Thank you for a nice talk. You are very nice to talk with. I am an old retired guy. I did lots of computer science stuff years ago, but moved away from it over the last couple decades. I mostly wrote stuff in assembly for scientific instrumentation and government cold war projects. But my real interest has always been in artificial intelligence. Can I strike up a conversation with you on something of mutual interest? What is the current hot topic in computer science acedemia from your point of view? What do you think of predictions concerning the point in time when designed intelligence equals biologically evolved intelligence? WAS 4.250 00:20, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
The first paragraph, I'll deal with tomorrow. The second I'll respond to now. I think the key is a seed that rapidly learns to learn better in an unbounded way; noting that the universe itself is a seed that has learned to learn in a terribly slow fashion. I think of the internet as a (but maybe not the) pre-singularity containing a variety of evolving primordial entities exchanging genes and aquiring new genes from many methods including from the mind of humans who are collectively the mother hen hatching this egg (while in the bowels of various intelligence agencies, specific attempts at totally controllable pre-singularities are being attempted). To my mind the big question is when (2020? 2070?). In 1980 I predicted (to myself) that the "crux point" (as I called it then) would occur no earlier than 1995 and no later than 2010. I still have a couple years... WAS 4.250 15:55, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
My response to:
is:
Both this paper and process calculi seem oriented towards theoretical computer science. Is that your current interest? Is that what you feel will prove most interesting or critical or important in computer science? Earlier you said "That is not to say that I think artificial intelligence is impossible. Rather that I doubt it will be "designed" in the same way that, say, a microprocessor is. It seems more likely to me that such intelligences will be evolved (albeit artificially)." and I agree. But evolving a highly complicated software suite and using theory to design the end product are at opposite ends of the spectrum. Everything we know in the world of great complexity that works has evolved from simple to complex. I don't think you can design your way there. I think you have to grow your way there. So "a formal model of ANTS" would be a waste of money, right? The nature of emergent behavior would seem to rule out even being able to ask to right questions. If it is complicated enough to have interesting and useful emergent behavior, you would have to run it to see what it does, right? What do you think? I think people who manage these programs want assurances that are not possible. WAS 4.250 20:30, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
My current interest does indeed lie in theoretical computer science. But what I am interested in doing is making the theoretical useful in practice. I think that the theory of concurrency is interesting and critical and important for those parts of computer science that deal with networked and distributed systems, and ubiquitous computing. I believe that the same theory can be applied to swarm systems, in order to verify that the emergent behavior produced by a swarm has the properties we desire — note that this does not imply that we could necessarily "design" (from first principles) a swarm to have certain properties, but rather that we could verify that a given swarm configuration will do what we want (the difference here is between computing a solution, and verifying that an existing solution is correct... the latter is much simpler). Given a test for correctness (i.e. emergent behavior has desired properties), it may well be possible to evolve a swarm design using classical genetic algorithm techniques — the correctness criteria become a type of objective function or fitness function. Such work has already been done for very simple sequential and logic programs (see here), and could presumably be extended to concurrent systems. As for the need to "run it to see what it does", much of the current work in concurrency theory involves figuring out what we can infer about a system without running it, and how to infer other things by "executing" an abstracted model of the system. -- Allan McInnes ( talk) 20:56, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
I don't know much about theoretical computer science so this conversation may limp to a close;
but I know a bit of physics and cognitive science and applied computer science and I try to follow nanotechnology somewhat.
What is "the theory of concurrency"? Aren't there many?
Yes, you can create a "test for correctness (i.e. emergent behavior has desired properties)" but how can you know what other emergent behaviors it might have that might affect important behaviors in unforeseeable ways? The more interesting and complicated the designed emergent behaviors, the more unforeseeable other emergent behaviors must be.
"Much of the current work in concurrency theory involves figuring out what we can infer about a system without running it, and how to infer other things by 'executing' an abstracted model of the system." What to abstract and what not to abstract; therein lies the problem. The evolution of complex systems can take some curious twists. WAS 4.250 02:05, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
Please, don't repeat each word of K Root, this is enough with him. I was not understood. The article is essential because it is the entry point of a giant amout of information about algos. If the link is removed, we have to replace it with another link as entry point to this part of Wikipedia. Of course, the article itself must be valuable.
