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One of the top 5 programming books. Old AI is today's bleeding edge computer engineering. There is an enourmous amount of free lunches for computer engineers

One of the top 5 programming books. Old AI is today's bleeding edge computer engineering. There is an enourmous amount of free lunches for computer engineers and software startups in the old school artificial intelligence. * modern SAT solver performance is impressive. They can solve huge problems. * Writing a complex systems configurator with Prolog or Datalog can be like magic. * Expert systems. There has never been so much use for them than today. Whenever you see expensive systems utilizing complex mess of "business logic" and expensive consultants, you should know there is a better way. (I use SAT-solvers to partially initialize neural network parameters).

dread88 4y ago
Do you mean "Dyalog" rather than "Dynalog"?
- trenchgun 4y ago
  Most likely he means "Datalog". "Dyalog" is an APL.
- MAXPOOL 4y ago
  I meant Datalog.
davidhs 4y ago
What are the other 4 top programming books?
- larve 4y ago
  Since I also put PAIP in my top 5 books, here are my 4 other ones: - The Pragmatic Programmer - This changed my life when I started programming 20 years ago. Most of the practices are now common, but it was almost radical back then. - Designing Data Intensive Applications This is so well written, so elegantly fundamental. It's an absolute pleasure, even if I don't really refer to it in practice. - Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs In many ways, the MIT version of PAIP. Its elegance complements the pragmatism of PAIP well. - The unicorn project My number 5 book varies often, because I haven't found many books that reach the writing quality of the other 4. This is a business novel, but it really solidified a lot of concepts for me: lean, queues, theory of constraints, what devops is about, working as a programmer in a business.
  - EddySchauHai 4y ago
    DDIA, SICP, and PAIP have been on my reading lists for years. Maybe I’ll finally get round to them after this glowing review :)
- nextos 4y ago
  * Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs: https://web.mit.edu/6.001/6.037/sicp.pdf https://web.mit.edu/6.001/6.037/sicp.pdf * Concepts, Techniques and Models of Computer Programming: https://www.info.ucl.ac.be/~pvr/book.html https://www.info.ucl.ac.be/~pvr/book.html * The Art of Prolog: https://www.dropbox.com/s/2umr9ouz0jdelio/1407.pdf?dl=1 https://www.dropbox.com/s/2umr9ouz0jdelio/1407.pdf?dl=1 * Probabilistic Models of Cognition: https://probmods.org https://probmods.org Something that merges logic, types and proofs, perhaps yet to be written. Some good preliminary material: * Program = Proof: https://www.lix.polytechnique.fr/Labo/Samuel.Mimram/teaching/INF551/course.pdf https://www.lix.polytechnique.fr/Labo/Samuel.Mimram/teaching... * Concrete Semantics: http://concrete-semantics.org http://concrete-semantics.org * The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Logical Verification: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/blanchette/logical_verification_2020/master/hitchhikers_guide.pdf https://raw.githubusercontent.com/blanchette/logical_verific... * Programming Language Foundations in Agda: https://plfa.github.io https://plfa.github.io * Logic and Computation Intertwined: https://cs.uwaterloo.ca/~plragde/flaneries/LACI/ https://cs.uwaterloo.ca/~plragde/flaneries/LACI/ * Software Foundations: https://softwarefoundations.cis.upenn.edu/ https://softwarefoundations.cis.upenn.edu/
  - whartung 4y ago
    I'm going to look at the Art of Prolog book. Prolog is one of those things that has alluded me all this time. Mostly I don't think I've had an application for it, and, bluntly, at least for me, I need to have a "real" application to solve to best learn something. Seeing the "animal" program repeated over and over and over again was never any help. In hindsight, maybe it would have been appropriate in an email messaging application I did long ago. It's message routing workflow was not inscrutable, but certainly difficult (and it didn't help that the route could split, sending the message to more than one place with their own workflows -- that was fun). I've done a bunch with rule engines (and the message routing was done with an ad hoc one), but less so with inferencing. Maybe this book will give me some insight to explore further. It's always one of those things that sort of nags the back of my brain that I don't quite grok it.
    - nextos 4y ago
lukashrb 4y ago
Are there any examples for 2 and 3 openly accessible? While I grasped the basic idea I lack the imagination how it would look in a real world system.
vasili111 4y ago
Does this book teaches how to write SAT-solvers?
jaggirs 4y ago
SAT for initializing nn parameters? Can you elaborate on this a bit, it seems interesting.
- snek_case 4y ago
  Also curious to hear more about this...
- albertzeyer 4y ago
  I can only guess: In certain cases, you know what the neural network should do, for certain inputs, and you have a quite clear idea how each component of the network would solve this, and this should be doable, and with a bit of work you could also construct the parameters by hand, such that it works at least for non-noisy constructed toy input data. Actually, I think for more complex tasks, having such intuition would anyway be a good idea. Now, you could use a SAT solver such that it does the work mostly for you. You formulate some constructed inputs/outputs, maybe some other constraints, and let it solve for the parameters. This would be a good parameter starting point for real world data. And if the SAT solver fails to find any solution, maybe your neural network is actually not powerful enough.
zerr 4y ago
I've got an impression that it is a breadth introduction book to various interesting topics in symbolic computation. It doesn't go deep.
- lispm 4y ago
  It just implements a computer algebra system, a Prolog, a Scheme and a bunch of other stuff. On its way it teaches advanced Lisp programming.
  - zerr 4y ago
    Yes, basic/toy versions.
    - lispm 4y ago
      For a book I find the description of the development process and the level of implementation to be quite good. A great opportunity for the reader to expand them. I've seen for example the Scheme implementation from PAIP expanded and integrated into a CMS.

