TiddlyWiki as a QUINE ... thoughts

[Josiah]

Over on Twitter I (@TiddlyTweeter) and Alex Hough (@100CreweRoad) and others, have begun to open up a bit what is very unusual about TiddlyWiki. That is, its a kind of Quine.

Its not esoteric as it might first look. Grasping what a Quine is very useful for beginners with TW who, naturally, think its going to behave like normal procedural software and then are surprised its doesn't.

Stalwarts of TW know its a Quine, but its not always so easy to explain that. Rather they demo it via code and solutions instead.

IMO, part of the reason for the VERY high quality of support here is partly because TW IS a Quine. Its open-endedness is a signal marker of  "Quineness".

Talking sensibly about the concrete implications of Quines is an open-ended task. That is somewhat remarkable in the field of normal software which normally has strict logical, determinate end-points.

Best wishes
Josiah

[Tobias Beer]

Hi Josiah,

I get the feeling there's mostly a philosophical point you'e trying to make but reading the wikipedia article on Quine I would say TiddlyWiki sure ain't one.

I'm also not sure why you think the notion would be particularly useful for TiddlyWiki beginners. In what sense?

Yes, TiddlyWiki does not (try to) produce a linear output or experience. However, "procedural" does not mean that. The state of a system depends on it's input-output relations, so even a "procedural" bit of code may behave in nonlinear ways, hence all the more reason to consider approaching things models more from an object oriented angle, rather than a mere procedural unfolding of commands against plain digits.

You said: //Its open-endedness is a signal marker of  "Quineness".//

Where does it say that open-endedness makes for a quine? As far as I can see it's sole purpose is to, well, render it's very own source and that's it.

In general, I think the era when we thought of software as purely strict, logical, "deterministic" is long gone. Perhaps people would imagine assembler language to represent that kind of thinking, tic toc makes the clock, but even there you can get to some quite non-deterministic states at the intersection of hard- and software.

Best wishes,

Tobias.

[Josiah]

Ciao Tobias

You floored me on that. :-)

I will reply. A bit later.

Best wishes
Josiah

[Jeremy Ruston]

Hi Tobias, Josiah,

Joshiah prompted me to reply via Twitter

On 15 Nov 2016, at 19:27, Tobias Beer <beert...@gmail.com> wrote:

I get the feeling there's mostly a philosophical point you'e trying to make but reading the wikipedia article on Quine I would say TiddlyWiki sure ain't one.

Wikipedia defines a quine as:

"A quine is a non-empty computer program which takes no input and produces a copy of its own source code as its only output"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quine_(computing)

For me, TiddlyWiki meets that definition; of course it is much more than a quine, but a key part of TiddlyWiki’s operation is the way that it saves changes by downloading a fresh copy of its own HTML file. Absent any modifications via the UI, and the saved copy is identical to the original copy.

But I’d be curious Tobias why you don’t think TiddlyWiki can be classified as a quine?

By the way, there’s a fascinating subset of quines that simultaneously function as ASCII art. This is a particularly noted example that also features animation:

http://philipsung.blogspot.co.uk/2010/12/people-who-are-not-in-our-league-v.html

Best wishes

Jeremy

[Josiah]

Ciao Tobias

On the core point Jeremy reasserted my initial view that TW is a quine. You kinda floored me. I felt well, maybe I got this all wrong? After reflection, I don't think I did. But I'd still be interested to know if you still find TW is not a quine.

On the point of "procedural" you and i live in different worlds. You are coming from computer science. I am an anthropologist. I am NOT looking at "procedure" in the same way at all. It IS my fault in not making clear in this specific group where I am coming from. I will try develop a lexicon on usage patterns so I don't create that confusion again. By "procedure" I mean "typical folk knowledge of how to do stuff".

On the issue of WHY its useful to beginners to understand TW's "quineness". I think its VERY helpful to grasp that the "program" and the "content" are all part of the same thing.

Best wishes
Josiah