Looks very interesting! I will read it (it arrives just in time to be part of
the holiday reading pile…)
Marcus
> On 25 Jul 2019, at 11:29, Trygve <tryg...@ifi.uio.no> wrote:
>
> Dear all,
> The final draft of my magnum opus about Personal Programming is now ready for
> review:
> http://folk.uio.no/trygver/themes/Personal/PP-019%20-%20Copy%20(17).pdf
> <http://folk.uio.no/trygver/themes/Personal/PP-019%20-%20Copy%20(17).pdf>
>
> The article's main theme is Personal Programming for everybody with Loke, a
> personal object computer. Its first purpose is to empower laypeople to take
> control over their corner of the Net with its IoT. I have created a
> proof-of-concept implementation as a non-intrusive extension of Squeak
> version 3.10.2, and have used it to demonstrate how a novice uses the Loke
> IDE to create a small and intuitive program.
>
> The article describes the concepts behind Loke .The current Squeak
> implementation should be ported to Pharo and can grow into the preferred
> Pharo-based IDE for laypeople taking control over their information
> environment.
>
> I will appreciate your possible comments before Aug. 31.
> Enjoy
> --Trygve
>
> The article's 43 pages has several high points, I have included one of them
> here:
> ----------- begin extract ------------------
> C.7.We need a paradigm shift
>
> The history of Western astronomy shows a series of paradigm shifts from the
> geocentric paradigm with its stationary Earth as the center of the Universe
> with its epicycles and other bizarre explanations of what appeared to be
> essential complexities. Astronomy evolved via the heliocentric to the current
> distributed paradigm with its chunks of mass connected by gravity. What
> appeared as essential complexity in one paradigm was easily resolved in the
> next.
>
> It is tempting to look for similar paradigm shifts in computing. Mainstream
> programming has based much of its theory and practice on the CPU-centric
> paradigm exemplified by the von Neumann machine. A memory-centric paradigm
> came in 1960 with the Autokon CAC/ CAM system and its central database
> (Reenskaug, 1973). The solution was obvious, and there must have been many
> similar initiatives without me being aware of them.
>
> It is time to realize that the first two paradigms do not meet our current
> challenges: We are plagued with immensely large, complex, and insecure
> systems that long ago left the realm of human understanding. A recent
> example: Customers found that their bank charged them twice for the same
> transaction. Several weeks after the problem was discovered, the bank
> publicly admitted that they still didn't understand how the problem could
> arise: The complexity of their system was clearly beyond human comprehension.
> The bank has a staff of very competent experts, but they need a better
> foundation for modeling and implementing their sophisticated requirements.
>
> Computers can transform, store, and communicate data, (Figure below). The
> essence of the CPU-centric paradigm is that computers are primarily used to
> transform data; they compute. The essence of the memory-centric paradigm is
> that computers are used primarily to store data; they organize applications
> around a shared database. The essence of the communication-centric paradigm
> is that computers are primarily used to exchange messages with other
> computers to make them collaborate to achieve a common goal.
>
> The three paradigms of computing
> <pbeopicbehdhbfmc.png>
> It is time to heed Tony Hoare's plea for simplicity and achieve a better way
> of separating concerns. Mainstream programming should shift to the
> communication-centric paradigm exemplified by the object computer that is the
> foundation for this article.
>
> The communication-centric paradigm has been on the horizon for many years. I
> first met it in Prokon's idea of distributed computers (Reenskaug, 1977), but
> there must have been many other initiatives. A newer example is
> Service-Oriented Architectures (SOA) that, in essence, is
> communication-centric. It didn't meet with immediate success, possibly
> because people tried to apply it within the CPU-centric paradigm where it
> doesn't belong. There are many other examples such as distributed computing.
> And of course, DCI and the IoT itself are, by definition,
> communication-centric.
>
> ----------- end extract ------------------
>
>
>
