2006-01-31
Dijkstra
I’m not really the person to have idols. But there is someone that I really admire. Edsger W. Dijkstra is one of the higher gods of the computer science pantheon. I would have liked to meet him and work with him. Unfortunately he died in 2002. Dijkstra has invented several fundamental principles in computer programming (the semaphore and the shortest path algorithm). But above all he had a vision on computer programming; a mathematical approach with emphasis on simplicity and elegance.
I can try to explain it, but you can better watch the video 'Denken als discipline' made by VPRO Noorderlicht. You should also read his parable on computer programming. It is very illustrative. It’s one of the 1300 EWD’s (notes) he has written. Have you ever been wondering why software is so expensive? Well read this.
By the way, there is also one EWD on the theorem of Pythagoras. Reading it is quite inspiring, but makes me feel very humble too.
I can try to explain it, but you can better watch the video 'Denken als discipline' made by VPRO Noorderlicht. You should also read his parable on computer programming. It is very illustrative. It’s one of the 1300 EWD’s (notes) he has written. Have you ever been wondering why software is so expensive? Well read this.
By the way, there is also one EWD on the theorem of Pythagoras. Reading it is quite inspiring, but makes me feel very humble too.
2006-01-26
Structures
How many notes does a piece of music have? How many notes can a piano player play? I guess it’s several hundred, up to 1000 keystrokes a minute. Well, Google returned a.o. this link for the fastest piano player in the world. He could play 6000 notes in 2 minutes.
Imagine the amount of notes that a piano player plays during a concert. 100,000?
How can someone remember all those notes? Every note with it own tone, length and loudness? They don’t. At least they don’t remember individual notes. They remember phrases, rhythms, climaxes and turning points.
I’ve just been to a concert. Of course, there was some Romantic music on the program. I’ve got something with the 19th century. The pianist was Daniël Wayenberg, someone who really knows how the every note should sound. Anyway, during the concert I noticed how many of the notes were predictable. I had never heard those particular pieces of Beethoven, but everything was so familiar. BTW this is not uncommon with Romantic music or with Romantic paintings. Romanticism has a focus on the emotional and particular nature of things, but meanwhile it is extremely predictable (and beautiful).
If I can predict a large number of the notes, what about a concert pianist? Why can I predict some notes? Well, there is so much structure in the music. There is an overall structure with the introduction of a theme, variations, some repetitions and a final. There are microstructures like rhythms, chords and sequences in scales. A bit larger are the common chord sequences, melodic phrases.
Every composer has his own vocabulary with structures, his idiom, and his expressions. Every age has its expressions and every instrument has its vocabulary. A musician has a toolbox filled with those structures. For a piece of music he only has to know these structures and some particular notes that make the piece unique. Over 99% of the notes are just there, because they have to be there. They are the only ones that fit.
The same applies to other art forms. An actor can remember his text, because he knows the general structure of a play. He knows the character he is playing. He knows the idiom of the writer. Most words are there, because they are the most logic thing to say at that moment.
What about computers and software? Do I remember all those lines of code I have written? Do I know all functions of the operating system by heart? I only remember those things, because they have a structure, micro structures and overall structures. Sometimes I have even never seen a certain call of a system, but I simply know it is there, because it has to be there. The structure implies it. Of course there are some exceptions. Those are the things you have to remember. Yeah, and really sometimes you encounter something without structure or with such mixed up and inconsistent structures that it’s simply impossible to get it into your head. Those are the things I just really want to forget completely.
Imagine the amount of notes that a piano player plays during a concert. 100,000?
How can someone remember all those notes? Every note with it own tone, length and loudness? They don’t. At least they don’t remember individual notes. They remember phrases, rhythms, climaxes and turning points.
I’ve just been to a concert. Of course, there was some Romantic music on the program. I’ve got something with the 19th century. The pianist was Daniël Wayenberg, someone who really knows how the every note should sound. Anyway, during the concert I noticed how many of the notes were predictable. I had never heard those particular pieces of Beethoven, but everything was so familiar. BTW this is not uncommon with Romantic music or with Romantic paintings. Romanticism has a focus on the emotional and particular nature of things, but meanwhile it is extremely predictable (and beautiful).
If I can predict a large number of the notes, what about a concert pianist? Why can I predict some notes? Well, there is so much structure in the music. There is an overall structure with the introduction of a theme, variations, some repetitions and a final. There are microstructures like rhythms, chords and sequences in scales. A bit larger are the common chord sequences, melodic phrases.