About the removal of external links, apparently you consider we have to link to each article of each algorithm rather than on the general algorithm page. Not sure. Readers may need for links sources of algos without to have to search each algo in the Wikipedia. Links are part of content, they must not be removed without discussion.
Splang
06:50, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
thanks for the welcome. was it auto-generated? In any case, I am familiar with your name from following the CarlHewitt controversy. I am very pleased to meet you.
Ideogram 22:18, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
That's one of the great things about wikipedia, all official proceedings are public, so us anonymous cowards can lurk before deciding to participate.
I've long been a fan of Carl Hewitt's work. I won't publically air any of my less complimentary concerns.
Ideogram 23:37, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
Is our interesting conversation over, or just on hold? WAS 4.250 23:32, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
I should be done with any major restorations to Functional programming. There are still things that could use touching up, but I think I'm managed to get all the basic mass-deleted content restored (and in many cases, put in some wording improvements while doing so... I guess it's good to be prompted to do that, despite the annoyance factor). LotLE× talk 02:29, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
Hello Allan. I've decided to take a break from FP and editing and I wanted to discuss concurrency theory with you. I hope you have the time.
I've thought about it off and on since 1990, and the Actors model has been very influential on my thinking.
Basically I've decided that the fundamental concept should be the Event. In Actor terms this would be a message. A function call as used in sequential programming is actually composed of two Events, the call and the return (sorry if I'm stating the obvious). In a sequential programming system focusing on one task there is nothing else to return to, so unifying the two events is reasonable. but in a parallel distributed system there may be many processors working on many tasks. in this case you clearly need to be able to control where the results of a computation go. thus i feel that attempts to extend the concept of a function to parallel distributed system, such as RPC, are the wrong approach.
Historically I was led to the concept of an Event by my experience programming the X Window System. If you are not familiar with GUI programming, one usually writes the program as a loop with a giant switch statement that collects events and dispatches them. This is clearly an Actor.
Parallel distributed programming, and the Actor model, are traditionally considered hard to understand. But here I found an application of the Actor paradigm that was being used because it made things easier.
Events have the advantage that they make explicit the fundamental concepts of parallel distributed programming which sequential programming lacks. In parallel distributed programming events happen at a time, maybe the same time, and a place, as opposed to sequential programming where everything happens one at a time in the CPU. Events make clear what is essential about programming in both models, namely the notion of causality, which imposes a partial ordering on the time sequence of events.
The model used in "Distributed Algorithms" by Nancy Lynch, for instance, assumes that state transitions (which in my model are caused by and therefore map to events) still occur one at a time, except that certain sets of state transitions may happen in nondeterministic order. In terms of my model it is clear that events linked by causality do not form these sets, while events that do form these sets may happen at the same time. Although I understand Professor Lynch's need to reduce parallel distributed programming to something amenable to theory, I am dissatisfied with her model since it does not correspond to my intuitive understanding of what happens in a parallel distributed system.
However, one should note that in my system it is not possible to speak of the entire system as being in one "state". This obviously makes it hard to reason about, but it does correspond to my intuition of what's actually happening.
