Where Tunes is going.

Brian Rice water@tscnet.com
Fri, 22 Oct 1999 01:50:07 -0700


>  Brian> So where is Tunes going?  Arrow is Tunes.  Any who disagree
>  Brian> are those who read my words (as codes) and mistake my
>  Brian> explanations for the idea.  Many of you believe that we must
>  Brian> have an OS to boot Tunes from in order to have Tunes.  I
>  Brian> agree on the fact that Tunes must make an OS framework (a la
>  Brian> OSKit) in order to extend its usefulness, but requiring an OS
>  Brian> to be on hand before we build Tunes is absurd!  If the
>  Brian> OS-code is not available as Tunes objects, then it's not
>  Brian> useful, and therefore not Tunes.
>
>I'm not sure to understand you, but as far as I'm concerned, it is out
>of the question for me to develop device drivers or such lowlevel
>things. That's why I am implementing the bootstrap interpretor of OIL
>on top of Unix with C/C++

It sounds like you've completely missed the point.  I'm suggesting
abandoning the *language* idea altogether as a model for Tunes, and you
state support by proposing your Open Implementation *Language*.  That's
absolutely absurd.  Unless your language has no inherent semantic content
whatsoever, you're just feeding me the same nonsense that I've seen from
everyone else.  It sounds like you have the usual mis-interpretation that
assumes that Arrow is a language, and not a framework for abstracting
arbitrary information patterns.  I'll even go as far as accusing you of not
being able to distinguish Arrow from Lisp.  If you can't prove that you
understand the difference, then you merely re-inforce my point.

>  Brian> Here is the line.  Either cross it, and move on with Tunes
>  Brian> into history, or detract from it as you have been wont to do.
>  Brian> I will accept nothing else.  I want Tunes, and I want it more
>  Brian> badly than Fare or Tril or any of you do by any stretch of
>  Brian> the imagination.  Deal with it.
>
>I want Tunes very very badly too. In a few weeks I'll be starting up a
>company with a friend, and we intend to provide support and services
>for Tunes. (We don't actually call it Tunes, but the ideas are the
>same I think). I am working on a prototype which you can download at
>http://laurent.penguinpowered.com/~laurent/oip.html. I'd be very glad
>to work with you on Arrow if I knew that we have the same goals. But I
>still don't know what is Arrow all about. So if you have a working
>implementation, or a few _real world examples_ to show me, I'll have a
>look at it and see if my OIL is equivalent to your ARROW.

Yes, you're right.  You (and others) still have no idea what Arrow is
about.  I've looked at your code, and it isn't any more impressive than an
open-source Maude or some equivalent.  And how can you ask me for a
"working implementation" when you don't know what the damned thing is for?
I re-iterate: it is not a language, it is a framework for migrating
information patterns with no inherent semantic content.  And I've already
stated that much work needs to be done to even get the core constructs
working properly.  Once that is done, even more work will have to be done
to express some fundamental libraries of theory in Arrow in order to make
it workable.  This system won't be built in a day.  But the information it
will manage once it's done will be more powerful qualitatively than any
programmming or meta-programming system could make it.
I also disagree that you want Tunes.  I believe that I just expressed why a
C coder will never actually want to have Tunes.  They would never support
it properly, even if it did exist.  The fundamental difference between
coding and supporting Tunes spells it out quite well.

>Laurent Martelli
>martelli@iie.cnam.fr

Thank you for underscoring my point that no one on the Tunes list has done
the work to learn what my  (or Tunes) ideas are really about.  I suggest
you re-read the Arrow Introduction paper or get on IRC and meet with me to
discuss this.

	Brian