studied about history of mathematics, so I did a little research. From Wikipedia, we find out the following...
"*Charles Babbage* FRS http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Society (26 December http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/December_26 1791 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1791 London http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London, England http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/England – 18 October http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_18 1871 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1871 Marylebone http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marylebone, London http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London, England http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/England ^[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Babbage#cite_note-0 ) was an English http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/England mathematician http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematician, philosopher http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosopher, and mechanical engineer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_engineer who originated the idea of a programmable computer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer. Parts of his uncompleted mechanisms are on display in the London Science Museum http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Science_Museum. In 1991 a perfectly functioning difference engine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Difference_engine was constructed from Babbage's original plans. Built to tolerances achievable in the 19th century, the success of the finished engine indicated that Babbage's machine would have worked. Nine years later, the Science Museum completed the printer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_printer Babbage had designed for the difference engine, an astonishingly complex device for the 19th century. Babbage is credited with inventing the first mechanical computer that eventually led to more complex designs."
In particular,
"In 1991 a perfectly functioning difference engine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Difference_engine was constructed from Babbage's original plans. Built to tolerances achievable in the 19th century, the success of the finished engine indicated that Babbage's machine would have worked."
Really?...
But it gets better. Furthermore,
"Soon after the attempt at making the difference engine crumbled, Babbage started designing a different, more complex machine called the Analytical Engine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytical_Engine. The engine is not a single physical machine but a succession of designs that he tinkered with until his death in 1871. The main difference between the two engines is that the Analytical Engine could be programmed using punch cards http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punch_cards, an idea unheard of in his time. He realized that programs could be put on similar cards so the person had to only create the program initially, and then put the cards in the machine and let it run. The analytical engine was also proposed to use loops of Jacquard http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacquard_loom's punched cards to control a mechanical calculator, which could formulate results based on the results of preceding computations. This machine was also intended to employ several features subsequently used in modern computers, including sequential control, branching, and looping, and would have been the first mechanical device to be Turing-complete http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing-complete."
From this, it would appear to be that Lord Moulton missed the point. I wouldn't blame him for that.
Andres.
PS: either the 1870 or 1880 US census was the first one done with the assistance of punched cards. IIRC, it was the 1880 one.
Marcus Denker wrote:
"One of the sad memories of my life is a visit to the celebrated mathematician and inventor, Mr Babbage. He was far advanced in age, but his mind was still as vigorous as ever. He took me through his work-rooms. In the first room I saw parts of the original Calculating Machine, which had been shown in an incomplete state many years before and had even been put to some use. I asked him about its present form. 'I have not finished it because in working at it I came on the idea of my Analytical Machine, which would do all that it was capable of doing and much more. Indeed, the idea was so much simpler that it would have taken more work to complete the Calculating Machine than to design and construct the other in its entirety, so I turned my attention to the Analytical Machine.'"
"After a few minutes' talk, we went into the next work-room, where he showed and explained to me the working of the elements of the Analytical Machine. I asked if I could see it. 'I have never completed it,' he said, 'because I hit upon an idea of doing the same thing by a different and far more effective method, and this rendered it useless to proceed on the old lines.' Then we went into the third room. There lay scattered bits of mechanism, but I saw no trace of any working machine. Very cautiously I approached the subject, and received the dreaded answer, 'It is not constructed yet, but I am working on it, and it will take less time to construct it altogether than it would have token to complete the Analytical Machine from the stage in which I left it.' I took leave of the old man with a heavy heart."
-- Lord Moulton
Marcus Denker -- denker@iam.unibe.ch http://www.iam.unibe.ch/~denker
The printer also worked...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/710950.stm
Andres.
Andres Valloud wrote:
Hello...
I can't help the feeling that this is derogatory of the work of Babbage on the grounds that he never completed anything. I thought that without knowing the specifics, it's easy to dismiss the fact that Babbage was trying to do what had not been achieved before. Moreover, I think it is just as easy to miss the fact that we enjoy about 150 years of efficiencies gained in our work processes that were not available at his time.
I suspected there was something wrong here, particularly from what I had studied about history of mathematics, so I did a little research. From Wikipedia, we find out the following...
