[FRIAM] Whitespace

[Raymond Parks]

mgd at santafe.edu wrote:
...
> Huh, so it's ugly to provide:
> 
> 1) Runtime code generation using abstract syntax trees, including cross 
> language
> translation
> 
> 2) Visual programming
> 
> 3) Automatic parallelism
> 
> 4) Automatic persistence
> 
> ??

   ?? is exactly what I felt when I went to the netfx3.com website. 
First, why do the web-pages not display properly in Firefox under Mac 
OS-X?  Secondly, why is it so hard to find out that Microsoft has 
re-invented flow charts?  Thirdly, where's the beef?  I found a 
screenshot showing how one can make a flow chart that will use WinFX, 
but nothing that talked about abstract syntax trees, cross-language 
translation, automatic parallelism (does that mean  code that runs on 
parallel processors or clusters or just lots of instances of the same 
code?), nor automatic persistence.  I'll take your word that they're all 
there, someplace, but why does Microsoft make it so hard to find it? 
Are they supporting an industry of instructors to teach about 
programming the Microsoft way just like they have traditionally 
supported an industry of 3rd party vendors who supply the feature the OS 
should have but doesn't?

   As a security guy, I find it fascinating that Microsoft is 
introducing another ubiquitous set of libraries.  Not only does it 
support their goal of making everything part of the OS to bolster that 
anti-trust defense, but it adds yet another thing that has to be secure 
to prevent intrusions.  Given their track record, I doubt these new 
libraries will have any less vulnerabilities than the existing 
libraries.  I realize that I will never again be able to analyze every 
machine instruction in a code to be sure it cannot be exploited.  But I 
don't see the point in adding more and more shims that are out of the 
control of the system owner between the user and the computer.

> If it helps, here's a politically correct version:

   It didn't.  The mono version of Windows Workflow Foundations is just 
as obscure as the Microsoft version.

> It sounds to me like a great platform for simulation and modelling.

   I doubt it.  WinFX is intended to run at human speed, so the 
developers will have no incentive to make it efficient.  My prediction - 
WinFX libraries will be bloated and slow but no-one will notice unless 
they do something like simulation, where the virtual clock needs to run 
faster than the wall-clock.

> Meanwhile, the facist-Python-formatted code can run here:

   Now here's something I can agree on - Python is to programming 
languages like French bureaucracy is to government.

-- 
Ray Parks                   rcparks at sandia.gov
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