Matt Brubeck: Planet Matt

Weblog: Discovering Urbit: Functional programming from scratch

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 08:00:00 +0000

C. Guy Yarvin is a “good friend” of Mencius Moldbug, a pseudonymous blogger known for iconoclastic novella-length essays on politics and history (and occasionally computer science). Guy recently published, under his own name, a project in language and systems design. His own writing about his work is entertaining but verbose (as Moldbug's readers might expect), so I will attempt to summarize it here.

Nock, Urbit, Watt

First there is Nock, “a tool for defining higher-level languages – comparable to the lambda calculus, but meant as foundational system software rather than foundational metamathematics.” Its primitives include positive integers with equality and increment operators, cons cells with car/cdr/cadr/etc., and a macro for convenient branching. Nock uses trees of integers to represent both code and data. Nock is aggressively tiny; the spec linked above is just 33 terse lines.

Next, Guy provides the rationale for Nock. In short, he asks how a planet-wide computing infrastructure (OS, networking, and languages) would look if designed from first priniciples for robustness and interoperability. The answer he proposes is Urbit: a URI-like namespace distributed globally via content-centric networking, with a feudal structure for top-level names and cryptographic identities. Urbit is a static functional namespace: it is both referentially transparent and monotonic (a name, once bound to a value, cannot be un- or re-bound).

Why does this require a new formal logic and a new programming language? In Urbit, all data and code are distributed via the global namespace. For interoperability, the code must have a standard format. Nock's minimal spec is meant to be an unambiguous, unchanging, totally standardized basis for computation in Urbit. Above it will be Watt, a self-hosting language that compiles to Nock. Urbit itself will be implemented in Watt, so Nock and Watt are designed to treat data as code using metacircular evaluation.

The code

A prototype implementation of Watt is on GitHub. It is not yet self-hosting; the current compiler is written in C. Watt is a functional language with static types called “molds” and a mechanism for explicit lazy evaluation. (I was suprised to find I had accidentally created an incompatible lazy dialect of Nock – despite its goal of unambiguous semantics – just by implementing it in Haskell.)

The code is not fully documented, but the repository contains draft specs for both Watt and Urbit. Beware: the syntax and terminology are a bit unconventional. Guy has offered a few exercises to help get started with Nock and Watt:

The Nock challenge:: Write a decrement operator in Nock, and an interpreter that can evaluate it.
Basic Watt:: Write an integer square root function in Watt.
Advanced Watt:: How would you write a function that tests whether molds A and B are orthogonal (no noun is in both A and B)? Or compatible (any noun in A is also in B)? Are these functions NP-complete? If so, how might one work around this in practice?

If you want to learn more, start with these problems. You can email your solutions to Guy.

Will it work?

I find Urbit intellectually appealing; it is a simple and clean architecture that could potentially replace a lot of complex system software. But can we get there from here?

Guy imagines Urbit as the product of an ages-old Martian civilization:

Since Earth code is fifty years old, and Martian code is fifty million years old, Martian code has been evolving into a big ball of mud for a million times longer than Earth software. (And two million times longer than Windows.) …

Therefore, at some point in Martian history, some abject fsck of a Martian code-monkey must have said: fsck this entire fscking ball of mud. For lo, its defects cannot be summarized; for they exceed the global supply of bullet points; for numerous as the fishes in the sea, like the fishes in the sea they fsck, making more little fscking fishes. For lo, it is fscked, and a big ball of mud. And there is only one thing to do with it: obliterate the trunk, fire the developers, and hire a whole new fscking army of Martian code-monkeys to rewrite the entire fscking thing.

… This is the crucial inference we can draw about Mars: since the Martians had 50 million years to try, in the end they must have succeeded. The result: Martian code, as we know it today. Not enormous and horrible – tiny and diamond-perfect. Moreover, because it is tiny and diamond-perfect, it is perfectly stable and never changes or decays. It neither is a big ball of mud, nor tends to become one. It has achieved its final, permanent and excellent state.

Do Earthlings have the will to throw out the whole ball of mud and start from scratch? I doubt it. We can build Urbit but no one will come, unless it solves some problem radically better than current software. Moldbug thinks feudalism will produce better online reputation, but feudal reputation does not require feudal identity; it is not that much harder to build Moldbug's reputation system on Earth than on Mars. I still have not figured out the killer app that will get early adopters to switch to Urbit.