Let me stop here and wait for feedback before continuing. Ideogram 07:07, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
P = chan?x -> do.x -> Stop
. This expression defines a process which can receive a value over the channel "chan", bind that value to "x", and then engage in some action "do.x".Q = chan!laundry -> Stop
, we get the composite process PQ = P |{|chan|}| Q
, where |{|chan|}|
means that P and Q synchronize on all events involving channel "chan".PQ' = chan.laundry -> do.laundry -> Stop
. Same pattern of events. No message passing involved. PQ' is a single process.P' = (chan.laundry -> do.laundry -> Stop) [] (chan.shopping -> do.shopping -> Stop) [] (chan.taxes -> do.taxes -> Stop)
, where []
denotes a choice over initial events. This view of P exposes the pattern of events defined by the notion that P's actions depend on the message that it receives over "chan" - the notation chan?x
, which represents message reception, is simply a convenient shorthand for a branching pattern of events.what would you say are the differences between current models of concurrency that would need to be resolved to achieve a "universal model"? Ideogram 19:38, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
how do I add it? Ideogram 10:04, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
C programming language isn't listed in category:programming languages either. Ideogram 10:07, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
Emergence says For a phenomenon to be termed emergent it should generally be unpredictable from a lower level description. You said in order to verify that the emergent behavior produced by a swarm has the properties we desire. I think this gets to the heart of our miscommunication or misunderstanding or differences of opinion. I'm not sure "emergent" means much when applied artificial intelligence if it doesn't mean you have to run it to see what it does. You appear to be using "emergent" to mean something less than that. What in the context of in order to verify that the emergent behavior produced by a swarm has the properties we desire should "emergent" be defined or identied as? Obviously not For a phenomenon to be termed emergent it should generally be unpredictable from a lower level description. WAS 4.250 15:19, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
Now in order to verify that the emergent behavior produced by a swarm has the properties we desire makes perfect sense. Whenever I wrote stuff that had timing issues, I always made sure the subroutines using time-sensitive data had logically-defined, specific and few relevant states that covered all logical possiblities (I implemented tractable virtual state devices). This made sure they always did what was specified, even if sometimes what was specifid turned out to be not what was desired :) WAS 4.250 11:55, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
Yea, at one point today, I actually was on a very separate article called "Computer Algorithm", with about a paragraph of information, but I'm not sure what happened to it. Perhaps an incorrect spelling? maybe it was deleted? But thanks for letting me know. Adambiswanger1 05:20, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
Thank you for your kind words. I will certainly refrain from editing FP for a while (if not permanently). I may try to edit other articles but after this experience and your comment about avoiding radical changes I will keep my edits small. I certainly found our conversation on models of concurrency enlightening so I will probably confine most of my participation to talk pages.
Thanks again. Ideogram 20:43, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
I'm enjoying my interaction with Wikipedia very much. I'm glad I didn't leave. Ideogram 18:17, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
I was a big fan of the ptolemy project, what happened to your draft for this? Was the subject too OR? Ideogram 16:57, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
I just didn't how to do them and didn't want to spend the time learning, to be frank. (This wiki-thing does take a lot of time!) Is there a place where i can go to learn? lemme know, thanks.wvbailey Wvbailey 18:20, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
Hi again, wvbailey here: the history on the algorithm page is growing and growing. I'm finding it interesting stuff; it ties together, esp. when we consider what cool inventions influenced these guys as they were doing the math, and all the battles between the Intuitionists and logicists, and all the amazing math that was going on, etc. But its getting awfully big.
I personally like a lot of quotes. Some folks want it spoon-fed to them.
Let someone else massage the stuff I've found? Ruud reverted the stuff quoted from Knuth. I'm become timid. I can't stand reversion-wars and fighting about this word and that word-- hate it hate it hate it -- and silly bullshitty know-nothing arguments about e.g. copyright issues (there aren't any ferchrissake). Any thoughts re outline, content, whatever? I mean I could make a stab at it but if Ruud reverts it, I say fuck it, I'm done with it. It's too much work to have it slashed and burned, and to then have to fight over the rotten body-parts that are left. I've got other, more profitable things I could be doing. That's why I'm asking for guidance here. Thanks. wvbailey Wvbailey 19:14, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
we have three votes. what is the procedure, do we wait for the end of the week? Ideogram 21:55, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
We have a disagreement at programming language which we would like to settle with a vote. Is there a procedure to follow? Ideogram 21:58, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
User: Derek farn has repeatedly reverted edits with no attempt made at discussion (see history for programming language. I fear that his interference will drive contributing editors away. This is unacceptable. What am I supposed to do? Ideogram 02:09, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
I don't know what I would have done without you, on many many occasions. Ideogram 03:27, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
I feel a little foolish.... I did indeed put that stuff on my user page. I did not write the text which is why I didnt recognise it as my writing it I wrote the template that expanded into that display text, that I recognised as soon as I went into edit mode to remove it as suggested. blush.