Every composer has his own vocabulary with structures, his idiom, and his expressions. Every age has its expressions and every instrument has its vocabulary. A musician has a toolbox filled with those structures. For a piece of music he only has to know these structures and some particular notes that make the piece unique. Over 99% of the notes are just there, because they have to be there. They are the only ones that fit.
The same applies to other art forms. An actor can remember his text, because he knows the general structure of a play. He knows the character he is playing. He knows the idiom of the writer. Most words are there, because they are the most logic thing to say at that moment.
What about computers and software? Do I remember all those lines of code I have written? Do I know all functions of the operating system by heart? I only remember those things, because they have a structure, micro structures and overall structures. Sometimes I have even never seen a certain call of a system, but I simply know it is there, because it has to be there. The structure implies it. Of course there are some exceptions. Those are the things you have to remember. Yeah, and really sometimes you encounter something without structure or with such mixed up and inconsistent structures that it’s simply impossible to get it into your head. Those are the things I just really want to forget completely.
2006-01-24
The temple of science
In the temple of science are many mansions -- and various indeed are they that dwell therein and the motives that have led them there.
Many take to science out of a joyful sense of superior intellectual power; science is their own special sport to which they look for vivid experience and the satisfaction of ambition; many others are to be found in the temple who have offered the products of their brains on this altar for purely utilitarian purposes. Were an angel of the Lord to come and drive all the people belonging to these two categories out of the temple, it would be noticeably emptier but there would still be some men of both present and past times left inside -- . If the types we have just expelled were the only types there were, the temple would never have existed any more than one can have a wood consisting of nothing but creepers -- those who have found favor with the angel -- are somewhat odd, uncommunicative, solitary fellows, really less like each other than the hosts of the rejected.
What has brought them to the temple -- no single answer will cover -- escape from everyday life, with its painful crudity and hopeless dreariness, from the fetters of one's own shifting desires. A finely tempered nature longs to escape from his noisy cramped surroundings into the silence of the high mountains where the eye ranges freely through the still pure air and fondly traces out the restful contours apparently built for eternity.
The passage is from a 1918 speech by a young German scientist named Albert Einstein.
-- And I copied it from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, an inquiry into values.
Many take to science out of a joyful sense of superior intellectual power; science is their own special sport to which they look for vivid experience and the satisfaction of ambition; many others are to be found in the temple who have offered the products of their brains on this altar for purely utilitarian purposes. Were an angel of the Lord to come and drive all the people belonging to these two categories out of the temple, it would be noticeably emptier but there would still be some men of both present and past times left inside -- . If the types we have just expelled were the only types there were, the temple would never have existed any more than one can have a wood consisting of nothing but creepers -- those who have found favor with the angel -- are somewhat odd, uncommunicative, solitary fellows, really less like each other than the hosts of the rejected.
What has brought them to the temple -- no single answer will cover -- escape from everyday life, with its painful crudity and hopeless dreariness, from the fetters of one's own shifting desires. A finely tempered nature longs to escape from his noisy cramped surroundings into the silence of the high mountains where the eye ranges freely through the still pure air and fondly traces out the restful contours apparently built for eternity.
The passage is from a 1918 speech by a young German scientist named Albert Einstein.
-- And I copied it from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, an inquiry into values.
Pythagoras
There is a lot to say about the Greek philosopher and mathematician Pythagoras. His theorem is well known. Few people know the very simple proof of this theorem. It's so elegant. I want to share it.
A square with side A + a square with side B + 4 triangles
= a square with side C + (the same) 4 triangles.
Thus A2 + B2 = C2.
That's all.
A square with side A + a square with side B + 4 triangles
= a square with side C + (the same) 4 triangles.
Thus A2 + B2 = C2.
That's all.
2006-01-15
New Year
This afternoon I went to a concert of the Pythagoras Trio, a remarkable name for a string trio playing romantic music. Pythagoras is far from romantic. Anyway, the concert reminded me of a little story I still wanted to write down. Because I was very tired after last night’s party, it reminded me of another little story. BTW, we had a great party, dancing and singing with music of U2, Tears For Fears, Doe Maar, Prince and other 80’s artists.
Just after Christmas I went to a lunch concert of with some friends. The sister of one of them was performing. She plays the violin. My daughter really loves music. So, I took her with me. It was her first classical concert. She liked it a lot. But afterwards she told me that I should say to the violinist that “she must not make such a wild movements with her fiddlestick. She might drop it!”
On New Year’s Eve early in the evening we were walking outside. There were a lot of youth with firework. My daughter didn’t mind the firecrackers. She liked the rockets, until there was one burning on the street. “Daddy, let’s go inside. Quick. The street is starting to burn”.
