TUNES Manifesto [draft]

[Kyle Lahnakoski]

I prefer Tril's document as a TUNES manifesto because it keeps to high
level ideas and desires.  Although the core paragraph to any Tunes
manifesto should be (as quoted from the original):

> To sum up the main features in technical terms, TUNES is a project to replace > existing Operating Systems, Languages, and User Interfaces by a completely > rethought Computing System, based on a fully reflective architecture with 
> standard support for unification of system abstractions, security based on
> formal proofs from explicit negociated axioms, higher-order functions,
> self-extensible syntax, fine-grained composition, distributed networking, 
> orthogonally persistent storage, fault-tolerant computation, version-aware
> identification, decentralized (no-kernel) communication, dynamic code
> regeneration, high-level models of encapsulation, hardware-independent
> exchange of code, migratable actors, yet (eventually) a highly-performant
> set of dynamic compilation tools (phew). 


Tril wrote:
> ...
> In addition other problems exist in computing: Bloated programs that
> have features no one will ever use,...

I have always imagined TUNES as the ultimate in "bloated" programs. 
This is not a bad thing.  The amount of information that TUNES will
store to act "intelligent", in its own limited way, will be phenomenal.  

Just take the case of reversibility.  The amount of almost-useless
intermediate states will require a lot of space to store. 
Almost-useless is not useless; tracking the user changes to a database,
or better yet the changes to those changes (consider an inventory system
fed by a work order system, and tracking the changes to work orders) has
some rarely occurring benefits.  Just like features used by few but
provided to many, are these features bloat if they are almost-useless?

We need to store large amounts of information to build a smart system. 
There is no panacea, micro-sized, intelligent system.  Intelligence
requires knowledge/experiance and space to store it.

Bits are getting cheaper by the day.  Bloat should not be a concern.

Speed and algorithmic efficiency are another matter.


> ...
> So, to create a computing system that gives total control to the user,
> is extremely portable, safe, and fast at allowing changes to programs
> and to itself, freely available, and moves information where and when it
> is needed, we require a redesign of every aspect of computing from the
> hardware, the operating system, language, applications, and the user
> interface, to the users themselves.  In fact, we need a "whole" system
> that redefines all of these components and lets them interact in better
> ways.

This should be the end.  The rest should go to anther (goals) document. 
Keep each page bite-size so one does not get weary reading the screen. 
Let the user decide it is time to read implementation specifics, goals,
subprojects etc.



-- 
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Kyle Lahnakoski                                  Arcavia Software Ltd.
(416) 892-7784                                 http://www.arcavia.com