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1 Born December 1949.
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2
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3 After starting a degree at Oberlin in 1967, dropped out without
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4 completing 3rd year.
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5
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6 Out to BC with Katy in the fall of 1969, back to Cambridge and
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7 Philadelphia to see respective families.
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8
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9 Had to get out of the US (draft), so that winter took over the old job
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10 of his brother Arnold in an NRC high-energy Physics lab, living with
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11 Katy and Arnold in an old farmhouse in a posh neighbourhood in Ottawa.
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12 Very snowy winter, record-breaking, 18 feet?, long driveway and a lot
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13 of shovelling, piled up to the 2nd floor. Involve with Ottawa QUaker
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14 Meeting, a youth group, and a Mennonite youth group. Stayed through
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15 the several years. March 1971, employer partnering with the Univ. of
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16 Chicago Physics dept and LRL in Berkeley, went there, installed a
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17 PDP-9 / 15, in a 40-ft Fruehof trailer, moved from Ottawa to Fermi
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18 Lab, where Brian's office was. Programmed in machine language (see
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19 below). He could 'program like crazy' in the air-conditioned trailer,
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20 high-volume music in head-phones, but couldn't write English. Lived
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21 in a hotel in Hyde ? park. They owned an Austin Mini bought for $100
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22 in summer of 1970, working at a Quaker peace conference on Rhinestone
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23 island in lake near Ottawa.
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15
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24
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25 Katy went out to Berkeley that spring, where the experiment was to
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26 take place. Married in June of 1971 at Pendle Hill / Swarthmore, then
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27 back to Berkeley. Lived in a back yard house at Telegraph and Shannon
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28 (?). Legally a Canadian resident notionally in US on a business trip.
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29 Experiment ran, wrapped and went back to Ottawa. He wanted to stay in
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30 US, they ended up (autumn 1971? 1972?) living with his parents in
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31 Cambridge, where WCS was by then head of the new Center for the Study
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32 of World Religions at Harvard.
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33
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34 [Applied to Graduate School at MIT in EECS, started taking some
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35 courses, but eventually MIT admin said be couldn't be admitted w/o a
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36 UG degree.]
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37
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38 Interested in being a social inquiry major, in order to study the
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39 politics of high technology, how we get to transferring to EECS from
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40 that goal is not clear.
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41
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42 It was very quickly clear that the understanding of computing that the
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43 social scientists were critiquing was not [Programming in machine
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44 language] the computing that I know. So I need to get clear on what
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45 computing really is, so that I can legitimately critique it. So I
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46 thought I had to go into the heart of the beast, as it were.
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47
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48 Terry Winograd provided the friendship and both social and 'official'
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49 support-structure to allow Brian to start to express himself out loud,
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50 as it were.
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51
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52 Saying to Fodor, ref. Tom Swift and his procedural grandmother, that
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53 "this is not how compilation worked", Fodor was blustery but
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54 open-minded enough to say "this is your subject area, I'm sure you're
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55 rightl tell me how it does work". He and Fodor were friends, but
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56 later Fodor "curdled".
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57
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58 Dog hanging on to a scented cloth -- sitting at the console of a 360
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59 and keying in instructinos and debugging by staring at the pattern of
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60 lights that the console frooze in.
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61
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62 Articulating an understanding of computing that would do justice to his
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63 intuitive understanding of computing as he had experienced it is the
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64 theme of all his intellectual work.
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65
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66 "Course on compilers, I had written a compiler, I'd written a tiny OS
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67 for a PDP-9 running a physics experiment". Pat Winston sat me down
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68 and took me through the requirements for a CSEE degree, and decided
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69 he'd satisfied them all. But he needed a Batchelor's thesis, so they
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70 took a paper from a course he'd taken in the autumn, called "Comments
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71 on Comments", and added some stuff, it got marked and accepted as his
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72 thesis, so awarded the degree and could actually be enrolled as a
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73 student under the supervision of Peter Szolovits.
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74
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75 [CSLI not particularly relevant]
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76
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77 [CPSR?]
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78
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19
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79 ----------
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80 Torn between religion and physics as an undergraduate.
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81
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82 MIT, 1974++ MSc thesis _Levels, Layers and Planes_, about
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83 architectural properties of computer science
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84 There are no particulars in physics [ref. deiexis discussion, where is
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85 it]
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86 WHat drove me out of social inquiry and back to department 6 was
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87 needing to be back in the practice. That skill was not somthing that
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88 people on the outside understood.
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89
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90 Lens on a conical base, watchmakers, with oil and iron filings, that
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91 allowed you to manifest the data on digital mag tape. No disks on the
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92 PDP-9. That concrete engagement with the computer affected my sense
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93 of digitality.
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94
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95 I wanted there to be types, not tokens. Set theory has no constants
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96 (e.g. pi, e, i), functions, derivatives, intergrals are types in a
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97 way. Wanted a KR that didn't depend on token identity (no eq tests in
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98 the interpreter).
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99
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100 LLP was an attempt to get the things, "kernel facts", of a KRL to be
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101 types, not tokens (cf *car* and *cdr* vs. differentiation and
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102 integration), the ontology of the computational.
