IBM 610 workstation computer 3391
RJ
This is a difficult topic to teach. The serialisation that is implicit in the "von Neumann" model is so intertwined with the teaching of entry to intermediate logic that it becomes...
Morten Reistad It's not as easy as it sounds. In computer usage, the "what" and "how...
No, nothing like that, but there is no need to guess. Read the paper. Google, as usual, is your friend, but to save the bother of searching,
The paper's abstract reads:
Conventional programming languages are growing ever more enormous, but not stronger. Inherent defects at the most basic level cause them to be both fat and weak: their primitive word-at-a-time style of programming inherited from their common ancestor--the von Neumann computer, their close coupling of semantics to state transitions, their division of programming into a world of expressions and a world of statements, their inability to effectively use powerful combining forms for building new programs from existing ones, and their lack of useful mathematical properties for reasoning about programs. An alternative functional style of programming is founded on the use of combining forms for creating programs. Functional programs deal with structured data, are often nonrepebreastive and nonrecursive, are hierarchically constructed, do not name their arguments, and do not require the complex machinery of procedure declarations to become generally applicable. Combining forms can use high level programs to build still higher level ones in a style not possible in conventional languages. buttociated with the functional style of programming is an algebra of programs whose variables range over programs and whose operations are combining forms. This algebra can be used to transform programs and to solve equations whose "unknowns" are programs in much the same way one transforms equations in high school algebra. These transformations are given by algebraic laws and are carried out in the same language in which programs are written. Combining forms are chosen not only for their programming power but also for the power of their buttociated algebraic laws. General theorems of the algebra give the detailed behavior and termination conditions for large clbuttes of programs. A new clbutt of computing systems uses the functional programming style both in its programming language and in its state transition rules. Unlike von Neumann languages, these systems have semantics loosely coupled to states--only one state transition occurs per major computation.
--brian
-- Wellington, New Zealand
Have you tried to read the whole paper? Most of the audience started out with similar unfamiliarity. OK. The von Neumann computer (architecture) is the normal one we...
"What's life? Life's easy. A quirk of matter. Nature's way of keeping meat fresh."
IBM 610 workstation computer 3392
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