Re: Bob's 'Self-aggrandizing ignorant' Count: Was: What databases have taught me

From: Tony D <tonyisyourpal_at_netscape.net>
Date: 30 Jun 2006 15:53:53 -0700
Message-ID: <1151708033.246890.287960@d56g2000cwd.googlegroups.com>

Bruno Desthuilliers wrote:

> FWIW, I think this is just impossible. Computers are imperative. You
> need to tell them *how* to do anything.

Not necessarily: consider SKIM (a hardware implementation of the SK-combinator scheme), Norma (a graph reduction machine built by Burroughs in the mid-80s) and of course the Symbolics LISP machine.

> But I wholefully agree that, as
> application programmers, the less we have to worry about the how (given
> it is efficiently handled by well written, well test lower level code),
> the better.
>

Not much argument there.

[ snippage ] Received on Fri Jun 30 2006 - 17:53:53 CDT