Reflecting on reflective computing.

[Christopher Barry]

David Jeske wrote:
> 
> On Thu, Oct 22, 1998 at 02:37:03PM -0700, Christopher Barry wrote:
> > And after downloading the Tunes "source code" and reading up on a lot of
> > the archives, it appears that the tools and language theory to develop
> > this thing still don't exist. I can't believe that there are message
> > archives dated back to 1994, and that how Tunes will handle and do very
> > fundamental things still isn't understood or specified yet and still
> > discussed, nonetheless certainly not prototyped with working code.
> 
> It is true that so far Tunes has not been focused on implementation.
> 
> > To make really cool OO system is certainly possible, but to have it
> > incorporate *every* miracle feature you guys discuss I doubt is possible
> > with current technologies. It's seems an analogy for this would be like
> > trying to write 90s software technology like Linux or Netscape back in
> > the 60s by toggling it into the front panel of a mainframe in machine
> > code (and assuming for analogy's sake that the 60s computer could run
> > the 90s code, since today's computers can run what you guys want, but
> > it's as though you have 1960s tools to make it with relatively).
> 
> It's not just a "really cool OO system". Tunes is following the trend
> of software abstraction to it's logical extreme. Hopefully, when
> enough people (on this list or elsewhere) have enough stuff figured
> out we can take a few steps back from the ideal and come up with an
> implementation.
> 
> Tunes, more than anything else, is proof that there is some convergent
> goal out there just beyond the horizon. Many of the people on the
> Tunes list developed their ideas on their own, and while many of the
> discussions on this list are filled with nitpicking discussions over
> semantics, or approach, we each have a private version of the same
> vision stirring in our heads, knawing at us. Something we know is
> achievable, if we can just put the right pieces together.
> 
> THAT is Tunes.
> 
> > And you guys have got little fruit to show for for quite a few years
> > effort, IMO. Unless real coding that won't eventually require a 100%
> > rewrite starts Real Soon Now. But the Tunes documentation (my apologies
> > if it's insanely out of date, but this is isn't indicated) indicates you
> > guys don't have any Clue of the nitty gritty of the system, and not much
> > of a Clue about how many fundamental aspects can even roughly be
> > realistically implemented.
> 
> There is really not much point in visiting a group of people, and
> telling them all they are confused. It serves little purpose except to
> erupt into pointless argument. Fortunatly, I'm not easily (or ever)
> riled.
>

Looking back at that it seemed a little trollish, and I didn't mean to
sound that way, and am sorry. But what you guys want to do is
sooooooooooooooo ambitious. I was in a way suggesting a more immediate
goal with my entire reply that could directly help with getting a
working Tunes implementation.
 
> To counter your point, there certainly is fruit to the Tunes
> labor. First off, Tunes saught out to sketch a map of software
> strategies. The review part of the Tunes project has largly achieved
> this goal. There is certainly alot of information gathered during this
> which is either buried in the mailing list archives, or in people's
> heads, however, information was gathered. The review pages most list
> the stopping points along the way.
> 
> Second, Tunes is trying to map out what working with a computer
> could be like if, instead of being limited by what you _can_ do, you
> were limited by what you could _think of_.
> 
> Last, and probably most importantly, Tunes (and the documentation
> pages) have served as a discussion list and sticking post for all
> these convergence ideas I talked about above to settle together in one
> place.
> 
> If you are looking for a finished project, or even some group of
> people who think they have it all figured out, you are looking in the
> wrong place.
> 
> If you are here to tell us all that you really just want a better
> version of gcc, you again, are looking in the wrong place.
> 
> If you are interested to know why a group of intelligent and capable
> people have converged to share their ideas on what computing could and
> should be like, then stay a while... you might learn something.
> 
> Open your mind, and read on...
> 
> > Yes, these three could always use some work until the very processes
> > themselves are made obsolete when the computer is intelligent enough to
> > do it for us. I don't see Tunes as directly a step towards this end,
> > because I think implementation of intelligent algorithms and the
> > improvement of language and compiler technology itself through the
> > implementation of these intelligent algorithms is the most important
> > thing, and actually probably a nessecary first if you guys wish to have
> > what you need to create Tunes.
> 
> The trend you speak of above is only possible when these "intelligent
> algorithms" can become 100% equivilant to a human thinker. Only then
> would a computer be able to read through software manuals, talk to
> other somputers, and figure out how in the heck it's supposed to make
> some software do what it wants.
> 