It seemed like a good idea to test it there at the time. I have been having some other confusion(deleting conflict) as I adapt to the wikipedia way and the way it values its content and contributors. They all got mixed up my head. Oh well I live to learn. delete at will. AccurateOne 08:36, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
Do they use "ta" Down Under or is it mainly a British thing? Ideogram 05:30, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
Hi Allan, it's been a while. I am wondering if you could help me with a project of mine. Would you be interested in being interviewed regarding Wikipedia? I would be asking about your views of the current system and questions such as how it could be improved and how do you think Wikipedia would develop in the near future. Thank you. -- Evanx( tag?) 17:25, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
Hey Allan I'd love to see your answers to these questions. Ideogram 03:59, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
Can we delete this yet? Ideogram 21:01, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
Can we get the Computer science portal into the related portals on this page?
Also, there seems to be considerable overlap and confusion between Information technology and Computer science. Even their Selected article is Java programming language which I would think belongs to Computer science. Ideogram 10:03, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
I'm trying to rewrite relational database; do you think this article falls under Computer science or should I look elsewhere for contributors? Ideogram 10:36, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
I have asked R.Koot for his thoughts on this matter on his talk page. I would love to see your thoughts as well. Ideogram 12:48, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
I've tried to open a dialogue with Derek farn here but he insists he is still trying to ignore me. I think he respects you (and you know I respect you) so could you try to reason with him? I will be forever in your debt (heck, I am already :-). Ideogram 11:20, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
thanks Allan for the welcome note,am sure you have seen my work and found how stupid i am the truth i have this passion for computer science was tought alittle of c and c++ programming language that we do in writing like there algorithms but do not often go to the extend of executing and things like that, find out how it works, because of lack of computers,you must wonder where am from Africa,Kenya in the interior a very remote small university and since i had scored and loved mathematics they took me in but then i decided to do computer science and i enjoy the little i know and i thought by getting to your site wikipedia i would benefit alot in what i want to achieve.i hope am in the right place as most of the guys work that are in here are post graduates or know exactly what they are doing.and i hope i can catch up on my own with your help fast.thanks again Allan —The preceding unsigned comment was added by El-fridah ( talk • contribs) .
Thank you for a nice talk. You are very nice to talk with. I am an old retired guy. I did lots of computer science stuff years ago, but moved away from it over the last couple decades. I mostly wrote stuff in assembly for scientific instrumentation and government cold war projects. But my real interest has always been in artificial intelligence. Can I strike up a conversation with you on something of mutual interest? What is the current hot topic in computer science acedemia from your point of view? What do you think of predictions concerning the point in time when designed intelligence equals biologically evolved intelligence? WAS 4.250 00:20, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
The first paragraph, I'll deal with tomorrow. The second I'll respond to now. I think the key is a seed that rapidly learns to learn better in an unbounded way; noting that the universe itself is a seed that has learned to learn in a terribly slow fashion. I think of the internet as a (but maybe not the) pre-singularity containing a variety of evolving primordial entities exchanging genes and aquiring new genes from many methods including from the mind of humans who are collectively the mother hen hatching this egg (while in the bowels of various intelligence agencies, specific attempts at totally controllable pre-singularities are being attempted). To my mind the big question is when (2020? 2070?). In 1980 I predicted (to myself) that the "crux point" (as I called it then) would occur no earlier than 1995 and no later than 2010. I still have a couple years... WAS 4.250 15:55, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
My response to:
is:
Both this paper and process calculi seem oriented towards theoretical computer science. Is that your current interest? Is that what you feel will prove most interesting or critical or important in computer science? Earlier you said "That is not to say that I think artificial intelligence is impossible. Rather that I doubt it will be "designed" in the same way that, say, a microprocessor is. It seems more likely to me that such intelligences will be evolved (albeit artificially)." and I agree. But evolving a highly complicated software suite and using theory to design the end product are at opposite ends of the spectrum. Everything we know in the world of great complexity that works has evolved from simple to complex. I don't think you can design your way there. I think you have to grow your way there. So "a formal model of ANTS" would be a waste of money, right? The nature of emergent behavior would seem to rule out even being able to ask to right questions. If it is complicated enough to have interesting and useful emergent behavior, you would have to run it to see what it does, right? What do you think? I think people who manage these programs want assurances that are not possible. WAS 4.250 20:30, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