"*Charles Babbage* FRS http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Society (26 December http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/December_26 1791 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1791 London http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London, England http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/England – 18 October http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_18 1871 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1871 Marylebone http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marylebone, London http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London, England http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/England ^[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Babbage#cite_note-0 ) was an English http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/England mathematician http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematician, philosopher http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosopher, and mechanical engineer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_engineer who originated the idea of a programmable computer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer. Parts of his uncompleted mechanisms are on display in the London Science Museum http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Science_Museum. In 1991 a perfectly functioning difference engine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Difference_engine was constructed from Babbage's original plans. Built to tolerances achievable in the 19th century, the success of the finished engine indicated that Babbage's machine would have worked. Nine years later, the Science Museum completed the printer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_printer Babbage had designed for the difference engine, an astonishingly complex device for the 19th century. Babbage is credited with inventing the first mechanical computer that eventually led to more complex designs."
In particular,
"In 1991 a perfectly functioning difference engine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Difference_engine was constructed from Babbage's original plans. Built to tolerances achievable in the 19th century, the success of the finished engine indicated that Babbage's machine would have worked."
Really?...
But it gets better. Furthermore,
"Soon after the attempt at making the difference engine crumbled, Babbage started designing a different, more complex machine called the Analytical Engine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytical_Engine. The engine is not a single physical machine but a succession of designs that he tinkered with until his death in 1871. The main difference between the two engines is that the Analytical Engine could be programmed using punch cards http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punch_cards, an idea unheard of in his time. He realized that programs could be put on similar cards so the person had to only create the program initially, and then put the cards in the machine and let it run. The analytical engine was also proposed to use loops of Jacquard http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacquard_loom's punched cards to control a mechanical calculator, which could formulate results based on the results of preceding computations. This machine was also intended to employ several features subsequently used in modern computers, including sequential control, branching, and looping, and would have been the first mechanical device to be Turing-complete http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing-complete."
From this, it would appear to be that Lord Moulton missed the point. I wouldn't blame him for that.
Andres.
PS: either the 1870 or 1880 US census was the first one done with the assistance of punched cards. IIRC, it was the 1880 one.
Marcus Denker wrote:
"One of the sad memories of my life is a visit to the celebrated mathematician and inventor, Mr Babbage. He was far advanced in age, but his mind was still as vigorous as ever. He took me through his work-rooms. In the first room I saw parts of the original Calculating Machine, which had been shown in an incomplete state many years before and had even been put to some use. I asked him about its present form. 'I have not finished it because in working at it I came on the idea of my Analytical Machine, which would do all that it was capable of doing and much more. Indeed, the idea was so much simpler that it would have taken more work to complete the Calculating Machine than to design and construct the other in its entirety, so I turned my attention to the Analytical Machine.'"
"After a few minutes' talk, we went into the next work-room, where he showed and explained to me the working of the elements of the Analytical Machine. I asked if I could see it. 'I have never completed it,' he said, 'because I hit upon an idea of doing the same thing by a different and far more effective method, and this rendered it useless to proceed on the old lines.' Then we went into the third room. There lay scattered bits of mechanism, but I saw no trace of any working machine. Very cautiously I approached the subject, and received the dreaded answer, 'It is not constructed yet, but I am working on it, and it will take less time to construct it altogether than it would have token to complete the Analytical Machine from the stage in which I left it.' I took leave of the old man with a heavy heart."
-- Lord Moulton
Marcus Denker -- denker@iam.unibe.ch http://www.iam.unibe.ch/~denker
Speaking of those machines, folks who are near Mountain View, California, USA on 2008-05-01 should come see Babbage's Difference Engine #2 in all its functioning, five-ton glory. :)
http://www.computerhistory.org/events/index.php?id=1206647564
-C
-- Craig Latta improvisational musical informaticist www.netjam.org Smalltalkers do: [:it | All with: Class, (And love: it)]
Hi Marcus,
this makes think about a challenge for our community (and I bet is not restricted to squeak). I mean to reach the point of finishing our projects like in manufacturing or woodwork being a hard stage to reach.
I see development software as a never ending story but exactly for that reason we need smart milestones. And those milestones will help more if they are defined by real value achievements. By real value I mean real people having real benefits. Nothing is more encouraging and motivational than that. On the contrary, the lack of yield of real value produces erotion of any motivation.
