A Science of Concurrent Programs [pdf]
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A Science of Concurrent Programs [pdf]
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Re: A Science of Concurrent Programs [pdf]
#2This is Science. Computer Science. From one of the greatest alive.
"This is a preliminary version of a book. If you have any comments to make or questions to ask about it, please contact me by email. But when you do, include the version date. I expect there are many minor errors in this version. (I hope there are no major ones.) Anyone who is the first to report any error will be thanked in the book. If you find an error, please include in your email your name as you wish it to appear as well as the version date."
Re: A Science of Concurrent Programs [pdf]
#3This is Science. Computer Science. From one of the greatest alive. "This is a preliminary version of a book. If you have any comments to make or questions to ask about it, please contact me by email. But when you do, include the version date. I expect there are many minor errors in this version. (I hope there are no major ones.) Anyone who is the first to report any error will be thanked in the book. If you find an e…
People often mistake software engineering, or IT with computer science.
Those are not science.
Re: A Science of Concurrent Programs [pdf]
#4Section 1.2 has an essential warning for many Hacker News readers!
"You probably belong to one of two classes of people who I will call scientists and engineers. Scientists are computer scientists who are interested in concurrent computing. If you are a scientist, you should be well-prepared to decide if this book interests you and to read it if it does.
"Engineers are people involved in building concurrent programs. If you are an engineer, you might have a job title such as programmer, software engineer, or hardware designer. I need to warn you that this book is about a science, not about its practical application. Practice is discussed only to explain the motivation for the science. If you are interested just in using the science, you should read about the language TLA+ and its tools, which are the practical embodiment of the science [27, 34]. But if you want to understand the underlying science, then this book may be for you."
Re: A Science of Concurrent Programs [pdf]
#5Also from Leslie Lamport is this amusing course on TLA+ which is a good intro into Formal Specifications.
Re: A Science of Concurrent Programs [pdf]
#6This is Science. Computer Science. From one of the greatest alive. "This is a preliminary version of a book. If you have any comments to make or questions to ask about it, please contact me by email. But when you do, include the version date. I expect there are many minor errors in this version. (I hope there are no major ones.) Anyone who is the first to report any error will be thanked in the book. If you find an e…
People often mistake software engineering, or IT with computer science. Those are not science.
Is computer science even science? It feels like we should have called ourselves computationally-applied mathematicians.
Re: A Science of Concurrent Programs [pdf]
#7Section 1.2 has an essential warning for many Hacker News readers! "You probably belong to one of two classes of people who I will call scientists and engineers. Scientists are computer scientists who are interested in concurrent computing. If you are a scientist, you should be well-prepared to decide if this book interests you and to read it if it does. "Engineers are people involved in building concurrent programs.…
There's a line between the discovered stuff and the invented stuff. I always love to see it spelled out in different ways.
I tell my students that you can understand And rediscover the science part by understanding basic principles, by applying mathematical logic.
While the engineering part you need to learn, as the engineering decisions are full of conventions and constraints of the time of invention and the people inventing.
But understanding the science and knowing roughly the constraints gets you very far. There are usually only a few superficialities left, like concrete syntax, that are basically impossible to "understand" and need to be "learned".
Re: A Science of Concurrent Programs [pdf]
#8”This is not the place for modesty. I was very good at concurrency.” Agreed!
Re: A Science of Concurrent Programs [pdf]
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
People often mistake software engineering, or IT with computer science. Those are not science.
Is computer science even science? It feels like we should have called ourselves computationally-applied mathematicians.
It’s as much a science as mathematical physics, I would suppose? You can make predictions (scaling of an algorithm, correctness of a concurrent algorithm) and test them empirically.
Some people might call pure math a “science”, but this is at the very least applied math (ie more connected to physical reality than pure math).
Re: A Science of Concurrent Programs [pdf]
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is computer science even science? It feels like we should have called ourselves computationally-applied mathematicians.
It’s as much a science as mathematical physics, I would suppose? You can make predictions (scaling of an algorithm, correctness of a concurrent algorithm) and test them empirically. Some people might call pure math a “science”, but this is at the very least applied math (ie more connected to physical reality than pure math).
You could, but this book doesn't, as far as I've skimmed.
It even makes the case as to why not:
> This usually means that there are an enormous number of possible executions, and testing can examine only a tiny fraction of them.