Bookmarks: Official Google Blog: Biking directions added to Google Maps

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 17:26:46 +0000

Google Maps adds bike maps and bike routes, thanks to Seattle-based Googlers. It knows to avoid hills and prefer bike trails and bike lanes.

Bookmarks: The School Issue - Preschool - Can the Right Kinds of Play Teach Self-Control? - NYTimes.com

Sat, 06 Mar 2010 16:22:22 +0000

"If you want to succeed in school and in life, they say, you first need to do what Abigail and Jocelyn and Henry have done every school day for the past two years: spend hour after hour dressing up in firefighter hats and wedding gowns, cooking make-believe hamburgers and pouring nonexistent tea." Profile of a school using the Tools of the Mind method.

Asides: How did I miss @dkpan's 24-hour Haruki Murakami reading last summer, one block from my office? http://occidentalpark.wordpress.com/events/

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 02:41:07 +0000

How did I miss @dkpan's 24-hour Haruki Murakami reading last summer, one block from my office? http://occidentalpark.wordpress.com/events/

Asides: Found the banknotes' owner, @dkpan. Due to his name's shortness, it was unabridged on the library's hold slip. We got in touch on Facebook.

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 02:32:39 +0000

Found the banknotes' owner, @dkpan. Due to his name's shortness, it was unabridged on the library's hold slip. We got in touch on Facebook.

Asides: Tonight I found one Soviet- and one Iranian banknote in my library book ("Girl with Curious Hair").

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 02:13:14 +0000

Tonight I found one Soviet- and one Iranian banknote in my library book ("Girl with Curious Hair").

Asides: @mhewner Ringdroid was written Audacity author Dominic Mazzoni, who first introduced me to Josh Haberman (and thus indirectly to you)!

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 19:12:05 +0000

@mhewner Ringdroid was written Audacity author Dominic Mazzoni, who first introduced me to Josh Haberman (and thus indirectly to you)!

Bookmarks: Correct way to handle mobile browsers

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 19:27:30 +0000

Redirect mobile users to the mobile site automatically, or require them to choose explicitly? Pro and con.

Weblog: The network is the human being

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 08:00:00 +0000

Nathanael Boehm wrote a nice essay last month called The Future of Employment?, about a disconnect between workers' and employers' views of social networks. (This post is based partly on the ensuing Hacker News thread.) Boehm wrote:

When I need help with a challenge at work or need to run some ideas past people I don’t turn to my co-workers, I look to my network of colleagues beyond the walls of my workplace. Whilst my co-workers might be competent at their job they can’t hope to compete with the hundreds of people I have access to through my social networks.

The late Sun Microsystems taught us that the network is the computer. It's true: we still use non-networked computers for specialized tasks, but nobody wants one on their desk – it's just so useless compared to one that talks to the entire world. Boehm could have titled his essay The Network is the Employee. There are still tasks that people do in isolation, but the ability to contact a network of peers and experts makes the difference in my job, and many others.

Alone together

The lone computer programmer in a small business has thousands of colleagues on Stack Overflow, Reddit, and so on. It's a messy way to find answers, but it's sure better than the days when your only choice was to call tech support – or smack the box with your fist, whichever seemed more useful. I can't begin to list all the problems I've solved and things I've learned by Googling for others with experience, and getting help from a different expert for every problem.

Decades before the web, computer geeks had virtual communities on mailing lists, Usenet, and IRC. Now every job in the world has its corresponding forum. Even the night clerk at the gas station has Not Always Right.

Teaching has long been a solitary profession. Despite working in a crowded classroom, teachers are isolated; they rarely have colleagues observing or participating directly in their work. This has such an impact that teachers are sometimes trained in meditation or reflection techniques, to make up for the lack of external feedback. So I'm curious what happens when teachers start to work together remotely the way programmers do.

You will be assimilated

Boehm's essay also reminded me of a vague sci-fi idea I've been kicking around: the first group minds will evolve from the intersection of Mechanical Turk, virtual assistants, social networking, and augmented reality.

Starting around the 1990s, it was possible to instantly "know" any fact that was published online. Since then, we've increased the amount of content online, our tools for searching it, and ways of connecting to the network. Today we have instant access to almost any published knowledge, anywhere.

There are more people on the net too, and more ways to find and talk to them. Most of us can contact dozens of friends at any given moment, plus friends-of-friends, co-workers, fellow members of communites like Hacker News or MetaFilter, and also complete strangers. Along with raw facts, we have access to vast amounts of human judgement, experience, and skill.

