Kindelia Manifesto

3 years ago · ee4b5f95ab
commit ee4b5f95ab
1 changed files with 91 additions and 0 deletions
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@ -0,0 +1,91 @@
 The Kindelia Manifesto
 ======================
 What is the true nature of computation? A hundred years ago, humanity answered that very question, twice. In 1936, Alan
 invented the Turing Machine, which, highly inspired by the mechanical trend of the 20th century, distillated the common
 components of early computers into a single universal machine that, despite its simplicity, was capable of performing
 every computation conceivable. From simple numerical calculations to entire operating systems, this small machine could
 do anything. Thanks to its elegance and simplicity, the Turing Machine became the most popular model of computation, and
 served as the main inspiration behind every modern processor and programming language. C, Fortran, Java, Python are
 languages based on a procedural mindset, which is highly inspired by Turing's invention.
 Yet, the Turing Machine wasn't the only model of computation that humanity invented. Albeit a less known history, also
 in 1936, and in a completely independent way, Alonzo Church invented the Lambda Calculus, which distillated the common
 components - not of machines, but of different branches of math - into a single universal language that was capable of
 modeling every mathematical theory. What was surprising, though, is that this language, unexpectedly, could also perform
 computations. The same algorithms that could be computed by Turing Machines procedurally, could also be computed by the
 Lambda Calculus, through symbolic manipulations. The idea of using the Lambda Calculus for computations inspired the
 creation of an entire new branch of programming, which we call the functional paradigm. Haskell, Clojure, Elixir, Agda
 are languages based on the functional mindset, which is highly inspired by Church's invention.
 If both Turing Machines (and procedural languages), and the Lambda Calculus (and functional languages), are capable of
 computation, which mindset is the "right one"? When it comes to raw capabilities, neither. Still on the 20th century, it
 was proven that, when it comes to computability, Turing Machines and the Lambda Calculus are equivalent. Every problem
 that one can solve, can also be solved by the other. That insight is known as the Church-Turing thesis, which
 essentially states that computers are capable of emulating each-other. If that was completely true, then the choice
 wouldn't matter.  After all, if, for example, every programming language is capable of solving the same set of problems,
 then what is the point in making a choice?
 Yet, the Church-Turing hypothesis makes a statement about computability, it says nothing about computation. In other
 words, a model can be inherently less efficient than other. Historically, procedural languages such as C and Fortran,
 have have consistently outperformed the fastest functional languages, such as Haskell and Ocaml. Yet, languages like
 Haskell and Agda provide abstractions that make entire classes of bugs unrepresentable. Historically, the functional
 paradigm has been more secure.
 The Turing Machine and the Lambda Calculus aren't the only models of computation worth noting, though. In 1983, Stephen
 Wolfram introduced the Rule 110, an elementary cellular automaton that has been shown to be as capable as both. Wolfram
 argues that this system is of fundamental importance, and that a new kind of science should emerge from its study.
 These claims were met with harsh scepticism; after all, if all models are equivalent, what is the point? Yet, we've just
 stablished that, while equal in capacity, different models result in different practical outcomes. Perhaps there isn't a
 new branch of science to emerge from the study of alternative models of computation, but what about the design of
 processors and programming languages?
 A model of computation has a significant impact on the way we design our languages, and several of their drawbacks can
 be traced down to limitations of the underlying model. For example, the parallel primitives of the procedural paradigm,
 mutexes and atomics, provide a contrived, complex solution to multi-threaded synchronization. As a result, parallelism
 is generally considered hard, and programmers still write sequential code by default. Similarly, security isn't natural
 to the procedural paradigm. Global state, mutable arrays and loops generate an explosion of possible execution paths,
 edge cases and off-by-one errors that make absolute security all but impossible. Even highly audited code, such as
 OpenSSL, is often compromised by out-of-bounds exploits. The functional paradigm handles both issues much better: there
 is an enourmous amount of inherent parallelism to be extracted from pure functional programs, and logic-based type
 systems make entire classes of bugs unrepresentable. But if that is the case, then why functional programs are still
 mostly single-threaded, and bug-ridden? And why isn't the functional paradigm more prevalent?
 The culprit, we argue, is the underlying model. As much as the Turing Machine, and, thus, the procedural paradigm as a
 whole, is inadequate for parallelism and security, the Lambda Calculus, and the functional paradigm as a whole, is
 inadequate for real-world computations. The fundamental operation of the Lambda Calculus, substitution, may trigger an
 unbounded amount of copies of an unboundedly large argument. Because of that, it can not be performed in a bounded
 amount of steps, and, thus, there isn't a physical mapping of substitution to real-world physical processes. In other
 words, substitution isn't an atomic operation, which prevents us from creating efficient functional processors and
 runtimes. Attempts to solve the issue only pushed it into other directions, such as the need of shared references, which
 inhibit parallelism, or garbage collection, which isn't atomic. The failure of the functional paradigm to achieve
 compatible efficiency impacted its popularity, which, in turn, lead to tools like formal verification to never catch up.
 This raises the question: is there a model of computation which, like Turing Machine, has a clear physical
 implementation, yet, like the Lambda Calculus, has a robust logical interpretation? In 1997, Yves Lafont proposed a new
 alternative, the Interaction Combinators, on which substitution is broken down into 2 fundamental laws: commutation,
 which creates and copies information, and annihilation, which observes and destroys information. In a sense, this may
 resemble SKI combinators, but that isn't a good analogy, since SKI combinators still include non-atomic operations: K
 may erase an unboundedly large structure, and S may copy an unboundedly large structure. The charm, and elegance, of the
 Interaction Combinators is that its reduction laws are truly atomic: each operation can be completed in a constant
 amount of steps, and has a clear physical mapping. Not only that, they're inherently parallel, in the same sense that
 the Lambda Calculus has been claimed to be, in theory, but without the issues that let it to be, in practice.
 Interestingly, every aspect which is considered good in other models of computation is present on Interaction
 Combinators, while negative aspects are completely absent. Like the Turing Machine, there is a very clear physical
 implementation. Like the Lambda Calculus, there is a robust logical interpretation which is well-suited for high order
 abstractions, strong types, formal verification and so on. Curiously, both the Lambda Calculus and the Turing Machine
 can be emulated by a small Interaction Combinator, with no loss of performance, while the opposite isn't true. This
 suggests that, while the 3 systems are equivalent in terms of computability, the Interaction Combinators are more
 capable in terms of computation. Under certain point of view, one could argue that both the Turing Machine and the
 Lambda Calculus are slight distortions of this fundamental model, with a touch of human creativity, caused by our
 historical intuitions regarding machines and mathematics, which is the source of their inefficiencies. Perhaps machines
 and substitutions aren't as fundamental as we think, and some alien civilization has developed all its mathematical
 theories and computers based on annihilation and commutation, with no references to the Lambda Calculus, or the Turing
 Machine. 
 We, at the Kindelia Foundation, hold the view that Interaction Combinators are a more fundamental model of computation,
 and, consequently, that computers, processors and programming languages inspired by them would offer tangible benefits
 compared to the ones we built based on Turing Machines and the Lambda Calculus. The Kindelia Foundation was created to
 research this new model of computation, and, through the different mindset it brings, catch insights that will let us
 produce groundbreaking technology that will push humanity towards the next level of computational maturity.