She couldn’t stay awake till midnight, but I promised I would wake her up for the big fireworks at midnight. Unfortunately, she was sleeping like Sleeping Beauty and I’m not a prince. So, I couldn't wake her up. She woke up at 5.30 in the morning when I was fast asleep. But she is a little princess, so I woke up. “Daddy, when is the big party?” Very disappointed that she missed it all she started to cry. Never before I felt so broken on New Year’s Day.
Just after Christmas I went to a lunch concert of with some friends. The sister of one of them was performing. She plays the violin. My daughter really loves music. So, I took her with me. It was her first classical concert. She liked it a lot. But afterwards she told me that I should say to the violinist that “she must not make such a wild movements with her fiddlestick. She might drop it!”
On New Year’s Eve early in the evening we were walking outside. There were a lot of youth with firework. My daughter didn’t mind the firecrackers. She liked the rockets, until there was one burning on the street. “Daddy, let’s go inside. Quick. The street is starting to burn”.
She couldn’t stay awake till midnight, but I promised I would wake her up for the big fireworks at midnight. Unfortunately, she was sleeping like Sleeping Beauty and I’m not a prince. So, I couldn't wake her up. She woke up at 5.30 in the morning when I was fast asleep. But she is a little princess, so I woke up. “Daddy, when is the big party?” Very disappointed that she missed it all she started to cry. Never before I felt so broken on New Year’s Day.
2006-01-10
Big Boss
“I want to have it.”
“No, give it to me”, commands my daughter, “I’ll tell my daddy. He is the boss in this house.”
“Well I’ll tell God. He’s the Boss for everything.”
“No not everything. Sinterklaas has given this to me. He is the Big Boss.”
2006-01-08
Designer
The painting proves that there is a painter. The watch has a watchmaker. My computer has a designer...
Let’s have a look. I see a QWERTY keyboard patented by Christopher Sholes in 1868. It certainly was a very good design for the mechanical typewriter, but is it good for a computer in the 21st century? I see a dozen different connectors. Each of them well designed a decade (or two) ago by different companies, but all together? I see a display with Windows. Does the operating system have a designer? A group of designers? Not even that! It’s a collection of bits and pieces of designs made by thousands of people from different companies and organisations. Most of the designers would not have imagined that their designs would get into such a system. Other designers complain about the designs that are already in the system they have to use. My specialization is internet and web applications. Almost every day I have to find my way through specifications and designs (hundreds!) made by unrelated designers. (html, xml, javascript, css, svg, tcp, ip, http, mime-types...). I’m putting my designs in this web of other designs.
My computer does not have one designer, but several thousand designers and the only thing they have in common is that they were born on this planet in the 20th century. What about a city or the society? Who designed it? Lots of people have done bits and pieces, but who has put in the poverty and terrorism?
But a painting ...? Well, there was someone bringing the paint on the canvas, maybe with an assistant. Someone made the canvas, somebody else a frame. Somebody produced the paint that has changed colour over time. Probably there was a client ordering the painting. There were colleague painters who inspired the painter and a wife that brought him in a certain mood.
All the painting proves is that there is a creative process or processes. So creation proves there is creation. I never liked logic.
Let’s have a look. I see a QWERTY keyboard patented by Christopher Sholes in 1868. It certainly was a very good design for the mechanical typewriter, but is it good for a computer in the 21st century? I see a dozen different connectors. Each of them well designed a decade (or two) ago by different companies, but all together? I see a display with Windows. Does the operating system have a designer? A group of designers? Not even that! It’s a collection of bits and pieces of designs made by thousands of people from different companies and organisations. Most of the designers would not have imagined that their designs would get into such a system. Other designers complain about the designs that are already in the system they have to use. My specialization is internet and web applications. Almost every day I have to find my way through specifications and designs (hundreds!) made by unrelated designers. (html, xml, javascript, css, svg, tcp, ip, http, mime-types...). I’m putting my designs in this web of other designs.
My computer does not have one designer, but several thousand designers and the only thing they have in common is that they were born on this planet in the 20th century. What about a city or the society? Who designed it? Lots of people have done bits and pieces, but who has put in the poverty and terrorism?
But a painting ...? Well, there was someone bringing the paint on the canvas, maybe with an assistant. Someone made the canvas, somebody else a frame. Somebody produced the paint that has changed colour over time. Probably there was a client ordering the painting. There were colleague painters who inspired the painter and a wife that brought him in a certain mood.
All the painting proves is that there is a creative process or processes. So creation proves there is creation. I never liked logic.