One product of this is the "virtual assistant," who provides a service that was once exclusive to high-powered executives. Now personal assistants can work remotely (often overseas), spread costs by serving many masters, and leverage the internet superpowers listed above. Their services are mostly targeted at small business owners and the Tim Ferriss crowd, but I'm sure someone soon will market virtual assistance to all sorts of other creative workers, teachers, even stay-at-home parents.

So, how long before I can touch a button to let a remote assistant see what I'm seeing in real-time and help me make transportation plans, translate foreign signs and speech, look up emails related to whatever I'm doing or thinking, or even advise me on what to say? Some of these queries will go to my circle of friends, others to the general public, and some to a personal assistant who is paid well to keep up with my specific needs. And that assistant of course will subcontract portions of each job to computer programs, legions of cheap anonymous Turkers, or his or her own network of helpers. At that point, I'm augmenting my own perception, memory, and judgement with a whole network of brains that I carry around, ready to engage with any situation I meet.

If nothing else, I hope someone writes a good sci-fi thriller story in which a rogue virtual assistant manipulates the actions of unsuspecting clients, leading them to some unseen end.

Bookmarks: New Moon Girls Online - New Moon Magazine

Sun, 28 Feb 2010 04:51:28 +0000

"Our bi-monthly magazine is 100% advertising-free, highest-quality content for girls age 8 and up! You won't find diet advice or popularity contests here." The copy I saw in the library had some good science and engineering articles, among other things.

Bookmarks: Hg Init: a Mercurial tutorial by Joel Spolsky

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 18:59:40 +0000

"In this user-friendly, six-part tutorial, Joel Spolsky teaches you the key concepts."

Bookmarks: Vimium - Google Chrome extension

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 23:35:13 +0000

"Vimium provides keyboard shortcuts for navigation and control in the spirit of Vim."

Bookmarks: creationix's Do

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 20:25:38 +0000

A JavaScript concurrency library (similar to Oni or Arrowlets) for Node.js.

Bookmarks: GF - Grammatical Framework

Sat, 13 Feb 2010 00:25:05 +0000

A functional programming language for parsing and transforming both programming languages and natural (human) languages.

Asides: Google Buzz now asks you to choose and preview your privacy settings before your first post is published: http://bit.ly/bngqpP

Fri, 12 Feb 2010 16:32:25 +0000

Google Buzz now asks you to choose and preview your privacy settings before your first post is published: http://bit.ly/bngqpP

Asides: Bought plane tickets to go to Baltimore/DC next month. I hope it's thawed out by then.

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 18:53:51 +0000

Bought plane tickets to go to Baltimore/DC next month. I hope it's thawed out by then.

About me: Google profile

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 19:05:08 +0000

Follow me on Google Buzz, Chat, Reader, etc.

Bookmarks: Worse Is Better

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 16:41:19 +0000

Richard Gabriel recounts the history of the classic papers by himself and "Nickieben Bourbaki."

Bookmarks: Prezi - The zooming presentation editor

Fri, 22 Jan 2010 16:28:13 +0000

Instead of "slideshows," uses a single canvas with slick zooming and panning.

Asides: @bernard_ben Got an Android phone? I like SeattleBusBot (by co-worker @joulespersecond), Google Sky Map, Google Voice, and Toddler Lock.

Tue, 19 Jan 2010 15:16:07 +0000

@bernard_ben Got an Android phone? I like SeattleBusBot (by co-worker @joulespersecond), Google Sky Map, Google Voice, and Toddler Lock.

Bookmarks: Khan Academy

Sun, 17 Jan 2010 17:22:15 +0000

Short educational videos "covering everything from basic arithmetic and algebra to differential equations, physics, chemistry, biology and finance."

Asides: Atomic Robo is a must-read for anyone who likes Girl Genius or Penny Arcade (I'm looking at you, @bernard_ben): http://doiop.com/atomic

Sun, 17 Jan 2010 04:04:25 +0000

Atomic Robo is a must-read for anyone who likes Girl Genius or Penny Arcade (I'm looking at you, @bernard_ben): http://doiop.com/atomic

Bookmarks: Pausing JavaScript with async.js - Elijah Grey

Wed, 13 Jan 2010 22:27:23 +0000

"async.js is a library that aims to make it so you don’t have to mess with callbacks when making applications in JavaScript 1.7 or higher by using the yield statement to pause function execution."