Sunday, 1 January 2017

The memory models that underlie programming languages

The memory models that underlie programming languages: "There are about six major conceptualizations of memory, which I’m calling “memory models”², that dominate today’s programming. Three of them derive from the three most historically important programming languages of the 1950s — COBOL, LISP, and FORTRAN — and the other three derive from the three historically important data storage systems: magnetic tape, Unix-style hierarchical filesystems, and relational databases.

These models shape what our programming languages can or cannot do at a much deeper layer than mere syntax or even type systems. Mysteriously, I’ve never seen a good explanation of them — you pretty much just have to absorb them by osmosis instead of having them explained to you — and so I’m going to try now. Then I’m going to explain some possible alternatives to the mainstream options and why they might be interesting."

'via Blog this'

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