My current interest does indeed lie in theoretical computer science. But what I am interested in doing is making the theoretical useful in practice. I think that the theory of concurrency is interesting and critical and important for those parts of computer science that deal with networked and distributed systems, and ubiquitous computing. I believe that the same theory can be applied to swarm systems, in order to verify that the emergent behavior produced by a swarm has the properties we desire — note that this does not imply that we could necessarily "design" (from first principles) a swarm to have certain properties, but rather that we could verify that a given swarm configuration will do what we want (the difference here is between computing a solution, and verifying that an existing solution is correct... the latter is much simpler). Given a test for correctness (i.e. emergent behavior has desired properties), it may well be possible to evolve a swarm design using classical genetic algorithm techniques — the correctness criteria become a type of objective function or fitness function. Such work has already been done for very simple sequential and logic programs (see here), and could presumably be extended to concurrent systems. As for the need to "run it to see what it does", much of the current work in concurrency theory involves figuring out what we can infer about a system without running it, and how to infer other things by "executing" an abstracted model of the system. -- Allan McInnes ( talk) 20:56, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
I don't know much about theoretical computer science so this conversation may limp to a close;
but I know a bit of physics and cognitive science and applied computer science and I try to follow nanotechnology somewhat.
What is "the theory of concurrency"? Aren't there many?
Yes, you can create a "test for correctness (i.e. emergent behavior has desired properties)" but how can you know what other emergent behaviors it might have that might affect important behaviors in unforeseeable ways? The more interesting and complicated the designed emergent behaviors, the more unforeseeable other emergent behaviors must be.
"Much of the current work in concurrency theory involves figuring out what we can infer about a system without running it, and how to infer other things by 'executing' an abstracted model of the system." What to abstract and what not to abstract; therein lies the problem. The evolution of complex systems can take some curious twists. WAS 4.250 02:05, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
Please, don't repeat each word of K Root, this is enough with him. I was not understood. The article is essential because it is the entry point of a giant amout of information about algos. If the link is removed, we have to replace it with another link as entry point to this part of Wikipedia. Of course, the article itself must be valuable.
About the removal of external links, apparently you consider we have to link to each article of each algorithm rather than on the general algorithm page. Not sure. Readers may need for links sources of algos without to have to search each algo in the Wikipedia. Links are part of content, they must not be removed without discussion.
Splang
06:50, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
thanks for the welcome. was it auto-generated? In any case, I am familiar with your name from following the CarlHewitt controversy. I am very pleased to meet you.
Ideogram 22:18, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
That's one of the great things about wikipedia, all official proceedings are public, so us anonymous cowards can lurk before deciding to participate.
I've long been a fan of Carl Hewitt's work. I won't publically air any of my less complimentary concerns.
Ideogram 23:37, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
Is our interesting conversation over, or just on hold? WAS 4.250 23:32, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
I should be done with any major restorations to Functional programming. There are still things that could use touching up, but I think I'm managed to get all the basic mass-deleted content restored (and in many cases, put in some wording improvements while doing so... I guess it's good to be prompted to do that, despite the annoyance factor). LotLE× talk 02:29, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
Hello Allan. I've decided to take a break from FP and editing and I wanted to discuss concurrency theory with you. I hope you have the time.
I've thought about it off and on since 1990, and the Actors model has been very influential on my thinking.
Basically I've decided that the fundamental concept should be the Event. In Actor terms this would be a message. A function call as used in sequential programming is actually composed of two Events, the call and the return (sorry if I'm stating the obvious). In a sequential programming system focusing on one task there is nothing else to return to, so unifying the two events is reasonable. but in a parallel distributed system there may be many processors working on many tasks. in this case you clearly need to be able to control where the results of a computation go. thus i feel that attempts to extend the concept of a function to parallel distributed system, such as RPC, are the wrong approach.
Historically I was led to the concept of an Event by my experience programming the X Window System. If you are not familiar with GUI programming, one usually writes the program as a loop with a giant switch statement that collects events and dispatches them. This is clearly an Actor.