dread88 4y ago

Do you mean "Dyalog" rather than "Dynalog"?

trenchgun 4y ago
Most likely he means "Datalog". "Dyalog" is an APL.
MAXPOOL 4y ago
I meant Datalog.

davidhs 4y ago

What are the other 4 top programming books?

larve 4y ago
Since I also put PAIP in my top 5 books, here are my 4 other ones: - The Pragmatic Programmer - This changed my life when I started programming 20 years ago. Most of the practices are now common, but it was almost radical back then. - Designing Data Intensive Applications This is so well written, so elegantly fundamental. It's an absolute pleasure, even if I don't really refer to it in practice. - Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs In many ways, the MIT version of PAIP. Its elegance complements the pragmatism of PAIP well. - The unicorn project My number 5 book varies often, because I haven't found many books that reach the writing quality of the other 4. This is a business novel, but it really solidified a lot of concepts for me: lean, queues, theory of constraints, what devops is about, working as a programmer in a business.
- EddySchauHai 4y ago
  DDIA, SICP, and PAIP have been on my reading lists for years. Maybe I’ll finally get round to them after this glowing review :)
nextos 4y ago
* Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs: https://web.mit.edu/6.001/6.037/sicp.pdf https://web.mit.edu/6.001/6.037/sicp.pdf * Concepts, Techniques and Models of Computer Programming: https://www.info.ucl.ac.be/~pvr/book.html https://www.info.ucl.ac.be/~pvr/book.html * The Art of Prolog: https://www.dropbox.com/s/2umr9ouz0jdelio/1407.pdf?dl=1 https://www.dropbox.com/s/2umr9ouz0jdelio/1407.pdf?dl=1 * Probabilistic Models of Cognition: https://probmods.org https://probmods.org Something that merges logic, types and proofs, perhaps yet to be written. Some good preliminary material: * Program = Proof: https://www.lix.polytechnique.fr/Labo/Samuel.Mimram/teaching/INF551/course.pdf https://www.lix.polytechnique.fr/Labo/Samuel.Mimram/teaching... * Concrete Semantics: http://concrete-semantics.org http://concrete-semantics.org * The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Logical Verification: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/blanchette/logical_verification_2020/master/hitchhikers_guide.pdf https://raw.githubusercontent.com/blanchette/logical_verific... * Programming Language Foundations in Agda: https://plfa.github.io https://plfa.github.io * Logic and Computation Intertwined: https://cs.uwaterloo.ca/~plragde/flaneries/LACI/ https://cs.uwaterloo.ca/~plragde/flaneries/LACI/ * Software Foundations: https://softwarefoundations.cis.upenn.edu/ https://softwarefoundations.cis.upenn.edu/
- whartung 4y ago
  I'm going to look at the Art of Prolog book. Prolog is one of those things that has alluded me all this time. Mostly I don't think I've had an application for it, and, bluntly, at least for me, I need to have a "real" application to solve to best learn something. Seeing the "animal" program repeated over and over and over again was never any help. In hindsight, maybe it would have been appropriate in an email messaging application I did long ago. It's message routing workflow was not inscrutable, but certainly difficult (and it didn't help that the route could split, sending the message to more than one place with their own workflows -- that was fun). I've done a bunch with rule engines (and the message routing was done with an ad hoc one), but less so with inferencing. Maybe this book will give me some insight to explore further. It's always one of those things that sort of nags the back of my brain that I don't quite grok it.
  - nextos 4y ago

lukashrb 4y ago

Are there any examples for 2 and 3 openly accessible? While I grasped the basic idea I lack the imagination how it would look in a real world system.

vasili111 4y ago

Does this book teaches how to write SAT-solvers?

jaggirs 4y ago

SAT for initializing nn parameters? Can you elaborate on this a bit, it seems interesting.

snek_case 4y ago
Also curious to hear more about this...
albertzeyer 4y ago
I can only guess: In certain cases, you know what the neural network should do, for certain inputs, and you have a quite clear idea how each component of the network would solve this, and this should be doable, and with a bit of work you could also construct the parameters by hand, such that it works at least for non-noisy constructed toy input data. Actually, I think for more complex tasks, having such intuition would anyway be a good idea. Now, you could use a SAT solver such that it does the work mostly for you. You formulate some constructed inputs/outputs, maybe some other constraints, and let it solve for the parameters. This would be a good parameter starting point for real world data. And if the SAT solver fails to find any solution, maybe your neural network is actually not powerful enough.

zerr 4y ago

I've got an impression that it is a breadth introduction book to various interesting topics in symbolic computation. It doesn't go deep.

lispm 4y ago
It just implements a computer algebra system, a Prolog, a Scheme and a bunch of other stuff. On its way it teaches advanced Lisp programming.
- zerr 4y ago
  Yes, basic/toy versions.
  - lispm 4y ago
    For a book I find the description of the development process and the level of implementation to be quite good. A great opportunity for the reader to expand them. I've seen for example the Scheme implementation from PAIP expanded and integrated into a CMS.