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HistoryHistory of Logic Programming: What went wrong, What was done about it, and What it might mean for the futureCarl Hewitt is speaking tomorrow at Stanford's CSLI CogLunch on the history of logic programming. A paper is here, so LtU readers can offer their perspectives on the argument. By Ehud Lamm at 2008-05-07 23:03 | History | Logic/Declarative | 25 comments | other blogs | 3275 reads
Scheme macro systems[Chicken-users] macro systems and chicken (long), Alex Shinn, Apr 2008.
A very nice post that provides a historical overview and implementations of a hygienic I didn't know syntactic closures before, and find their interface and implementation simple and easy to understand. Any reasons why they aren't used more in Scheme? An Interview with Robin MilnerBack in 2003, Martin Berger conducted a fairly lengthy interview with Robin Milner. The transcript includes some interesting tidbits on the development of ML, CCS, and the pi-calculus. Among other things, you'll find a recounting of how Milner and David Park came up with the idea of bisimulation, a discussion of the rationale behind some of the design decisions Milner and his colleagues made in creating the pi-calculus, and Milner's thoughts on how theory should influence programming languages:
By Allan McInnes at 2008-03-22 00:00 | History | login or register to post comments | other blogs | 2967 reads
History of Lambda-Calculus and Combinatory logic
F. Cardone and J. R. Hindley. History of Lambda-Calculus and Combinatory logic. To appear as a chapter in Volume 5 of the Handbook of the History of Logic.
From the introduction:
Seen in outline, the history of LC and CL splits into three main periods: first, several years of intensive and very fruitful study in the 1920s and ’30s; next, a middle period of nearly 30 years of relative quiet; then in the late 1960s an upsurge of activity stimulated by developments in higher-order function theory, by connections with programming languages, and by new technical discoveries. The fruits of the first period included the first-ever proof that predicate logic is undecidable. The results of the second attracted very little non-specialist interest, but included completeness, cut-elimination and standardization theorems (for example) that found many uses later. The achievements of the third, from the 1960s onward, included constructions and analyses of models, development of polymorphic type systems, deep analyses of the reduction process, and many others probably well known to the reader. The high level of activity of this period continues today. Beware: This is a long paper (but less than you might expect it to be by looking at the page count: about half the pages are dedicated to the bibliography). In the announcement on the TYPES Forum the authors invited comments, suggestions and additional information on the topics of the paper, namely the development of lambda-calculi and combinatory logic from the prehistory (Frege, Peano and Russell) to the end of 20th century. By Ehud Lamm at 2008-02-19 19:21 | History | Lambda Calculus | Type Theory | login or register to post comments | other blogs | 3377 reads
ACM Classic Books SeriesPaul McJones alerts us that the ACM posted PDF versions of some books in its Classic Books Series, which are available to anyone who creates a free ACM Web Account. Among the currently available books, LtU readers are likely to be particularly interested in Hoare and Jones's Essays in computing science, Adele Goldberg and David Robson's Smalltalk-80: the language and its implementation, and Dahl, Dijkstra, and Hoare's Structured programming. Long time readers will also know that I highly recommend Papert's Mindstorms: children, computers, and powerful ideas to anyone interested with the effect computers might have on education. Papert's Logo remains to this day the best children oriented programming language, but even if you disagree with me about this, his book is a must read. By Ehud Lamm at 2008-01-16 03:00 | History | Misc Books | Teaching & Learning | 2 comments | other blogs | 7438 reads
Why Did Symbolics Fail?Lemonodor has the story, and the links, starting with Dan Weinreb's blog post. Yes, Dan Weinreb has a blog, so if you weren't paying attention, now is the time to check it out! For me, the take home message is from Paul Graham: If the Lisp machines were so gratuitously, baroquely complex, I should really find the time to learn more about them... Happy new year, everyone! Avi Bryant: Ruby IS-A SmalltalkA short audio presentation (Avi speaks for less than ten minutes, I guess), about the lessons the Ruby community should learn from Smalltalk. It's mainly about turtles-all-the-way-down, but Self (fast VMs), GemStone (transactional distributed persistence), Seaside (web frameworks) are also mentioned briefly. By Ehud Lamm at 2007-12-12 03:59 | History | Implementation | OOP | Ruby | 39 comments | other blogs | 6565 reads
On the origins of Bisimulation, Coinduction, and Fixed PointsDavide Sangiorgi, On the origins of Bisimulation, Coinduction, and Fixed Points.
There is a wealth of interesting information in this paper. Alas, it is not very easy to read, and the exposition can be improved. So this is not for beginners or outsiders, but if you are familiar with the topic the historical discussion will be of interest. Gödel, Nagel, minds and machines Solomon Feferman. Gödel, Nagel, minds and machines. Ernest Nagel Lecture, Columbia University, Sept. 27, 2007.
This is not directly PLT related, and more philosophical than what we usually discuss on LtU, but I think it will be of interest to some members of the community. While the historical details are interesting, I am not sure I agree with the analysis. It would be interesting to here what others make of this. To make this item slightly more relevant to LtU, let me point out that both the LC and category theory are mentioned (although they are really discussed only in the references). By Ehud Lamm at 2007-10-25 23:46 | General | History | Lambda Calculus | 62 comments | other blogs | 5549 reads
R6RS ValidatedR6RS has been ratified, with approximately 2/3rds of voters in favour. |
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