I've published an essay <Personification of comput...
# share-your-workt
Tomaz Zlender
11/09/2023, 9:25 AMI've published an essay Personification of computer processes where I introduce a metaphor that will allow us to program computers in a game-like (and also in "Dynamic Land"-like) environments. The website Latent Centers is a digital garden I started recently where I will continue to publish related work. The aim is to invent computing that makes us feel more alive.
I'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts!
Tomaz Zlender
11/09/2023, 9:30 AM(For the best experience, visit it on a desktop device. I haven't adapted it to touch devices.)
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Mike Austin
11/09/2023, 9:31 PMFor me, coding comes down to functions, variables, and values, as you mention in the article. If you were to do the same personification to math for example, how would you do it?
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Brian Hempel
11/10/2023, 12:17 AMThe Program Counter represented as the active entity, walking through function execution. I like it better than I thought I would. It has ToonTalk vibes, but with fewer agents, so much more constrained, more grounded, and less confusing.
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Tomaz Zlender
11/10/2023, 7:03 PM> For me, coding comes down to functions, variables, and values, as you mention in the article. If you were to do the same personification to math for example, how would you do it?
@Mike Austin I'm curious if you had in mind some examples from math when you wrote the question. I assume that the subsets of math can be personified in the same way. I'm curious what examples you have in mind! Thanks for asking!
Tomaz Zlender
11/10/2023, 7:18 PM> The Program Counter represented as the active entity, walking through function execution. I like it better than I thought I would. It has ToonTalk vibes, but with fewer agents, so much more constrained, more grounded, and less confusing.
@Brian Hempel it does have ToonTalk vibes, happy to hear you find the idea compelling!
For many years I tried to find something similar to "beings" as the personification of processes. (I still haven't found it). Then at some point it occurred to me that maybe I can ask Alan Kay himself if he knows of anything like it, explaining the idea along the way. If I recall correctly I heard him claim in a couple of talks that most of the things have been invented in 80s or something along those lines. So I thought, well, let's put it to a test! To my surprise he replied back and pointed out Ken Kahn's ToonTalk. It is indeed done in a similar spirit, but not quite. The closest thing to beings in ToonTalk I would say are "robots", but they can't be controlled directly as beings can. They have a more specific role, not as general as beings. Like you say, there are many metaphors in Toontalk and it gets confusing because of that.
Interesting that you had an association with the Program Counter. What part of the article made you bring it up?
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Mike Austin
11/10/2023, 7:29 PM@Tomaz Zlender You could say that code is (mostly) just logic and math. If you turn variables, values, and function into different abstractions, what about the math and logic? What makes it different that those abstractions aren't changed? My head is kind of cloudy today, the right words aren't coming out 🙂
Mike Austin
11/10/2023, 7:31 PMAnother example, how would you describe an anonymous function:
(x => x + 1)(5)t
Tomaz Zlender
11/10/2023, 7:35 PM> Another example, how would you describe an anonymous function:
(x => x + 1)(5)Tomaz Zlender
11/10/2023, 7:38 PMwhat about the math and logic?I don't have a good answer to this one, I'll have to think about it
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Brian Hempel
11/10/2023, 9:48 PMthe Program CounterI watched the vid and only skimmed the writeup. The Being is doing the current step of execution. That’s what the Program Counter Register is in hardware: the current step of execution.
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