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103
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104 [HST mentions intergral signs and script deltas] Brian says
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105 "syncategoramaticity
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106
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107 Promote the eq tests into type tests (in the interpreter).
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108
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109 "You want to arrange the metaphysics so that _everything_ falls out"
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110 G. Nunberg of BCS
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111
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112 My imagination was arrested by essentially foundational questions
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113 about ... this stuff. Not interested in applications, AI as such,
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114 etc.
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115
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116 Still wanted to know what computing was., remains true up to what's in
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117 this book, CR.
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118
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119 Something else that makes me feel uncomfortable about CS from the
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120 outset: Conversation with MM: for you MM science is a form of worship,
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121 whereas science is a form of theology for me (BCS), so I look to CS
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122 not just to manifest the glory of God, but also to explain it.
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123
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124 Science should do justice to that.
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125
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126 Being shy around Peter and Butler, something else made me skittish,
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127 something I needed in order to be at peace: a warmth / humility. Why
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128 I was at peace with [John] Haugeland. [HST: JH wasn't a
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129 programmer. BCS: Yes, but he programmed [in] Postscript. BCS: We
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130 disagreed about typography].
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131
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132 Had a sense with JH that even though he knew a lot more philosophy
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133 than I did, that we were looking together at relative
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134 clauses/propositional claims, not that he was scrutinising
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135 me. [ref. Andee Rubin]
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136
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137 In the book I claim that deferential semantics is the heart of
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138 intentionality. "There is more in heaven and on earth than is drempt
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139 of in your philosophy". CS is fundamentally an intentional subject
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140 matter, and that its intentional character has been hidden, and that
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141 its use of semantics has usurped it for mechanistic purposes.
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142
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143 All semantical vocabulary has been redefined in mechanistic terms:
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144 "the semantics of X" == "what will happen if X is processed"
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145
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146 Thereby all humility and deference is lost.
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147
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148 [What about Phi vs. Psi, 'full [?] procedural consequence']
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149
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150 If you are interested in _real_ semantics, ... what's a poor boy to
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151 do?
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152
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153 Semantical issues are non-the-less still in the drivers seat---we are
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154 happy when (+ 2 3) yields 5 because of are awareness of them.
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155
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156 Tracing the fate of those issues, and the vocabulary, are stories that
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157 need told.
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158
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159 "Things have changed and now we do things differently." What's
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160 changed and how is it different?
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161
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162 Answer - the SDK would [be wanted to] track reference relations, not
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163 just implementation relations. But that's so complicated that it
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164 couldn't possibly work. Suppose you're defining a type [theta], a
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165 vector type accessible via theta and rho or x and y. Setting x and
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166 rho contstrains. Compiler can ignore this, and just keep one or the
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167 other, but the type system should 'know' the relationship of both, and
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168 could therefore track a lot more about a program using vectors than it
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169 does at the moment.
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170
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171 [HST poses a story about astronomers and air traffic controllers?]
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172
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173 Problem solving is not the motiviation, articulating what is the case
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174 is, to say what's true.
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175
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176 The effect of PSI is everything that happens, and the PHI relations
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177 are what matters. All constraints, norms, requirements are expressed
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178 in terms of PHI stuff.
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179
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180 What does this book say that requirements engineering etc. haven't
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181 already
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182
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183 [HST what about program correctness, specification languages ? etc.]
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184
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185 [Chapter 7?]
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186
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187 [HST should read the Press's thoughts about what needs to happen in
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188 the preface]
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189
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190 The gap between computer science and and programming practice is
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191 well-known, embarrassing but rarely foregrounded.
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192
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193 The vocabulary point is easy to state.
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194
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195 Barwise foundered on different understandings of binding a variable.
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196
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197 That the vocabulary issue is of huge importance needs "a clarion
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198 statement". This is foundational work, so I can't define my terms.
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199
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200 "I don't believe in definitions"
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201
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202 "Look, this kind of paper that I write should be read more like novel
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203 than like a manual. What things mean will gradually take shape"
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204
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205 Engender confidence that what you're about to read will make sense by
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206 the end/in due course/by-and-by.
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207
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208 Vocabulary point is several points:
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209 1) Points will be expressed using a vocabulary which is a term
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210 of art for someone/drawn from someone's technical vocabulary, perhaps not you
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211 2) Also, not necessarily the term of art you use for it;
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212 Indeed it may be an ordinary word of English, so you may not
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213 realise that a term of art has gone by.
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214 3) There may not be terms in _any_ technical vocabulary that do what
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215 I need here
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216
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217 ------------
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218 Foundations of/Philosophy of Computation
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219
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220 Lisp was 'broken', 2-Lisp was a flawed attempt to fix it, 3-Lisp takes
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221 us in to new territory.
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222
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223 Don't think you have to be a specialist to read this book.
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224
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225 Effective vs non-Effective is actually new: at the book boundaries,
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226 project onto the effective [? - it's not that everything is
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227 term-rewriting, it's more like ].
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228
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229
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