Yes, I never implied that we could have computers write the software for
us otherwise. But I do believe that this the best goal, and that
incremental steps can be made towards this goal and that the best way to
to make these steps is not nessecarily 100% in agreement with the ideals
of Tunes.

> The idea of Tunes is that if we change the nature of the system, and
> how pieces of software are described to the world, we can allow
> computers to perform much more useful tasks, with much less work. Some
> of us might even argue that a Tunes-like approach may end up as a
> necessary prerequisite to a system any of us would call intelligent.
> 

How would you argue that Tunes is a necessary prerequisite though, I'm
curious. This could get very confusing and technical very quickly. I
would argue that intelligent components and algorithms and compiler
technology are a necessary prerequisite to the Tunes system. Chicken and
egg.

> I wish I could find the original Tunes 'example problem', about the
> "cd database", however, I can't. Can someone else provide the URL.
>

Yes, I'd like to see this.
 
> However, the idea behind Tunes is that there is a heck of alot of
> stuff that computers are capable of doing, which are far from easily
> expressable. I know this isn't going to give you a very nice happy
> feeling of understanding. Wait until someone posts the above URL and
> read it.
> 
> > > * Actually went toward programming, instead of going back and forth
> > > between applications/windows/menus/directories/sections of the same
> > > document.
> >
> > This is a point I tried to address with my original post, if you use
> > good software and take the time to really learn to configure and use it,
> > this is not an issue. I think existing UIs are plenty good if you learn
> > to use them. I never waste any time scrolling through menus or doing
> > redundant UI operations. Everything is set up to use macros and I can
> > instantaneously do anything. I've thought long and hard about UI theory,
> > and with current free software I've made an environment where I am in
> > complete control and don't waste time with redundant UI operations. It
> > took a long time to set up, but it was worth it.
> 
> I'm going to try to explain this as best I can. The paragraph you
> wrote above, to you, looks like a perfect example of why you like the
> system you use. You've taylored it to do the common operations
> quickly, and find it functional.
> 
> The paragraph you wrote above, to me, or to other people on this list,
> looks like a perfect example of why computers today are constraining,
> limiting, and difficult to deal with.
> 
> What do you do with this 'environment' you've made? What useful work
> does it perform for you? How much time did you spend learning to
> control it, and how much time will you spend when you realize
> something different offers better control? What do you think it could
> do for you that it dosn't do today? What things have you not even
> considered it doing, because you are used to its limitations?
> 

Believe me, I've thought long and hard about this, and the only way it
could get any better to me is if the applications and system had more
intelligence. There was a time when I wanted much more. When I was using
command line DOS, I was exremely unsatisfied. When I got Windows 3.x, I
was able to do more, but still very unsatisfied. I remember when I first
checked out NeXT, I was very impressed, but the hardware was
prohibitively expensive, and there was still much missing. Now I've got
Linux, and a window manager and applications that provide all of what I
like with the NeXT UI and address most of what I felt were limitations,
because I prefer the keyboard and macros for most operations, because
the keyboard can be chorded in numerous combinations instantaneously. I
really am feeling kind of content for the first time, and am really
examining what needs to be done ultimately for real progress, and that
is AI.

