TUNES website homepage draft

[Brian Rice]

At 11:01 AM +0200 7/3/01, Lendvai Attila wrote:
>:: I decided to modify my recent Arrow synopsis to reflect what
>:: TUNES is
>:: centered around. What follows is a working draft, designed
>:: to replace
>:: the TUNES front page content (which incidentally used to be the top
>:: project page). So compare:
>:: http://tunes.org/~water/tunesDraft.html
>:: with:
>:: http://tunes.org/tunes.html
>
>just a quick note at first read (from a newbie, my picture might be blurred
>at some places (!))

Perhaps. I think it's really obvious that language here is a problem 
as well. (This is not meant as a criticism. I have been thinking a 
little over time on how human language and social background affects 
the way even technical concepts are communicated and agreed upon 
between groups of people.)

>"Modern computer science research has yielded hundreds of meaningful
>distinctions of possible programming semantics and syntax."

>  ... and thus
>different modells in which we can express computations and store
>information. All these modells are restictive in different ways, most of
>them from the roots (i.e. their requirements). Tunes promotes a very
>different and much more flexible modell for handling information, even
>replacing things like the smallest information atom, the 'bit', with a more
>flexible one. Making an abstraction from the actual way current computers
>work and building a different, less restrictive modell with applying several
>modern computer science theories open up many new possibilities. (This
>gained flexibility makes it possible for Tunes to look at current
>programming languages from a higher level and "understand" them.
>Understanding here means gathering the semantic meaning of the programs
>written in current languages and storing it in an abstract way.)

I'm not sure what to do with this, since I think it would give an 
impression that we are trying to produce an artificial intelligence 
basis for systems programming, which is misleading. However, I can 
see how emphasizing what restrictions are removed would be helpful, 
so I'll try to put in some changes to help this out.

>another tought:
>
>Computer science developed from the practical point of view. Up until recent
>studies in the fields of CS it evolved step by step as new requiremets came
>into the picture. First it was about calculating ballistic curves then many
>different needs came one by one. But now it has reached a point where its
>about general information processing and higher level things like making
>computing systems understand concepts that currently only humans are capable
>of. (examples?) Acheeving this requires a well tought modell designed with
>the help of new CS theories instead of developing any of the current modells
>further. Later in the process it gets clear for everyone that current
>computing systems are deeply flawed.

Hmm. Well, it's not clear for everyone, it's only clear for us and 
maybe a very few others who probably don't agree with our 
conclusions. :)

>it would be also good to warn every newcomer right at the beginning that
>their head is probably full of defcato standards, like a program must be
>compiled before its run and things like that. so there should be a short
>"shocking" text about things like OOP without classes, the rescrictiveness
>of the bitvector modell, the minimal abstraction between the way current
>computers work and the computing modell of current systems. and that its a
>fool thing connecting the two so tight, the only requiremet is that the
>computing modell ought to be calculable (or handleable, damn my english) by
>current and future computer hadrwares. and the lack of persistency.

This sounds really interesting. Does anyone have suggestions on how 
to go about this without seeming condescending or trying for the 
lowest common denominator? I think the lowest common denominator 
approach would work but would produce very verbose explanations, 
which would not help. I don't know, but I really like the idea of 
shaking up a person's assumptions in the right way (to get them 
thinking constructively).

>"it supports a new unified system of understanding computations, data, and
>formal linguistic expressions as first-class objects"
>if someone reads it without background they will not understand a bit from
>it. but on the other hand with some background it's a good sentence. and it
>pops up a new idea, how about a  short intro like your proposal for people
>with some background and another one with a more novel text like mine above
>without things like "as first-class objects" or at least with some more
>words on what it means.

Well, the phrase "first-class objects" was taken from Fare's 
document, and I just deprecated it with another phrase in response to 
what you've said, which does make some sense. It will be on the site 
shortly.

>thats all for now, i will reread my hungarian article which is layed off
>since im working fulltime :( maybe that will help pointing out thigs that
>must be first understood by newbies to see the point in tunes.
>
>  - 101.

Alright, thanks.
~