Using a logic programming language (like Prolog) sometimes feels to me like a dream state, sort of like Frank describes. I use logic programming as a cognitive
aide as well as a computational aide. Asking, “How do the pieces fit together in a problem? What is independent and what is interdependent?” When I can’t get a problem into my head all at once (so often for me, sadly), logic or constraint languages help
to formally separate-out the invariants I am convinced about from the rest. A logic programming system lets one lean on brute force to find answers when things are complex and messy. However, lean on it too much, e.g. fail to build a mental model of the
costs of the underlying searches, or fail to find reasons to pin down variables, it is easy to get in unproductive mental loops (and long runtimes). I find it is especially risky in declarative languages since an appeal of using them in the first place is
to leave it to the computer and not get bogged down in the operational aspects of performing searches on particular data structures. Some nightmares are like that for me. It is less the facts of the dream being scary, but the fact that less than good
things keep happening and I am unable to act in a rational way to slow or stop them; I’m a powerless observer. I can’t stop myself and do the reductionism thing. In logic programming systems that means using debugger designed to watch the search underway
or using appropriate instrumentation to see what is going on in the solver.
In contrast, I do find assembly, C, or Fortran programming primal. Like a caveman having a club. Being primal has its place too.
Maybe there is a career for aging software developers as shrinks. They could help rationalize and treat their peers’ unique (?) pathologies?
From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]]
On Behalf Of Arlo Barnes
Sent: Friday, October 21, 2016 9:45 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Unix Nightmare
On Fri, Oct 21, 2016 at 8:00 PM, Steven A Smith <[hidden email]> wrote:
Prolog dreams involving natural language understanding, and eventually VR and mixed reality dreams. In fact the latter two I would say I still have, though they are polluted/mixed with myth-dreams based in various archetypal tropes.
I just finished reading Snow Crash for the first time and was struck by Hiro's (well, Lagos') assertion that programming languages are unlike contemporary natural languages (and for the purposes of the story, like Sumerian), that they access a more primal
part of the brain. I do not think this is true, but it is an interesting counterfactual reality to explore.
-Arlo James Barnes
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