# Paging Mr Diggins... Linear Logic and Permutation Stacks.

## John Carter — 2009-03-08 23:35:09

    John Nowak rightly calls for Chris Diggins' insight on this entry over

    at LtU..

       http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/node/3227

    I'd be interested in his, and more generally, the response of this

    group to the (potential) relationship between Linear Logic and

    concatenative languages.

    Linear Logic, or what I call, "Reference Counting on the Fingers of

    one Thumb" has been a favourite of mine for years.

    From a human level perspective it's just _so_ appealing.

    In kindergarten if I gave you the ball, you had the ball, and I no

    longer had the ball.

    It's just such an intuitive wired in view of the world we have. I bet

    a Linear Logic language would lose a vast multitude of bugs that

    plague programs written in other more complex languages.

    Couple that with the many Good Things about concatenative languages...

    John Carter                             Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639

    Tait Electronics                        Fax   : (64)(3) 359 4632

    PO Box 1645 Christchurch                Email : john.carter@...

    New Zealand

## Don Groves — 2009-03-08 23:58:23

    On Mar 8, 2009, at 4:35 PM, John Carter wrote:

     > John Nowak rightly calls for Chris Diggins' insight on this entry over

    > at LtU..

    >

    >   http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/node/3227

    >

    > I'd be interested in his, and more generally, the response of this

    > group to the (potential) relationship between Linear Logic and

    > concatenative languages.

     If you search the archives of the group, you'll find that Linear

    Logic has been discussed here many times.

     > Linear Logic, or what I call, "Reference Counting on the Fingers of

    > one Thumb" has been a favourite of mine for years.

     I like the name ;-)

     > From a human level perspective it's just _so_ appealing.

    >

    > In kindergarten if I gave you the ball, you had the ball, and I no

    > longer had the ball.

    >

    > It's just such an intuitive wired in view of the world we have. I bet

    > a Linear Logic language would lose a vast multitude of bugs that

    > plague programs written in other more complex languages.

     I feel the same. In fact, my small contribution (as yet unreleased)

    to concatenative languages is linear. At any given time, only one

    reference to an object can exist.

    --

    don

     > Couple that with the many Good Things about concatenative languages...

    >

    >

    > John Carter                             Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639

    > Tait Electronics                        Fax   : (64)(3) 359 4632

    > PO Box 1645 Christchurch                Email : john.carter@...

    > New Zealand

## John Carter — 2009-03-09 02:30:33

    On Sun, 8 Mar 2009, Don Groves wrote:

     > If you search the archives of the group, you'll find that Linear

    > Logic has been discussed here many times.

     Oh the embarrassment! You are most painfully right.

    Insufficient coffee, operator halted. Insert espresso to continue.

    John Carter                             Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639

    Tait Electronics                        Fax   : (64)(3) 359 4632

    PO Box 1645 Christchurch                Email : john.carter@...

    New Zealand

## Don Groves — 2009-03-09 02:39:15

    On Mar 8, 2009, at 7:30 PM, John Carter wrote:

     > On Sun, 8 Mar 2009, Don Groves wrote:

    >

    >> If you search the archives of the group, you'll find that Linear

    >> Logic has been discussed here many times.

    >

    > Oh the embarrassment! You are most painfully right.

    >

    > Insufficient coffee, operator halted. Insert espresso to continue.

     Programmer (n): an organism that converts coffee into software.

    --

    don

     > John Carter                             Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639

    > Tait Electronics                        Fax   : (64)(3) 359 4632

    > PO Box 1645 Christchurch                Email : john.carter@...

    > New Zealand

## John Nowak — 2009-03-09 03:33:12

    On Mar 8, 2009, at 7:35 PM, John Carter wrote:

     > Linear Logic, or what I call, "Reference Counting on the Fingers of

    > one Thumb" has been a favourite of mine for years.

    >

    > From a human level perspective it's just _so_ appealing.

     It definitely is. I've spent a lot of time trying to make it usable,

    but it just isn't yet.

    In my opinion, the way to make linear logic work is to do it in the

    context of a polytypic programming language. Writing functions to work

    efficiently on linear data structures is a huge pain, but if those

    functions could be *derived* from the specification of a data type,

    you'd be all set. I'm currently studying the work done on the Charity

    programming language which may provide some direction towards that goal.

    - John