Bound by Convention

Presented at RuPy 2013 in Budapest.

Slides don't really provide much context on their own. I'll have to write this up as a blog post some time.

The general thesis was the importance of understanding why things are the way they are. I made a lot of comparisons to Natural Languages as a way to challenge the way we understand Programming Languages. The talk was unfocused and sporadic, and covered a lot of ground. Here are some links for references made in the talk:

- The Space Shuttle & The Horse's Rear End: http://www.astrodigital.org/space/stshorse.html
- _why's unholy: https://github.com/whymirror/unholy
- JVM: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_virtual_machine
- Strongtalk: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strongtalk
- Chomsky: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorless_green_ideas_sleep_furiously
- Turing Completeness: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_completeness
- Denotation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denotation
- Basic Color Terms: Their Universality and Evolution: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_Color_Terms:_Their_Universality_and_Evolution
- Pirahã Language: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirahã_language
- Hangul: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hangul
- Triliteral Semitic Roots: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semitic_root
- P = NP: http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/P_versus_NP
- Quantum Logic Gates: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_gate

Transcript

1. Bound By Convention Mattt Thompson RuPy 13
2. The Space Shuttle & The Horse's Rear End
3. 4', 8.5"
10. Specifications and bureaucracies live forever
11. How Things Are Done
12. Everything has a Reason History Connection
13. Baconian Method
14. Postmodernism
15. Why?
16. Isn't it remarkable that humans organize themselves according to how they talk to computers?
17. Narcissism of Small Differences
18. Ruby vs. Python • Indentation Sensitivity • Enumerators vs. Comprehensions • Statements vs. Expressions • Implicit vs. Explicit Self • High-Level Scripting Languages • Dynamically Typed • Interactive Shell • Shared Keywords & Syntax • Common Purposes Differences Similarities
19. _why's unholy
20. JVM
21. A brief aside...
22. Colorless green ideas sleep furiously
23. colorless green ideas sleep furiously French Germanic Greek Germanic Latin
24. English sleep French dormir German schlafen Hungarian alszik Arabic num Russian spat
25. English pineapple French ananas German ananas Hungarian ananász Arabic ananas Russian ananas
26. Influences
27. Ruby Influences [ ] Array Syntax C {:a => 1} Hash Syntax php {a: 1} Hash Syntax Javascript String Methods Perl begin...rescue...ensure / loop, redo, retry Eiffel Postconditionals Caché / JOSS / ALGOL
28. Python Influences Statement Nesting Indentation ABC from X import Y Modula-3 Multiple Dispatch Dylan / C++ Expressions vs. Statements Fotran
29. Javascript Influences Name Java Semicolons Java Prototypes Self Lambdas Scheme
30. Clojure Influences S-Expression Syntax Lisp Runtime Java
31. Ruby Python Javascript Clojure x = 1 + 2 x = 1 + 2 var x = 1 + 2 (def x (+ 1 2))
32. Ruby Python Javascript Clojure [1,2,3].select(&:even?) [x for x in (1,2,3) if (x%2 == 0)] ([1,2,3]).filter(function(x) {return x%2 === 0;}); (filter even? [1 2 3]);
33. Programming Language Characteristics • Object Oriented vs. Functional vs. Procedural vs. Imperative • Typed vs. Untyped • Strong vs. Weak Typing • Static vs. Dynamic Typing • Classical vs. Prototypical • Compiled vs. Interpreted • Single vs. Multiple Inheritence • Mutability vs. Immutability • // vs. /* */ vs. # vs. -- Comments • Terse vs. Verbose • Textual vs. Graphical
34. Turing Completeness
35. Denotation
36. C H A I R /tʃɛr/
38. bed
39. Basic Color Terms: Their Universality and Evolution Brent Berlin and Paul Kay (1969)
45. Pirahã Language Daniel Leonard Everett
46. Pirahã Language • Tiny Phonetic Inventory (8 consonants & 3 vowels) • Whistled to Communicate in Jungle • No Relative Clauses or Grammatical Recursion • No Cardinal or Ordinal Numbers • No Unique Words for Color • Epistemology as Grammatical Construct
47. 6,000 Natural Languages Hundreds Dying Every Year
48. English as Universal Programming Language
50. ৈࢿ
51. Ŧ ũ Ŭ Ů Ŷ ŷ ź ż Ž ſ ƀ Ɓ Ƃ ƃ g n d r m b s -/ng j ch k t p h ŧ ɹ ŭ ɹ ɹ Ÿ Ż ɹ ž ɹ ɹ ɹ ɹ ɹ kk tt pp ss jj
52. Ƅ ƈ ƌ Ƒ Ɩ Ƙ ƅ Ɖ Ə Ɣ Ɨ a eo o u eu i ae e oe wi ui
53. ೠҴয
54. !"#$%&ا
55. Initial Medial Terminal ـ# ـ)ـ *ـ ـ+ ـ,ـ -ـ ـ. ـ/ـ 0ـ ـ1 ـ2ـ 3ـ ـ4 ـ5ـ 6ـ ـ7 ـ8ـ 9ـ ـ: ـ;ـ <ـ ـ= ـ>ـ ?ـ ـ@ ـAـ Bـ ـC ـDـ Eـ
56. *,F
57. k t b
58. *,F kataba he wrote GH),F katabnā we wrote *,IJ yaktubu he writes *,IK naktubu we write *,Fأ aktaba he dictated *,IJ yuktibu he dictates *+GF kātib writer *,IM maktab office
59. !"# ("!ﻢﻟﺎﻋ ﺎﻳ ﺎﺒﺣﺮﻣ" لﻮﻗ)
60. • cd • ls • mv • cp • rm • mkdir • chmod • pwd • whoami • finger • kill • which • ps • cat • grep • sed • awk • find • cal • date • time • more • less • man UNIX Commands
61. P = NP
63. 1,267,650,600,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
64. Quantum Computers
67. XOR INPUT A B INPUT A B OUTPUT A XOR B 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 0 1 1 1 0 1 1 0
68. What?
69. There is no right way to do things. There are no sides.
70. We are a product of our culture. ...but we are not beholden to it.
71. Stay curious. Look around. Introspect.
72. @mattt
73. Thanks!