quietfanatic – The fundamental unit of a computer program is not a function; it’s an action. CPUs don’t do lambda calculus; they follow procedures.

I saw this on twitter a couple days ago and responded with a jerk of my knee, only to commence a discussion1 in which I failed to accurately express my objection. So here is a full treatment.

First I would like to disclaim that I am not attacking quietfanatic in any way. His quote merely provides a convenient means to discuss a widespread pattern of thinking.

Before we start talking about fundamental units of X, it’s probably a good idea to get clear about what we mean by X (where X = computer program). Here are some of the possible definitions I can think of:

A computer program is a pattern of memory intended to be read by a CPU — machine code. A computer program is an abstract specification for the behavior of the CPU when fed (to-be-determined) machine code. A computer program is the idea of its behavior. To illuminate what I mean by this, think of Firefox. What idea did you have just then? Was it of an abstract specification? A series of bits? I doubt it. You probably pictured a window browsing the internet or something like that. I’m talking about that kind of idea. A computer program is a state of a physical system. If it is not in a block of hard disk or ram somewhere, it cannot be considered to exist.

The difference between these is the level of abstraction at which they are defined. But importantly, they are all defined at some level of abstraction — which means that they are all just ideas. Perhaps (4) is not, depending on how concretely you see the world.

Here are some of the ways to think of how a program is run:

The specification of the program is interpreted by some rules, resulting in some changes to physical things. The CPU deconstructs memory into a series of discrete instructions, which it then “performs” one after another. The computer is a system in which the states of some physical devices are coupled to a system of interacting voltages, some of which encode a program.

Again, they differ at the level of abstraction at which they are defined.

The way I read quietfanatic’s quote is talking about level (2) of the program and level (2) of the CPU. To me it says “CPUs perform instructions, so our abstract specifications of computer programs should be (ultimately) in terms of instructions”. With that phrasing there seems to be a wide logical gap between the two clauses. Why does the language we use for abstract specification have to correspond to one particular abstract conception of how a CPU works?

By permuting my list of interpretations, I can construct many plausible quotes that follow the same logic. “The fundamental unit of a computer program is a rule, since the program is ultimately interpreted as rules” or “the fundamental unit of a computer program is a voltage, since voltages are ultimately what drive the devices.”

But my objection is larger than this fallacy. To me, and I presume to most software developers, programs are made of ideas. When thinking about programming languages, we are looking for a way to express our ideas in a way that the computer can approximate them. Our ideas form the central theme, not the mechanisms that approximate them.

What is the fundamental unit of a number? How about of a web page? A shape? A set? A cursor?

All these things are ideas, each of which has many different lights under which it can be viewed, each of which may give a different answer about a “fundamental unit”. But ultimately ideas are not defined in terms of anything — we use definitions to grasp how our ideas connect to each other. Some might say that the fundamental unit of mathematics is the set, but when I think about a triangle, I’m sure not thinking about sets.

I am unable to see how computer programs are any different. Why constrain ourselves by forcing a fundamental idea? Must there really be a one true way which forms a basis for everything else to be defined? In the historical development of mathematics, our ideas have had a shifting fluid foundation, each generation bringing a new way to think about the same things. Currently the evolution of programming languages is serving as our shifting foundation. Let’s use our full vocabulary of ideas to express programs, and try not to limit our concepts’ true breadth and beauty by telescoping in on what they mean in terms of a fixed basis.

This article is reflecting a change in thought that I am going through right now. After a lot of time being committed to the lambda calculus, finding ways to construct the naturals out of some pretty-looking set of primitives, devising ways to abolish imperative thinking and embrace functional thinking, I realized that I was lost in a world of details. Everything I did and thought was coupled to the fundamental system I was creating.

It is dawning on me that the fundamental system is merely a means to express my ideas, and the true beauty is in the ideas themselves. My denotationalism fades as I perceive that most of my mental structures are intrinsic. They are not defined in terms of anything and they have no denotation other than themselves. There are ways to model those ideas, but I am suddenly being careful not to confuse the model with the idea itself.

1 To the extent that a series of tweets can be considered a discussion.

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