I wonder if every computer scientist who writes for the general public is tempted to do an Alice pastiche?
This is a fragment from a draft of the first chapter of my not-yet-published book, Computing for Ordinary Mortals. One of my excellent reviewers said that this passage had to go, and so I replaced it. I still like it, though. I'll put up another post, a bit later, with footnotes.
Alice is wandering through the downtown area of her city. As she walks down a side street, she passes a man and a woman leaving the entrance of a small white building. The woman says, "That was an interesting museum."
Alice decides to go inside. She stops in front of a sign titled “Read me” and discovers that she’s in a museum of Victorian artifacts. Alice passes a display of postcards, then an arrangement of fashionable women’s clothing (cuirass bodices, skirts with bustles), and then a penny-farthing bicycle. Eventually she sees a man in uniform sitting behind a writing desk. His badge reads, Docent: Charles Corvus.
"Hello," says Alice politely. "Can you tell me about your museum?" Charles doesn't look up.
"This isn’t a mausoleum," he says.
“Your museeeum," Alice says, enunciating carefully.
Charles glances up at her. "I beg your pardon," he says. “It’s a bit noisy.” He rises and shakes Alice’s hand. “Would you like to have a tour?"
He gives her a small plastic device with buttons and a display. "This is a mobile guide. If you press this button, it will tell you where to go next in the museum."
"Thank you. How does it know what I’ll be interested in?"
"It doesn't," Charles says. "It takes you on a walk in a random direction."
"But how does that help me?” asks Alice. “I mean, the museum seems very confusing as it is. It’s as if there’s no organization to the exhibits."
"Ah, but there is. You're meant to explore the museum, and it's organized so that whatever exhibit you're standing in front of, related exhibits are as far away as possible."
"Does that help?"
"Yes—the key is to take your time. Join me. We’ll explore together."
Alice and Charles pass two stout museum workers holding opposite ends of a large flag. The men are arguing and pulling violently in opposite directions. The threads part and snap, leaving the fabric in tatters.
"Those contentious fellows are in charge of separate exhibits," says Charles. "They're always having a bit of a fight."
Alice and Charles walk through the rooms for a while longer, talking about the exhibits. At the exit she says, "Thank you, it's a very interesting museum."
"All of our visitors say that."
"Do you have many visitors?" asks Alice cautiously. She hasn't seen another inside the museum.
"Uncountably many," says Charles.
"Oh. Have you tried counting?"
“Well…” Charles halts and looks thoughtful. "Good-bye."
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The context is that this an introduction to the overall structure of the field of computing, as laid out by Peter Denning, a computer scientist who's studied the field for some years. I've re-interpreted his breakdown of the "mechanics" of computing into five breakdowns (in difference sense) in my story: communication, in Alice's first aborted attempt to talk with Charles; artificial intelligence, in the stupid mobile guide; information management, in which the goal is usually to make it easy to get from one item of information to related item; coordination, in the Tweedledee/Tweedledum battle; and finally theory, which surprisingly enough does include the topic of counting.
but going in a 'thinking about the concept of computers for the uninitiated' book...ehhhhh, no.
So the reviewer was right. Thanks, Julie. The replacement story is about talking with an alien on a spaceship, which hits the same challenges: communication, coordination/cooperation, AI, how information can be structured and managed, and theory. And on wavelengths... Kent and I often think about the same things, partly because we have similar interests and academic knowledge.
Phyllis, as it turns out, one of the most famous results in mathematics, around the turn of the 20th century, was a proof by Georg Cantor that the real numbers can't be counted. Cantor's proof technique was used by Alan Turing, the father of computer science, to show that some things can't be computed. I don't go into this level of detail in the book, because I've spent a lot more time there trying to make the material interesting and understandable. :-)
are computers mostly about language then? trying to focus it down and get your meaning across?
There are programming languages, of course, hundreds that have been developed over the decades (Java, C and its descendants, etc.), and millions of professional programmers who think about how to solve problems in those languages. I first came to know about Kent from his work with a language called Common Lisp.
