fogus: computing - Send More Paramedics

On method values, part 1

Aug 19, 2024

Prior to discovering Clojure back in 2007, I was a full-time Java programmer. This was long before method handles, method references, lambda expressions, and invokedynamic, so viewing Java through a functional programming lens was not second-nature to me. Regardless, during my early Clojure explorations I fully expected code like the following to “just work”: (defn […]

The Elusive Computer KAMAS Report Volume 2

Aug 7, 2024

The Internet Archive currently has digital copies of almost every KAMAS Report, except for vol 2. KAMAS was (is?) early outliner software originally written for the Kaypro line of computers running CP/M. I previously wrote about KAMAS in my 8-bit Spirituals post and have looked for vol. 2 ever since to no avail. If anyone […]

The Elusive Computer Monograph Number 11

May 28, 2024

Starting in the late-1960s/early-1970s Elsevier and McDonald teamed up to print a series of computing books under the series “Computer Monographs“. I’ve read a couple and they were both well-written and likely ahead of their time. While looking deeper into the series I learned that 26 volumes in the series were printed, however I cannot […]

Notes from Underground: Software Tardigrades

Mar 8, 2024

Cryptobiosis is a peculiar state of biological organization Automatic bug repair and LLMs Tardigrades and foreign DNA Sussman’s “Evolvability and Robust Design” and the Art of the Propagator. Also look at Sussman and Hanson’s book Software Design for Flexibility: How to Avoid Programming Yourself into a Corner. Deep Specification :F

The one about Lisp interactivity

Nov 10, 2022 some comments

Lisp REPLs are on the collective lips of the WWW lately and so I thought I’d add my little bit of chatter to the mix as well.1 For example, David Vujic wrote a post that fell victim to common misconceptions about what a REPL is. Slava Pestov also joined the fray when he tweeted about […]