Overview of Tunes
Brian Rice
water@tunes.org
Sat Mar 23 16:59:02 2002
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<blockquote type="cite" cite>I cannot seem to find simplified,
summarized explanation for Tunes' concept.<br>
>From reading the archive, I think I understand the grand scope of
Tunes but<br>
I'm not clear as to the BIG CONCEPT, the specs or the goals are.<br>
<br>
Can anyone direct me to a URL which is a bit more illuminating and<br>
elaborative than the tunes.org website? Or does anyone care to
enlighten me</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>with a quick briefing?</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><br></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>I would be appreciative.</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><br></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>Regards,</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>Chad Prucha </blockquote>
<div><br></div>
<div>This honestly depends on your background and education
level.</div>
<div>I'll start with the RTFM-style URLs:</div>
<div>http://tunes.org/Tunes-FAQ.html</div>
<div>http://tunes.org/papers/Glossary/index.html</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Disclaimer: I am in no way suggesting that the way TUNES' ideas
have been published and expressed is in any way helpful. It's just
that the nature and state of the project don't attract people with the
time to devote to improving it (yet).</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Now, with that out of way, you first need to know that this
project has an extremely broad scope in the end. At the beginning, it
just defines a class of programming language environments which are
believed to lead to fulfilling that scope. Many people wonder why we
must go out of our way to try and define new languages, concepts, etc.
to achieve this goal.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>This is where the education level comes into play. There are
various logical limits to the way we are doing computing today that
affect whether TUNES' end scope can be realized. There is *also* a
strong suggestion in the patterns of computer science research that
there can be made a way to build the right kind of system, and that we
don't know how to do it yet. I should also stress that there is
nothing stating that the goals of TUNES are impossible. To be involved
with TUNES development right now means you have to be familiar enough
with the research to define TUNES ideas in terms of them, and not rely
on vague explanations and false promises.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Specifically, TUNES has a few levels that can be talked about.
The first, (the one I think is most essential to it) is the acronym.:
Useful Not Expedient Systems. This defines a really broad class of
systems, but none has been realized which encompasses every possible
implementation of that. A lot of people argue that some systems that
we have today are enough to be called TUNES. I suggest that their
horizon of acknowledging the nature of different concepts is not broad
enough.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>At the more specific levels, TUNES is also co-opted by Fare,
since he pretty much wrote most of the site's conceptual material, and
is also one of the few founding members who is still (even only
slightly) vocal about anything in the project. Jecel is even more
outspoken that he, although he has a different vision. Because of
this, some of the TUNES vision may have been lost along the way. It's
hard to say for me. I followed this project continuously from just a
couple of months after their website was up until the present, but I
didn't subscribe or join until 2 and a half years ago.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>In terms of people and materials, there are a few people like
myself doing really hard research and experimental coding in various
directions. There are a few low-level coders who are waiting for the
chance to write (OS-style or even language-style) bootstrapping code,
and possibly don't care for the philosophy per se. And then there are
several dozen people who subscribe to this mailing list who have
either asked one question or never said anything. As for resources, we
have Tril who spends a little of his scarce time maintaining Bespin as
the server. A few others have mirror servers around the world. At
least a dozen more promise such time once we have a concrete plan to
implement. But basically only a very few make this their own work, or
spend more than a tiny fraction of their time even thinking about
TUNES.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>I hope that helps.</div>
<div>~</div>
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