tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8288194986820249216.post157942582335023845..comments2024-03-22T05:09:17.789-07:00Comments on Abstract Heresies: Semi-coherent ramblingJoe Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03233353484280456977noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8288194986820249216.post-10342054623738097502009-09-17T20:58:01.365-07:002009-09-17T20:58:01.365-07:00Until you work fairly closely to hardware design (...Until you work fairly closely to hardware design (as I do at Intel) and learn how close we are to the analog edge where our abstractions stop holding. Acceptable soft-error rates really scare me, but they are a fact of life in modern micros. So, at some point we all may have to get our hands dirty. Not that that detracts from where you appear to go in the next parts. (And, yes I worked backward to get here.)Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02412082099249161664noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8288194986820249216.post-91692037803297623822009-09-17T04:56:23.020-07:002009-09-17T04:56:23.020-07:00This post is actually dancing around a blog topic ...This post is actually dancing around a blog topic I've had in my head for some time.<br /><br />To me, the notion of building abstraction is essentially what programmers do. And, as you noted, the lowest level (registers, bytes, reading from devices, writing to devices, etc.) of computing is still just that - an abstraction someone *invented*.<br /><br />But it even goes deeper than that.<br /><br />You can't even talk about the notion of magnetic fields or electrons without reverting to what are essentially abstractions. For example, I picture electrons as little dots whizzing around a core of protons. That's as useful an abstraction as any to allow me to reason about how electrons behave.<br /><br />The truly exciting thing about being a programmer is that we get to invent this stuff all the time. We get to build up our own little universes, all without getting our hands the slightest bit dirty.Ben Simonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09833753747177544979noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8288194986820249216.post-57484119706568366862009-09-16T14:53:13.806-07:002009-09-16T14:53:13.806-07:00The other advantage of "primitive ontological...The other advantage of "primitive ontological abstraction" is that hardware designers are free to implement the abstraction in many ways. The EAX register has been implemented hundreds of times, and will be implemented many more times in the future.<br /><br />But that's probably not where you're going in this essay...kbobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11512820963025257647noreply@blogger.com