Parallel distributed programming, and the Actor model, are traditionally considered hard to understand. But here I found an application of the Actor paradigm that was being used because it made things easier.
Events have the advantage that they make explicit the fundamental concepts of parallel distributed programming which sequential programming lacks. In parallel distributed programming events happen at a time, maybe the same time, and a place, as opposed to sequential programming where everything happens one at a time in the CPU. Events make clear what is essential about programming in both models, namely the notion of causality, which imposes a partial ordering on the time sequence of events.
The model used in "Distributed Algorithms" by Nancy Lynch, for instance, assumes that state transitions (which in my model are caused by and therefore map to events) still occur one at a time, except that certain sets of state transitions may happen in nondeterministic order. In terms of my model it is clear that events linked by causality do not form these sets, while events that do form these sets may happen at the same time. Although I understand Professor Lynch's need to reduce parallel distributed programming to something amenable to theory, I am dissatisfied with her model since it does not correspond to my intuitive understanding of what happens in a parallel distributed system.
However, one should note that in my system it is not possible to speak of the entire system as being in one "state". This obviously makes it hard to reason about, but it does correspond to my intuition of what's actually happening.
Let me stop here and wait for feedback before continuing. Ideogram 07:07, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
P = chan?x -> do.x -> Stop
. This expression defines a process which can receive a value over the channel "chan", bind that value to "x", and then engage in some action "do.x".Q = chan!laundry -> Stop
, we get the composite process PQ = P |{|chan|}| Q
, where |{|chan|}|
means that P and Q synchronize on all events involving channel "chan".PQ' = chan.laundry -> do.laundry -> Stop
. Same pattern of events. No message passing involved. PQ' is a single process.P' = (chan.laundry -> do.laundry -> Stop) [] (chan.shopping -> do.shopping -> Stop) [] (chan.taxes -> do.taxes -> Stop)
, where []
denotes a choice over initial events. This view of P exposes the pattern of events defined by the notion that P's actions depend on the message that it receives over "chan" - the notation chan?x
, which represents message reception, is simply a convenient shorthand for a branching pattern of events.what would you say are the differences between current models of concurrency that would need to be resolved to achieve a "universal model"? Ideogram 19:38, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
how do I add it? Ideogram 10:04, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
C programming language isn't listed in category:programming languages either. Ideogram 10:07, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
Emergence says For a phenomenon to be termed emergent it should generally be unpredictable from a lower level description. You said in order to verify that the emergent behavior produced by a swarm has the properties we desire. I think this gets to the heart of our miscommunication or misunderstanding or differences of opinion. I'm not sure "emergent" means much when applied artificial intelligence if it doesn't mean you have to run it to see what it does. You appear to be using "emergent" to mean something less than that. What in the context of in order to verify that the emergent behavior produced by a swarm has the properties we desire should "emergent" be defined or identied as? Obviously not For a phenomenon to be termed emergent it should generally be unpredictable from a lower level description. WAS 4.250 15:19, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
Now in order to verify that the emergent behavior produced by a swarm has the properties we desire makes perfect sense. Whenever I wrote stuff that had timing issues, I always made sure the subroutines using time-sensitive data had logically-defined, specific and few relevant states that covered all logical possiblities (I implemented tractable virtual state devices). This made sure they always did what was specified, even if sometimes what was specifid turned out to be not what was desired :) WAS 4.250 11:55, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
Yea, at one point today, I actually was on a very separate article called "Computer Algorithm", with about a paragraph of information, but I'm not sure what happened to it. Perhaps an incorrect spelling? maybe it was deleted? But thanks for letting me know. Adambiswanger1 05:20, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
Thank you for your kind words. I will certainly refrain from editing FP for a while (if not permanently). I may try to edit other articles but after this experience and your comment about avoiding radical changes I will keep my edits small. I certainly found our conversation on models of concurrency enlightening so I will probably confine most of my participation to talk pages.