> > > * Spent rebooting. (kernel crashed, or we were developing the kernel)
> > >
> >
> > Well, I think very few people writing software do this kind of work, but
> > the GNU HURD addresses the reboot part of the kernel development cycle
> > pretty good, by allowing dynamically loadable userland drivers and
> > servers that can provide any service usually provided by a kernel such
> > as low level networking and graphics hardware code that currently is run
> > as root privelaged processes mostly in kernel space. And it is working,
> > usable software right now to that you can use Emacs on and everything
> > else. If it had PPP support (soon...), or if I had a real net
> > connection, I'd try and use it as my default system. It's buggy, but
> > there isn't anything so bad that I can't handle it.
> 
> You keep talking about specific scenerios, when we are talking about
> making the software development process better. The Hurd does not fix
> anything. The code which is in the "hurt kernel proper" still is
> troublesome to write. They just moved the boundary of where drivers
> are put, so that people can develop drivers from userland. However,
> like most similar designs, they will pay the performance price.
> 
> I'm going to paint a picture here, make sure you read it all before
> you start gettings ideas about what Tunes will do.
> 
> A better solution to the above problem would be to run your
> 'experimental' kernel in a software simulation of the machine. So that
> you can test out new code in a safe environment.

Rather than emulating it would be cool if you could test the real McCoy
in a safe environment, IMO, which the HURD does. You can get more
accurate performance profiling and resolve unexpected resource conflicts
better I would imagine. But I don't know how this works with some
things, for example with register probing on a PCI graphics accelerator,
probing/toying with certain registers are dangerous and can lock the PCI
bus, so I don't know how this is addressed by the HURD, nor how it could
be addressed with any solution, because if you know enough about the
chip you are programming to where you can write an emulator and program
for that safely, then you could have already written the driver and been
done with it. But sometimes emulators are written when the silicon isn't
even... I'm getting real off topic here.

Also with the HURD though you can run two HURDs side by side and when
one crashes you can debug from the other HURD, kind of like you can run
two X-servers side by side with Linux, or run an X-server on top of an
X-server for window manager development using a window manager.

> How do you do that on
> Linux? Well, you probably down the source for bochs (an x86 emulator)
> and compile it. Then you muck with setting up a bochs boot image from
> whatever kernel image you are developing. At some point you may have
> to write some bochs code to emulate some new device, and maybe push
> that code back to the bochs people.
> 
> In Tunes, the idea is to remove all the 'implementation' dependent
> work in the above picture. To draw a half-correct analogy, you would
> merely ask Tunes to "run your kernel in a software emulation
> environment", and it would do the rest of the above stuff for you. It
> might need to know where to map input and output devices to (like the
> emulated PC's screen), so it would either make some safe-choice, or
> ask you what you wanted it to do.
>

I have no idea how on earth Tunes could do this, or what this would look
like or how you would do work with it, what work Tunes would do and what
you would do.
 
> > > * Spent waiting on the computer to do something while it ignored input.
> > >
> >
> > Not an issue unless I open 30 Netscape Windows and the mouse pointer
> > freezes during heavy swapping, but it's for 2 seconds tops, and never
> > happens unless I try to make it happen anyways. I think modern
> > multitasking environments with windowing systems address this pretty
> > good. And I don't see how a Tunes system can allow the user to be doing
> > something useful at any given time that is more useful than how current
> > multitasking systems let you do something useful at any given time, but
> > examples would help.
> 
> Back when people were using Windows 3.1 on 386 machines, I'm sure some
> people said "I don't see how any system could make this more useful",
> yet today, you can run Win95, WinNT, Linux, or Hurd on that same 386.
>

I wasn't one of those people.
 
> I believe you when you say that you can't imagine how Tunes can make
> computing better. You don't seem to want anything different than you
> have now. I'm telling you that _I_can_ imagine how computing could be
> better, and I call that idea in my head Tunes.
>

No, I have an idea about how it could be better, but the same processes
no longer apply to make it any better, and there are no more trivial
things to improve, IMO. But I don't see how Tunes solves some of the
fundamental AI problems that need addressing for real progress.
 