But we can also think of computation in more abstract terms, as a specialized kind of mathematics. From this point of view, math is also all about language (representation, really) and its interpretation.
I'm oversimplifying, I think, but these are tough conceptual issues.
And she's quite right, it keeps one's interest throughout. As one's curiosity builds, the appropriateness of the Alice metaphor comes into play for me as well (her "Curiouser and curiouser!" for example).
Even though I probably did not get half your in-jokes, it is interesting.
R
Thanks for letting me know, Poor Woman. Web design is actually something I'm interested in, though more in a theoretical than a practical sense. I'll have to think about those connections. (One book I've liked is Don't Make Me Think, because of the parts that are informed by theory.)
"Computation (meaning and limits of computation)
Communication (reliable data transmission)
Coordination (cooperation among networked entities)
Recollection (storage and retrieval of information)
Automation (meaning and limits of automation)
Evaluation (performance prediction and capacity planning)
Design (building reliable software systems)"
I've left out the last two, for narrative reasons, but Evaluation and Design are a big part of programmming. It might be surprising that there's still disagreement about the nature of computing, even within the field, though people (including Denning) are still working on it. I'm reading a very interesting book right now on the topic, by Paul Rosenbloom.
I used to read novels in which it wasn't uncommon for a character to be learning a trade (typically bookkeeping) via correspondence school. And now they're back, in electronic form. Probably much better as well.
You already know this, Ardee--we've talked about it before on OS--but there some basic similarities between looms and computers, which is pretty cool. James Essinger has written an entire book about the connections, Jacquard's Web.
Back when I used to play video games with my son, my aim was always to get from point A to point B in the shortest distance/time possible; his aim was to wander aimlessly (in my view) about. While exploring nooks, crannies and dark corners, he discovered hints and rewards along the way that I didn't, and thus I, concentrating on the goal rather than the journey, missed out on much of the game.
Unfortunately for most of us, we learn too late that life is also a game.
We also see this tradeoff in studies of Web browsing. In fact, Peter Pirolli as developed an entire theoretical framework to describe how people navigate information spaces, by analogy to the way that animals forage for food--human beings are informavores, to use George Miller's term. I wrote about this on OS once, but I seem to have deleted that post. I should put it back up.
In many ways, the Internet experience reminds me of what I use to experience with a dictionary. I'd drag the dictionary down to find the meaning of a specific word, but inevitably I'd get sidetracked, fascinated by some word I stumbled across while thumbing thru the pages to get to my original word goal.
Randomness is even more profound on the Internet. It was thru just such a random discovery I learned that King Carlos II of Spain freed all Spanish slaves in the New World in 1693 -- that's not a misprint -- 1693. I've yet to meet a single person aware of that fact; certainly, it is not taught in our history books. Dare I say that those who promote the idea of "American Exceptionalism" have a vested interest in suppressing that fact and other not so admirable aspects of our history?
Indeed, whether it's history or language or many other aspects of life, sometimes what gets left out is as important as what gets put in. And the danger lies in who decides what is left out and put in. As we see with the Chinese (and probably don't see with ourselves), what search engines decide to leave out or in -- and what to emphasize -- affects public perception.
Certainly our mainstream corporate media engages in just that sort of censorship. And that's all the more the case, when a dishonest aggregator and disseminator of information like Faux News controls the selection process.
This happens to me all the time. I can't look through a dictionary (a real book, that is) without being derailed. Online dictionaries? Not so much.
I like the examples you give of serendipity on the Internet. (I didn't know that about King Carlos II--there's serendipity even here. Thanks for that.) Search engines and aggregation Web sites were initially seen as an unalloyed good, I think, but they can also play the role of gatekeepers. And who watches the watchers?
Shakespeare: Shall I compare thee to a crusty bread?
Dickens: Overall, the times were alright. Some were better. Some were worse.
Melville: Call me Fred.
I'm reminded of a Language Log post by Geoffrey K. Pullum titled, "Renowned author Dan Brown staggered through his formulaic opening sentence," and his follow-on posts.