Friday, June 27, 2008

compiled vs. dynamic


So this is how it is:

All our thought is in terms of what we know. And in metaphors.

And so my _question in life_ was: what should i do in life? I was hoping to get a nice, good answer. Something to shock me a little too. hey - i was different - wasn't i? :)

Two assumptions to note about the question:

1. it is linear - like the pc in a (micro)processor. it assumes that even if there are branches, there will be one taken.
2. it is pre-compiled. i am a program, written by a programmer - pre-compiled and being run. there is no 'free will' - instead there is a way i have to go - of course as i traverse through life, branches will be taken (based on the environment) and this will give rise to 'me' - a doer - a living actor versus a puppet.

With the emergence of dynamic languages, interpreted line by line, there seems to be more of 'free will'. Of course, unless it is a self-modifying program, there is really no change of the execution model at the processor level - but one can see that the characteristics are more visible at the program level - dynamic typing for one means that a variable doesn't have to be of one type in its lifetime... so my big question need not have only one answer :)

need to think more on this!

Monday, June 02, 2008

www.paulgraham.com

Love his site. White background, Navigation + Content on the left.

Love his writing. Go read.