Reflections on Programming Systems: Historical and Philosophical Aspects

Description

This book presents a historical and philosophical analysis of programming systems, intended as large computational systems like, for instance, operating systems, programmed to control processes. The introduction to the volume emphasizes the contemporary need of providing a foundational analysis of such systems, rooted in a broader historical and philosophical discussion. The different chapters are grouped around three major themes. The first concerns the early history of large systems developed against the background of issues related to the growing semantic gap between hardware and code. The second revisits the fundamental issue of complexity of large systems, dealt with by the use of formal methods and the development of `grand designs’ like Unix. Finally, a third part considers several issues related to programming systems in the real world, including chapters on aesthetical, ethical and political issues. This book will interest researchers from a diversity of backgrounds. It will appeal to historians, philosophers, as well as logicians and computer scientists who want to engage with topics relevant to the history and philosophy of programming and more specifically the role of programming systems in the foundations of computing. Front Matter ....Pages i-viii Programming Systems: in Search of Historical and Philosophical Foundations (Liesbeth De Mol, Giuseppe Primiero)....Pages 1-12 Front Matter ....Pages 13-13 Validity and Correctness Before the OS: the Case of LEO I and LEO II (Rabia Arif, Elisabetta Mori, Giuseppe Primiero)....Pages 15-47 What Is an Operating System? A Historical Investigation (1954–1964) (Maarten Bullynck)....Pages 49-79 Front Matter ....Pages 81-81 Formal Semantics of ALGOL 60: Four Descriptions in their Historical Context (Troy K. Astarte, Cliff B. Jones)....Pages 83-152 Sans-Papiers as First-Class Citizens (Julian Rohrhuber)....Pages 153-185 Front Matter ....Pages 187-187 Unix, Plan 9 and the Lurking Smalltalk (Stephen Kell)....Pages 189-213 Unix: Building a Development Environment from Scratch (Warren Toomey)....Pages 215-231 Front Matter ....Pages 233-233 Ethical Operating Systems (Naveen Sundar Govindarajulu, Selmer Bringsjord, Atriya Sen, Jean-Claude Paquin, Kevin O’Neill)....Pages 235-260 From Sovereign Operating Systems to the Sovereign Digital Chain (Gaël Duval)....Pages 261-271 Elegance in Software (Robin K. Hill)....Pages 273-286