3 posts tagged “code monkey”
Last night, I think I figured out some important things about the π-calculus.
p1. I believe there is a monadic D-fusion calculus in which it is possible to elaborate the canonical polyadic version described in the paper by Boreale, Buscemi and Montanari. (I don't think this is particularly surprising.)
p2. I believe I can elaborate the monadic D-fusion calculus with Milner's π-calculus. (It's possible, though it seems unlikely, that this is a novel observation. Of course, it's also possible that I'm wrong, and I don't really understand the D-fusion calculus.)
p3. I suspect— though, I can't say I'm very confident— that I will soon have a sorted derivative of the polyadic D-fusion calculus (at least, the D-fusion calculus as I understand it) in which I may be able to elaborate ML^F as described in the paper by Botlan and Rémy. [This, I believe, would be a noteworthy achievement.]
Naturally, because I am just a simple-minded code-monkey and not a real mathematician, I'm pretty much incapable of publishing results in the conventional manner with any hope of them surviving peer review. Maybe, if I get some spare time today, I'll buy a download of MathType and start trying to write up my thoughts in something approaching the conventional format for such things. What's the worst that can happen? (Answer: I'll be branded as a kook.)
Update: Ah, I see where I went wrong in p2 now. I forgot how the D-fusion calculus really is strictly more expressive than Milner's π-calculus because the scope of λ-bound variables can be weakened via the λ- OP E N rules. Okay, now I'm back on track.
This is the fifth time today my build has failed because I forgot that stupid semicolon these languages require for statement terminators.
I wouldn't do this for just anybody. My friend Van Mojo tagged me with it, and I'm not about to let him down over something this trivial.
(Here are the rules of this meme: I answer the questions my friend put to me, then— for no reason I can see— you're supposed to leave a comment here claiming that you're an egomaniac. I respond to those by asking you five questions, and then you're tagged. Um. Yeah, so here goes.)
1. What is the deal with you and this obsessive OCaml project?
It's a compulsion, not an obsession. As long as I've known how to program computers, I have always had at least one hobby project up in the air. I have never finished a hobby project, mind you. I just get bored with them and move on to another one. The OCaml Network Application Environment is the one I've kept at the longest, though I've been on hiatus from it for a while. (Other, non-code projects have precedence— see below.)
Basically, the motivation for it is to research the application of functional programming with monads to the problem of writing concurrent single-threaded network service daemons and applications, e.g. message-oriented middleware, peer-to-peer application protocols, etcetera.
I guess the reason I've kept at it so long is that I haven't encountered a blocking failure of the paradigm yet. It works. There's just a lot more work to do before I'll have a real application to show off. This would bug the hell out of a normal person, but as I said: I'm suffering from a compulsion to work on code as a hobby. It's not the eventual completion of the project that motivates me. It's the fact of having a body of code that is mine, all mine, and I don't have to take stupid orders from any pointy-haired managers or make painful compromises to achieve deadlines. I can just be a very simple code monkey and enjoy the labor for its own sake.
Other people garden. I code.
2. Why did you decide you had to write your cheesy fantasy fiction?
Egad. You would ask me that.
It's important to note that the reasons I had for starting are not the reasons I now have for continuing. I started writing Arts Of The Wize for three main reasons: 1) I've always felt a little guilty about having abandoned all my previous [juvenile] long fiction projects well before they were really all that hard to maintain; 2) I wanted to know what finishing a novel really feels like, maybe even what being the author of a published novel really feels like (though, let's be honest, the odds against that are practically nil); and 3) The kind of high fantasy genre fiction I like is harder to find on bookshop shelves than I would like, and I stupidly managed to convince myself that "if you don't like what the publishers are selling, then you should go out and write some of your own." Dumb idea, I know, but it's the truth.
At this point, where I am grinding through the major rewrite/overhaul of the first draft, I'm pretty sure what keeps me going is the sweet peaceful moment of sublime chillification I will enter when I can honestly say to myself that I'm done hacking on it, and I will never have to worry over another word of this story again. There's a part of me that looks forward to receiving a steady stream of form rejections from every literary agent in the world who handles the fantasy genre. If one of them actually decides to represent it, and it sells to a publishing house, then I'll probably be stuck cranking on it for another two to three years before I will be able to call it quits. I'm given to understand that becoming a published author can give a person quite a sense of personal accomplishment, but at this point, I'd settle for being able to move on to the next writing project without having to admit that I abandoned this one.
3. What beer is currently in the hopper and what beer have you never made that you are planning on? Why?
The lambic is probably not working. I'm expecting to pour it out. The Tumultuous Uproar Imperial Stout is in the secondary fermenter now, and it will be going into the bottles either this weekend or the next, I think. I have to look at my calendar.
I'm unlikely to try to make any new kinds of beer. I pretty much make the kinds I most like to drink. It's possible I may scratch the Jack Of The Green this year and try my hand at some kind of red ale. My summer California style ale is probably the least interesting of my beers. I might like a deep red instead, i.e. something like the Six Dæmon Ale only without the spices and maybe a little less malt. I would do this mainly to see if I can establish an "album" of beers throughout the year.
4. Have you ever considered abandoning computer engineering for computer or math research/academia? why or why not?
Considered? Not seriously. Daydreamed about it? All the damned time.
I'm too old to start a new career in academia. Getting on the academic track as a scientist or a mathematician is a young guy's game. I'd have to do four or more long years of full-time undergraduate slavery before I could even start graduate school. That kind of program is not for people going to night school. By the time I got to the point where I was in publish or perish mode, I'd be eligible for mandatory retirement.
I have my hobby OCaml project, and that allows me to scratch that itch well enough.
5. Why have you put up with me for these past 30-some years?
Why did Merry put up with Pippin, Sam and Frodo all those years? Why did Elwood put up with Jake all those years? Why did Thelma put up with Louise all those years? Wait, scratch that last one. You get the idea.
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