Quantum

Languages and libraries

nondeterministic programming library

SHOW HN2016

151points
51comments
#216of 2,264 in 2016
Top 10%of 2016 by points

How HN took it

DebatedReal support and real criticism

6 positive, 6 neutral or asking, 0 mixed, 6 critical, out of 18 comments about the project. Thread score -0.07.

Idea: 3 for, 4 againstExecution: 3 for, 2 against

The thread, comment by comment

Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.

positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker

What HN said

What people liked

  • Clever and elegant idea, fun to read

    From 4 comments
    • I find it awesome! I've never seen something like that. I would like to know more details about this kind of programming (does it have to do with loud programming?) and to know…
      nudpiedo on HN
    • You should certainly check out the code. It's very ... cute.
      pschanely on HN
    • I couldn't resist to take a fast look online... and yes, it's very pragmatic. Even I would say funny/elegant, just expensive. HOWEVER simple and easy solutions often are better,…
      nudpiedo on HN
    • 371 bytes in Python. Not minified. Bravo! Didn't get what does the exit code 55 mean though.
      plugnburn on HN
  • Reminds commenters of amb, Prolog and Haskell list monads

    From 3 comments

Objections

  • Forking per branch is resource intensive and unlikely to be practical

    From 2 comments
    • So it's basically amb, but with using threading instead of backtracking. So probably faster than the classic amb implementation, esp. on multiprocessor architectures, but also…
      qwertyuiop924 on HN
    • How is this different from an ordinary breadth-first search (with pruning)?
      amelius on HN
  • Suicide method reliability and bugs could be dangerous

    From 3 comments
    • That code is pretty dangerous. I don't like the idea that I can become wounded-not-dead just because of a bug in the code. May be it worth to create a constant of safe…
      Arqwer on HN
    • Notice that for this to work reliably (assuming the Many World Interpretation is correct), you need a suicide method with a failure rate orders of magnitude below the probability…
      TelmoMenezes on HN
    • Are we sure a bug in your code won't destroy the universe? Incidentally, that sounds like a great idea for a novel!
      pyeng on HN

Questions

  • Is this useful for real problems?

    From 2 comments
    • What is this used for? Why would this be important?
      gravypod on HN
    • I find it awesome! I've never seen something like that. I would like to know more details about this kind of programming (does it have to do with loud programming?) and to know…
      nudpiedo on HN

Alternatives named

  • amb operator in SICP

    From 2 comments
    • Is this the same as the amb form, as seen in SICP? https://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full-text/book/book-Z-H-28.html#%_sec_4.3.1
      ridiculous_fish on HN
    • Amb is implemented with a backtracking evaluator and supports a try-again operation for requesting all valid outputs (universes). This library just forks the process for each…
      dangirsh on HN
  • Prolog and logic programming (logpy, core.logic)

    From 2 comments
    • If you find this kind of thing interesting, there is actually a branch of computer science called "logic programming" that is very similar, but actually useful for practical…
      humbledrone on HN
    • So this looks like prolog and logic programming to me.
      andrewchambers on HN
  • Haskell list monad

    From 1 comment

Category, keywords, summaries and labels on this page were made by AI (Thread Reader v2) and not checked by hand. Each point links to the comments it came from.

Add a badge to your READMEShown on HackerShow
[![Shown on HackerShow](https://hackershow.org/badge.svg)](https://hackershow.org/show/11334764)