Yes, this is probably misleading and imprecise! But we don’t have a coherent account of what’s going on here.https://twitter.com/bombaybornbum/status/862394132261732353 …
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Replying to @Meaningness
Mostly, what computers do is *mean things*. We have no coherent account of how this works; if we did, maybe we could do software better!pic.twitter.com/AMkG7kGejg
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Replying to @jonathanstray
I’m afraid it’s just a draft, currently. The stuff I’ve just tweeted is a summary, though! And do check out Brian Smith’s lecture.
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Replying to @Meaningness @jonathanstray
(Natural) numbers have three uses: cardinal, ordinal, and nominal. Nominal is using a number to identify a concept or thing.
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As developers we make use of numbers in all three ways. User experience is dominated by nominal use, almost to the exclusion of the others.
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Ordinal case for, e.g., sorting an array. Cardinal case when we choose to use powers of two. This sentence is a nominal number.
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Often we build additional formal structure using nomination. An interesting and common case are grammatical structures. Interesting because:
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Through nominal use of those formal structures, we can specify both computations, and concepts. That border we call a programming language.
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This abstraction allows us to specify a series of complex cardinal operations (canonically NAND) on integers to, say, deliver a tweetstorm.
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The extensive *formal* use of the nominal property of number explains the fascination with category theory. As well as the sense of humor. ៚
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