In comercial projects this is obviously mapping to a cashflow and peoject's ROI but I see it also apply to non comercial projects as I noted.
So this brings another important question: which criteria we should prioritize to decide milestones? How do we achieve the win-win-win for our projects?
Marcus you bring us a very relevant discussion and reflection,
thanks!
Sebastian Sastre
-----Mensaje original----- De: squeak-dev-bounces@lists.squeakfoundation.org [mailto:squeak-dev-bounces@lists.squeakfoundation.org] En nombre de Marcus Denker Enviado el: Domingo, 30 de Marzo de 2008 17:09 Para: The general-purpose Squeak developers list Asunto: [squeak-dev] The Old Man
"One of the sad memories of my life is a visit to the celebrated mathematician and inventor, Mr Babbage. He was far advanced in age, but his mind was still as vigorous as ever. He took me through his work-rooms. In the first room I saw parts of the original Calculating Machine, which had been shown in an incomplete state many years before and had even been put to some use. I asked him about its present form. 'I have not finished it because in working at it I came on the idea of my Analytical Machine, which would do all that it was capable of doing and much more. Indeed, the idea was so much simpler that it would have taken more work to complete the Calculating Machine than to design and construct the other in its entirety, so I turned my attention to the Analytical Machine.'"
"After a few minutes' talk, we went into the next work-room, where he showed and explained to me the working of the elements of the Analytical Machine. I asked if I could see it. 'I have never completed it,' he said, 'because I hit upon an idea of doing the same thing by a different and far more effective method, and this rendered it useless to proceed on the old lines.' Then we went into the third room. There lay scattered bits of mechanism, but I saw no trace of any working machine. Very cautiously I approached the subject, and received the dreaded answer, 'It is not constructed yet, but I am working on it, and it will take less time to construct it altogether than it would have token to complete the Analytical Machine from the stage in which I left it.' I took leave of the old man with a heavy heart."
-- Lord Moulton
Marcus Denker -- denker@iam.unibe.ch http://www.iam.unibe.ch/~denker
On Mon, 31 Mar 2008 13:09:15 +0200, Sebastian Sastre wrote:
...
Marcus you bring us a very relevant discussion and reflection,
...
And an implicit question: after the "next" machine (Turing machine, VM, project, etc) had been built, what would be the next one? Is there an end somewhere or, will it be transcendent (like the meta objectioneers do it :)
/Klaus
And an implicit question: after the "next" machine (Turing machine, VM, project, etc) had been built, what would be the next one? Is there an end somewhere or, will it be transcendent (like the meta objectioneers do it :)
Make it smaller :-)
Alan Kay is working on this in the STEPS project: http://www.vpri.org/pdf/steps_TR-2007-008.pdf (4.4 Mb)
From page 4: "We think students are interested because this project seems new and a little unusual, and the business folk because the aim is to reduce the amount of code needed to make systems by a factor of 100, 1000, 10,000 or more."
R -
On Mon, 31 Mar 2008 15:39:50 +0200, Reinout Heeck wrote:
And an implicit question: after the "next" machine (Turing machine, VM, project, etc) had been built, what would be the next one? Is there an end somewhere or, will it be transcendent (like the meta objectioneers do it :)
Make it smaller :-)
:)
Might this be the motivation for "there's never enough time to do something right but, there's alway enough time to do it all over again,"
- http://images.google.com/images?q=blank+cheque
Alan Kay is working on this in the STEPS project: http://www.vpri.org/pdf/steps_TR-2007-008.pdf (4.4 Mb)
From page 4: "We think students are interested because this project seems new and a little unusual, and the business folk because the aim is to reduce the amount of code needed to make systems by a factor of 100, 1000, 10,000 or more."
R
Mr Babbage's personality, though the cause of the problem that left Lord Moulton so sad, was also the very thing that allowed such fantastic projects to be attempted at all. I see such "defects" in myself and personally know a couple more people like that. I also know a few more who see themselves as misunderstood geniuses but who are really plain crazy. Hardly anybody seems to be able to tell them apart.
-- Jecel
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