2024-04-20 10:19:19 - Paul D. Foy -
I faced a different problem in my discipline mathematics and group theory. The foundations are old - early 19th century with Evariste Galois. The axioms of a group were laid down then. From this almost everything about group theory can be deduced and you don't need anything else. It is not as though people are scrabbling about to set the standard or do the early work. If it is an easy problem someone will have done it before and it will be written down somewhere. The problem I faced is that there was so much worship of the derivations and the derived concepts that these were obscuring the essential simplicity of the work and goal. This (similar but not the same as computing) is a failure of education, recording and communication. There are probably reasons for this unrelated to the aesthetics of the subject, or even the value to society - to preserve a job in competition with others? (even other young students!). So I wrote my books to bypass this. There is the result but also the steps from the start to get there. For a young man without the intimidation and the lauding, the wood without all the obscurity of the trees :). I was an older man when I did it - but its for a young man - to give him the step without all the baggage.

2024-04-20 10:01:45 - Paul D. Foy -
I've been told in the past that you don't what to be some kind of code monkey in your life, flipping bits of code, acting like a pimply student. But it strikes me this (young) attitude of mind is how one has to be in this arena, if you seek understanding or influence. Computing and software is so young that axioms, fundamental premises are barely established. The specification of languages (for example those on which the majority of web servers are based) changes frequently, even breaking prior versions. A version last a few years! Books are of limited value as a repository of specification or standard (there out of date too quickly). One has to rely on online manuals, self referential documents sitting on the servers that supply them!. No wonder PHP is a self referential name (PHP, Hypertext Protocol). I don't criticise the founder, he was just doing something that he couldn't do, to do what he wanted to do, with current techniques. No individual write of a site, creates a use, to stamp the need. A grand edifice never seems to be created to justify the current position and to standardise it. The (mainly) young men that get involved have other concerns :).

2024-04-19 13:12:56 - Paul D. Foy -
One of the motivators to my current work actually comes from not Facebook but Youtube. On making a comment there on someone else's post it became apparent that MY comment could be changed by someone else and I was powerless to prevent this. And then they could comment on the changed comment!. All I could do was delete my whole comment. This irritated me and I do actually remember saying in the past that I can only be beholden to comments when they are on posts of my creation. And not thinking how this could be done (it surely isn't a design feature of Youtube (or is it!)) I can only be beholden to comments on posts I have created on sights I have created. So this complete breakdown of trust is NOT the way to go, and one wonders what an earth is going on at Youtube. It's not just Mark Zuckerberg that work fast and loose in their bedrooms but Larry Page and Sergey Brin as well - and these are mathematicians. What fame and fortune for the J G Thompsons in America - nichts.

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