> I can imagine a world where when an HTML browser crashes, it dosn't
> take down the other 29 HTML windows.

How about it doesn't crash in the first place. It's called Lynx, or
Emacs W3, but they kinda suck compared to Netscape. And yes, Netscape
does crash....

> I can imagine a world where I can
> run some ActiveX plugin, whether or not I have an x86 processor and
> Microsoft Windows.

So Tunes is Freedows to? It's gonna let you run binaries that rely on
the presence of many proprietary operating system libraries, providing
the functionality of WINE and then some? Sure, this would be cool, and
not require artificial intelligence, but kind of hard to do, no?

> I can imagine a world where I can actually install
> a new version of an application without breaking the old one.

The Debian GNU/Linux package management system does a damn good job of
not letting multiple versions of the same libraries step on each others
toes and letting stuff like the above happen. It's the most stable Linux
there is, probably the most well organised operating system there is.
Yes, multiple versions of the same library is not the One True Way, but
it's a working solution today if you want to run almost identical
versions of the same software with almost identical dependencies.

> I can
> imagine a world where I can just 'reconnect' to my desktop from any
> terminal, anywhere.
>

I'm not sure I understand what you mean.
 
> And I'm not even talking about Tunes yet...
> 
> I can imagine Tunes, where I can ask the system for a list of all the
> web pages I've seen in the last two weeks with the word "dog" in
> them...where I can ask the system to cross-reference the list of
> people I have had email or phone correspondence with in the last year
> with the list of people that work at my new company to find out if
> I've met anyone there before...

You could do this with today's technology, but I guess the point you are
making is that Tunes will do this without you thinking to set it up in
advance, and without you going to the pain to learn to set it up? In
which case, Tunes sounds like it would be pretty disk space intensive if
it were to store this information for you.... For it to list all of the
web pages that have "dog" in it that you've visited in the last 2 weeks,
it would have to either store all of those pages on your disk, or visit
every URL in your history file when you ask which would take forever,
and could also be easily done with some Perl anyways that wgets the URLs
in your history and then matches the REGEXP with every page it
retrieves.

> where I can run out of disk space, pick
> up a new drive, drop it on my machine, and have it say "10gb
> available", no partitioning, no moving data around, nothing. Where I
> can do all of the above without having to deal with 'installing' or
> 'configuring' even a single 'application'.
> 

This isn't that impressive. You usually don't have to change any
hardware settings anyways to just drop a new disk in. And like
partitioning and formatting is *that* much of a PITA.... And of course
there is the "plug and play" concept for other hardware like sound
cards, provided a driver is already written and available. Now if Tunes
could write a driver for you, that would be something....

> > > * Went toward figuring out how to optimize special cases to get decent
> > > performance.
> >
> > This seems kind of unavoidable, unless I misunderstand the sense of what
> > you mean.
> >
> > Do you mean optimizing in the sense of say special hardware cases
> > (presence of MMX unit or deep pipeline), or software, like case N=13 for
> > an algorithm or system=SysV? Or perhaps both? In any case if the system
> > you guys are making has the intelligence to automatically optimizes
> > programs and algorithms for all relevant special cases that the
> > programmer would be interested in automatically, well, good luck.
> 
> It's not like that. There are many optimizations which are much better
> done by people who know about the hardware, then people who are
> writing software. That's why you use languages like C, with C
> compilers. Because the hardware people tell the C compiler people what
> optimizations to perform. However, there are a whole bunch of types of
> optimizations which can be done better if you change the software
> model a bit. Go take a look at MIT's "Tick-C" pages.
> 
> However, it's not even about this (to me anyhow). It's about removing
> all the add-hoc libraries and headers, and manual installation and
> configuration which is necessary to actually use new optimizations, or
> build with new stuff.

So how does one do the equivalent with Tunes?

Christopher