Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!rutgers!gatech!hubcap!steve From: steve@ragman (Steve Stevenson) Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc Subject: Re: How to supplant FORTRAN (Was: Algol-68 down for the count) Message-ID: <3762@hubcap.UUCP> Date: 6 Dec 88 13:25:40 GMT References: <814@quintus.UUCP> Sender: news@hubcap.UUCP Reply-To: steve@ragman Lines: 48 From article <814@quintus.UUCP>, by ok@quintus.uucp (Richard A. O'Keefe): > This sounds important, but I don't understand what you mean by > "a derivation criterion". (I guess Statistics doesn't count as science > or engineering, otherwise I would know what the "recognised ways" are.) > Where does program transformation come into this? What I mean is to take a physics model and postulate some behavior. That behavior is subject to principles which have their effect on the trajectory functions. Take for example the Navier-Stokes equations for fluids. It specifies the various parameters, etc. The development proceeds until either an analytic solution exists or we must solve numerically. The bridge is then to Numerical, which must deal with the convergence, etc. There is the ultimate test of the postulates: does the model validate. Statistics does qualify in this sense, because we must provide sampling information --- and a bridge to probability. Again, the questions and parameters are well understood, or the statistician must then deal with a ``first principles'' problem. The history of science is replete with stories of models not being accepted, even though they eventually were based on empirical evidence. Example: statistical mechanics and its sad (personal) history of carpings and suicide. I know several folks who were burned bad by the computer in the late 60's. The program was fine: the model stunk and folks forgot to validate. [This goes back to the discussion I started on sci.logic. We have a real handle on the (formal) Reals. One is unlikely to propose a model of first order logic without producing a deduction theorem, for example. That discussion is aimed at the (pragmatic) observation that a ``proof'' isn't a proof if no one believes it. A derivation is not a derivation if no one believes it or can validate it. Now, the sum total of the ``mores'' of the community is the ``philosophy'' of the subject. Who set the p<.05 mark for most tests --- the community did. Can we have the same derivation concept in CS?] I think that the use of language between scientists and computer scientists is quite different: the scientist seeks insight --- that's the product. Yours and my products are meant to be a model of thought for the next person. We tend not to directly provide insights, but let the user come to her/his own. I'm proposing that we look at the ultimate objective: providing the scientist with insights; that subsumes our original goal of providing models of thought --- albeit only indirectly. Steve (really "D. E.") Stevenson steve@hubcap.clemson.edu Department of Computer Science, (803)656-5880.mabell Clemson University, Clemson, SC 29634-1906