[got "a little" off-topic] New paradigms [was: request: python style decorators / aspect orientation]

[Georg Wrede]

Daniel Keep wrote:
> Georg Wrede wrote:
> 
>>and where those Objects simply and easily float across computers
>>and the net (entirely disregarding different OSs or CPU architectures,
>>of course!), gather information and come back giving you info and
>>flowers from Jane.
> 
> Why does the phrase "intelligent agents" suddenly spring to mind? :P

Yes, that's the word for it! Intelligent, my foot!

>>Oh, and incidentally, why does quantum computing come to my mind?

> I actually had to do research on this and give a seminar about it at
> university, so I can now ruin the mystique of it for you :)

Oh no, please, not... I'll pay you for not doing that!

> Basically quantum computing is ...

> QC is all about stacking the odds ...

> The interesting thing is the hardware ...

> ... but it's fundamentally just picking ...

> Tangentially, this is also how DNA computing ...

Deja vu, all over again. Lisp machines, AI, neural networks, OO, you 
name it.

>>Maybe I should start selling a black box called OD ...
> 
> LOL.
>>
>> Now that I think about this, I have to confess I've already done
>> it for real. [...]
> 
> That's hilarious.  I think people are just gullible by nature :P

Well, folks today think they know everything, so they become unfamiliar 
with confronting stuff they don't understand. Then half the guys pretend 
to understand (thus adding to the confusion) and the rest don't have 
mental tools to handle and digest the stuff. What can I say, either one 
dismisses the thing without proper grounds (risking called conservative, 
thick, stupid or ignorant), or when one doesn't he'll end up considered 
gullible after the fact.

The old story about the emperor and his (lack of) clothes was originally 
a vehicle for adult education, disguised as a childrens' story. But when 
people tell it as a bedtime story, they never stop to ponder about it 
enough to understand that it's all about something that's never going to 
go away! One century it's clothes, the next it's OO or Saddam's WMDs or 
citizen freedom in the Free World, the next it's QC. But the story 
itself stays the same. And it will not change before man becomes extinct.

The remedy against it is utter sarcasm and pathological disillusionment, 
but they are otherwise a bit expensive for the bearer. :-) The other way 
to avoid it is to actually know better, but who can be a jack of all 
trades. It's like the big bang theory of the universe. Today we KNOW it 
started at zero size. Yeah, and we used to KNOW the earth was flat and 
the sun orbited us. I'll laugh my head off when they "discover" that the 
universe has always been and not just created at time T=0. (Not that I 
anymore bother to actually figure out a stance on this, even for 
myself.) Case in point, there are cosmologists and nuclear physicists 
who believe in god. Who am I to say he doesn't exist, but those guys 
sure ought to know better. ((This is not intended as offense against 
those in this newsgroup who believe. My apologies in advance.))

Heh, and don't get me started on biology. Or psychology. In some ways 
we're still not far ahead of Darwin, and psychology is about on the 
level that chemistry was in the Dark Ages. Pathetic.

Uh-oh, turns out I'm the pathologically disillusioned one. :-)