lung, meet rewind

[msrewind]

She gets the note just before lunch. She's in the PHQ in less than twenty minutes, then she knocks on Piggot's door politely.

Comments

[mrglam]

"...simple? What counts as simple, even?" he laughs.

[thinkering]

She giggles. "No, well, Tinker bullshit. It's good at tools, custom welders and stuff! It can take my pseudocode flowcharts and turn them into bug-free programs."

[mrglam]

"Does it use the same programming language you do?"

[thinkering]

"Yeah, although it can convert things into standard ones long as they're Turing-complete and meet one or two other criteria. Nasty efficiency cost, but sometimes you gotta make sacrifices for compatibility."

[mrglam]

"Or human readability in some cases."

[thinkering]

"That would only apply if I were open-sourcing, which I approve of philosophically but have a hard time with practically being a Tinker and not a regular engineer."

[mrglam]

"Yeah. At some point I kinda wanna see if I can even begin to wrap my head around it."

[thinkering]

"Do you even know any programming?"

[mrglam]

"Basic concepts? Some computability theory and stuff, math is fun, no actual languages."

[thinkering]

"Well, you can have a look if you want but I don't think on that background you'll get anywhere."

[mrglam]

"Would I get anywhere if I learned anything? Like, say, Java, or something."

[thinkering]

"It'd give you a loose idea of what various operators are likely to be."

[mrglam]

"I might do that for fun, then. Shouldn't be hard."

[thinkering]

"Enjoy."

[mrglam]

"I probably will! I don't suppose you have any pointers?"

[thinkering]

"Not really, I never conventionally studied the stuff."

[mrglam]

"Eh, there are probably good enough guides and tutorials online."

[thinkering]

"Yeah, I think programming's one of the easiest things to pick up using only the internet."

[mrglam]

"Probably. I think I might learn more if I actually have something to do with the language, though."

[thinkering]

"Like what?"

[mrglam]

"Dunno, it just sounds like the kind of thing that's easier to learn doing than, like, studying."

[thinkering]

"Fair enough. I think some people make calculators? Or really simple chatbots."

[mrglam]

"A calculator sounds like a good milestone. A chatbot sounds... more complicated."

[thinkering]

"A simple chatbot. Like Eliza."

[mrglam]

"I have no idea who Eliza is."