Tag: Programming

2008 IEEE Jon Von Neumann Award Winner: Leslie Lamport

Via IEEE Bios:

Leslie Lamport’s pioneering work in distributed and concurrent algorithms has improved numerous consumer and industrial computing systems. The result of his work can be found in multi-processor technology such as very-large-scale-integration (VLSI) semiconductors and multi-computer networks used in aircraft control systems. Since 2001 he has been at the Microsoft Research Silicon Valley Center, where he is a principal researcher. Prior to that, Dr. Lamport spent 16 years as a researcher at Digital Equipment Corporation (later Compaq Corporation). There he developed the Temporal Logic of Actions (TLA) system, a toolset for mechanical verification that is used to describe the behaviors of concurrent systems. Dr. Lamport developed several well-known concurrent and distributed algorithms, including solutions for Byzantine Fault Tolerance. The algorithm is a method of prevention against Byzantine Failure, in which a component of a system behaves erroneously while failing to behave consistently when interacting with multiple other components in the system. During his career, he has authored or co-authored nearly 150 publications on concurrent and distributed computing and their applications. One of his most notable papers, “Time, Clocks, and the Ordering of Events in a Distributed System,” still ranks as one of the most important and influential papers in computer science. He is a past recipient of the IEEE Emanuel R. Piore Award, the Edsger W. Dijkstra Prize in Distributed Computing and the influential paper award at the Principles of Distributed Computing Conference. Dr. Lamport holds a bachelor’s degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, as well as a masters and doctorate from Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts.

(via this pdf)

Analogies are a bridge

Analogies are often used to introduce folks to new ideas, introducing them not directly, but through comparison and inference. This seems to work well in all areas, including technical. The risk in using them in technical matters, though, is that person will never move past the analogy and into the realm of accurately understanding the subject matter.
For a long time, I very much disliked analogies. Perhaps this was due to bad personal experiences in my study path with them, or alternately, hearing other folks go on and on about how “such and such is just like such and such” when that is simply not the case. In the past year, though, three interesting things have happened.
The first is that I’ve chatted with someone, who is very level headed and takes the time to talk through his point of view, who is a proponent of analogies.
The second is that I’ve taken a much closer look at how people teach, and, they certainly don’t do it by throwing their students into the deep end.
The third is that I visited a foreign country where it was clear to me that it wasn’t just the language, but just about everything, that I didn’t understand. On the trip I had the experience of analogies about “how things work” in the country just keep popping into my head. It was the strangest thing, but it was interesting, too, because I finally realized the role of analogies:
Analogies are a helpful bridge, that you must cross. If you stay there, you will never get to where you really want to be.

On Lisp

During my vacation, I skimmed Paul Graham’s book On Lisp. There were many interesting bits in there:

  • He really tries to “sell the wonder of Lisp”. I’m not sure is possible, though.
  • “Users prefer double edged swords to blunt ones”
  • I think that he loves Scheme, but uses CL for practical reasons.
  • He digs deep into code, heavily visiting macros and even implementing continuations, non-determinism, and an object system
  • He is probably a world-class hacker who will never be recognized for his talent, but instead his success
  • This is probably not a good “first Common Lisp book” as it is very deep stuff

The 90 Minute Scheme to C compiler

90 minute video presentation from Marc Feeley, along with accompanying PowerPoint slides and source code, for a Scheme to C compiler. Good discussion of continuations and closures, as well as some dipping into the area of compiler construction.

I didn’t work through this but it looks like it might be a fun project to undertake (I’ll add it to the list).
(via LtU)