Leslie Lamport awarded Turing Award • Hacker News Board

Re: Leslie Lamport awarded Turing Award

#61

Post by elbear » Wed, Mar 19, 2014, 3:27 PM UTC

teach wrote: post #58

donniezazen wrote: post #33

There is something intriguing about these old timers' plain text html websites. One of these days I am going to have to drop WordPress.

My blog[0] is still plain HTML, but that's part of the reason I haven't made an update since late 2012(!). Thinking about switching to a blogging platform myself. Or at least something that converts markdown to static HTML with git-commit hooks. I guess what I'm trying to say is "Be careful what you wish for." [0] http://grahammitchell.com/

Have a look at Pelican, one of the many solutions in this space. http://docs.getpelican.com/en/3.3.0/

Re: Leslie Lamport awarded Turing Award

#62

Post by adultSwim » Wed, Mar 19, 2014, 9:27 PM UTC

infruset wrote: post #57

Monkeyget wrote: post #35

Clock, Byzantine general, Paxos, LaTeX, program proof. My CS curriculum often crossed Leslie Lamport's path. Here is an interview he did a while ago which go trough his work : http://www.budiu.info/blog/2007/05/03/an-interview-with-lesl...

Quote from that interview: >Q: The Byzantine Generals Problem paper (1982) describes the first provably correct algorithm for making several computers agree when some of them may give deliberate wrong answers. What are the its practical applications? >A: The only practical applications I know of are in real-time process control — in particular, for systems that fly airplanes. I guess Bitcoin didn't exist at the time.…

"People fiercely resist any effort to make them change what they do. Given how bad they are at writing programs, one might naively expect programmers to be eager to try new approaches. But human psychology doesn’t work that way, and instead programmers will find any excuse to dismiss an approach that would require them to learn something new. On the other hand, they are quick to embrace the latest fad (extreme programming, templates, etc.) that requires only superficial changes and allows them to continue doing things basically the same as before. In this context, it is only fair to mention that people working in the area of verification are no less human than programmers, and they also are very reluctant to change what they do just because it isn’t working."

This is an excerpt from an answer about program verification. It's worth the read.

Re: Leslie Lamport awarded Turing Award

#63

Post by donniezazen » Fri, Mar 21, 2014, 3:45 PM UTC

teach wrote: post #58

donniezazen wrote: post #33

There is something intriguing about these old timers' plain text html websites. One of these days I am going to have to drop WordPress.

My blog[0] is still plain HTML, but that's part of the reason I haven't made an update since late 2012(!). Thinking about switching to a blogging platform myself. Or at least something that converts markdown to static HTML with git-commit hooks. I guess what I'm trying to say is "Be careful what you wish for." [0] http://grahammitchell.com/

I know what you are talking about. More is always better than less. That's why I stick to WordPress.