33 bits

What if Arthur C. Clarke’s “The Nine Billion Names of God” was only slightly wrong?

What if computers were only created so that we could use them to virtualize them, create package managers, and package managers for our package managers so that we could enumerate all of the possible names for gcc? Computing as we know it would efficiently wink out of existence when the task was finished.

I’m beta testing PassiveVoice, Github’s new AI-enabled post-conflict assault-style action language. It was built on the premise that even a purely declarative language is too rigid for today’s complex world. It is completely subjunctive. Instead of actions (a very previous way of thinking about software), or Android’s shifty intents, PassiveVoice operates on encoded wishes. The process to identify a standardized collective noun for wishes is not at a consensus stage yet, so PassiveVoice packages are still called ‘dreamscapes’, per the original draft specification. These are bundles of the wishes necessary to will a software package together.

Github‘s old actions were written in YAML, which was described as a superset of JSON but with fewer braces and brackets. Dreamscapes are crafted from a superset of a subset of UTF-8. Fewer of the wrong braces, but more of the right ones. The old braces are now called suspenders and cause input processing to halt until adjusted. Instead, code points for quadruple French braces (for the Fourth Republic) are used. These are technically emoji even though it is a mood that is evoked, not an emotion.

Anyway, it is my wish that Github build my software but some mistakes were made. I’m about to type ‘gcc-main-dev/@master+withdeps‘ to encode gcc for this dreamscape and I’m concerned that this may be the last one. The last name for gcc, the one that will end computing.

Anyway, I’m sorry in advance and also you’re welcome.

This post pairs well with “A Gentle Dissolve” / “The Cosmic Game“ / Thievery Corporation / 2005