Thanks again. Ideogram 20:43, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
I'm enjoying my interaction with Wikipedia very much. I'm glad I didn't leave. Ideogram 18:17, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
I was a big fan of the ptolemy project, what happened to your draft for this? Was the subject too OR? Ideogram 16:57, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
I just didn't how to do them and didn't want to spend the time learning, to be frank. (This wiki-thing does take a lot of time!) Is there a place where i can go to learn? lemme know, thanks.wvbailey Wvbailey 18:20, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
Hi again, wvbailey here: the history on the algorithm page is growing and growing. I'm finding it interesting stuff; it ties together, esp. when we consider what cool inventions influenced these guys as they were doing the math, and all the battles between the Intuitionists and logicists, and all the amazing math that was going on, etc. But its getting awfully big.
I personally like a lot of quotes. Some folks want it spoon-fed to them.
Let someone else massage the stuff I've found? Ruud reverted the stuff quoted from Knuth. I'm become timid. I can't stand reversion-wars and fighting about this word and that word-- hate it hate it hate it -- and silly bullshitty know-nothing arguments about e.g. copyright issues (there aren't any ferchrissake). Any thoughts re outline, content, whatever? I mean I could make a stab at it but if Ruud reverts it, I say fuck it, I'm done with it. It's too much work to have it slashed and burned, and to then have to fight over the rotten body-parts that are left. I've got other, more profitable things I could be doing. That's why I'm asking for guidance here. Thanks. wvbailey Wvbailey 19:14, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
we have three votes. what is the procedure, do we wait for the end of the week? Ideogram 21:55, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
We have a disagreement at programming language which we would like to settle with a vote. Is there a procedure to follow? Ideogram 21:58, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
User: Derek farn has repeatedly reverted edits with no attempt made at discussion (see history for programming language. I fear that his interference will drive contributing editors away. This is unacceptable. What am I supposed to do? Ideogram 02:09, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
I don't know what I would have done without you, on many many occasions. Ideogram 03:27, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
I feel a little foolish.... I did indeed put that stuff on my user page. I did not write the text which is why I didnt recognise it as my writing it I wrote the template that expanded into that display text, that I recognised as soon as I went into edit mode to remove it as suggested. blush.
It seemed like a good idea to test it there at the time. I have been having some other confusion(deleting conflict) as I adapt to the wikipedia way and the way it values its content and contributors. They all got mixed up my head. Oh well I live to learn. delete at will. AccurateOne 08:36, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
Do they use "ta" Down Under or is it mainly a British thing? Ideogram 05:30, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
Hi Allan, it's been a while. I am wondering if you could help me with a project of mine. Would you be interested in being interviewed regarding Wikipedia? I would be asking about your views of the current system and questions such as how it could be improved and how do you think Wikipedia would develop in the near future. Thank you. -- Evanx( tag?) 17:25, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
Hey Allan I'd love to see your answers to these questions. Ideogram 03:59, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
Can we delete this yet? Ideogram 21:01, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
Can we get the Computer science portal into the related portals on this page?
Also, there seems to be considerable overlap and confusion between Information technology and Computer science. Even their Selected article is Java programming language which I would think belongs to Computer science. Ideogram 10:03, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
I'm trying to rewrite relational database; do you think this article falls under Computer science or should I look elsewhere for contributors? Ideogram 10:36, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
I have asked R.Koot for his thoughts on this matter on his talk page. I would love to see your thoughts as well. Ideogram 12:48, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
I've tried to open a dialogue with Derek farn here but he insists he is still trying to ignore me. I think he respects you (and you know I respect you) so could you try to reason with him? I will be forever in your debt (heck, I am already :-). Ideogram 11:20, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
thanks Allan for the welcome note,am sure you have seen my work and found how stupid i am the truth i have this passion for computer science was tought alittle of c and c++ programming language that we do in writing like there algorithms but do not often go to the extend of executing and things like that, find out how it works, because of lack of computers,you must wonder where am from Africa,Kenya in the interior a very remote small university and since i had scored and loved mathematics they took me in but then i decided to do computer science and i enjoy the little i know and i thought by getting to your site wikipedia i would benefit alot in what i want to achieve.i hope am in the right place as most of the guys work that are in here are post graduates or know exactly what they are doing.and i hope i can catch up on my own with your help fast.thanks again Allan —The preceding unsigned comment was added by El-fridah ( talk • contribs) .