came of age in the 1980s, as the C programming language and UNIX operating system were becoming the gold standard for "serious" computing. I was taught that: - Lisp reflects how computers **think** - C reflects how computers **work** - Shell scripts reflect how humans **write** I never questioned this split ....
But there is another dynamic at play—one that goes beyond physics and biology. It is language, the medium through which we create and share models of reality. I believe there is a third loop: the recursive relationship between our experiences, our shared concepts, and the words we use to represent them.
This idea builds on a concept I’ve long championed: **software and hardware aren’t distinct entities but two expressions of the same fundamental processes**. Hexons aim to reflect this by collapsing the boundary between the two, offering a new kind of computational atom that works equally well at the hardware and software levels.
In my opinion, BitC is the most innovative take on systems programming we've seen since the invention of C. While sad that it failed, I am deeply impressed by the thoughtful post-mortem by Jonathan S. Shapiro. Here are links to the various threads of his analysis (and the equally thoughtful responses): [bitc-dev] Retrospective Thoughts on BitC... Continue Reading →
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