How to Program the Many Cores for Inconsistency Robustness

Carl Hewitt

This abstract is revised and updated from the previously published version.

About the talk:

In 1936, Alan Turing published a famous model of computation. However, it is in need of revision in part because Moore's Law for computation now takes the following form:

• Clock frequency is no longer increasing exponentially.
• Instead, the number of cores is increasing exponentially.

This talk explains why Turing's model is becoming obsolete (both in theory and practice) and how to program the many cores.

In turn, programming the many cores provides technology for inconsistency robustness: information system performance in the face of continually pervasive inconsistencies---a shift from the previously dominant paradigms of inconsistency denial and inconsistency elimination attempting to sweep them under the rug.

Further reading:

ActorScript^TM extension of C#^TM, Java^TM, and Objective C^TM : discretionary, adaptive concurrency for privacy-friendly, client-cloud computing” ArXiv 1008.2748

Actor Model for Discretionary Adaptive Concurrency ArXiv. 1008.1459

Incompleteness Theorems: The Logical Necessity of Inconsistency Google Knol

Slides:

The slides for this prentation can be accessed here.

About the speaker:

Carl Hewitt's doctoral dissertation included a design for Planner, the first programming language based on procedural plans invoked using pattern-directed invocation from assertions and goals. Planner was influential in the development of both logic programming and object-oriented programming. He is also known for his work on the Actor model of concurrent computation, which influenced the development of the Scheme programming language and the Π calculus, and served as a inspiration for several other programming languages. His publications also include contributions in the areas of open information systems, organizational and multi-agent systems, logic programming, concurrent programming languages, inconsistency robustness, and client-cloud computing. Hewitt's Erdős number is 3 (by two different co-authors).

His recent work is published in the electronic journal ArXiv and can be downloaded at:


http://arxiv.org/find/cs/1/au:+Hewitt_C/0/1/0/all/0/1

Contact information:

Carl Hewitt