From owner-cse584-sp07-list@LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU Tue Apr 3 20:00:57 2007 Received: from ares.cse.buffalo.edu (ares.cse.Buffalo.EDU [128.205.32.79]) by castor.cse.Buffalo.EDU (8.13.6/8.12.10) with ESMTP id l3400uth027540 for ; Tue, 3 Apr 2007 20:00:56 -0400 (EDT) Received: from front3.acsu.buffalo.edu (coldfront.acsu.buffalo.edu [128.205.6.89]) by ares.cse.buffalo.edu (8.13.6/8.13.6) with SMTP id l3400ro5092873 for ; Tue, 3 Apr 2007 20:00:53 -0400 (EDT) Received: (qmail 16144 invoked from network); 4 Apr 2007 00:00:53 -0000 Received: from mailscan6.acsu.buffalo.edu (128.205.7.95) by front3.acsu.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 4 Apr 2007 00:00:53 -0000 Received: (qmail 25793 invoked from network); 4 Apr 2007 00:00:53 -0000 Received: from deliverance.acsu.buffalo.edu (128.205.7.57) by front1.acsu.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 4 Apr 2007 00:00:53 -0000 Received: (qmail 28665 invoked from network); 4 Apr 2007 00:00:45 -0000 Received: from listserv.buffalo.edu (128.205.7.35) by deliverance.acsu.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 4 Apr 2007 00:00:45 -0000 Received: by LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU (LISTSERV-TCP/IP release 14.5) with spool id 4356132 for CSE584-SP07-LIST@LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU; Tue, 3 Apr 2007 20:00:45 -0400 Delivered-To: cse584-sp07-list@listserv.buffalo.edu Received: (qmail 18909 invoked from network); 4 Apr 2007 00:00:45 -0000 Received: from mailscan3.acsu.buffalo.edu (128.205.6.135) by listserv.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 4 Apr 2007 00:00:45 -0000 Received: (qmail 21695 invoked from network); 4 Apr 2007 00:00:44 -0000 Received: from castor.cse.buffalo.edu (128.205.32.14) by smtp3.acsu.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 4 Apr 2007 00:00:44 -0000 Received: from castor.cse.Buffalo.EDU (rapaport@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by castor.cse.Buffalo.EDU (8.13.6/8.12.10) with ESMTP id l3400iFx027527 for ; Tue, 3 Apr 2007 20:00:44 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from rapaport@localhost) by castor.cse.Buffalo.EDU (8.13.6/8.12.9/Submit) id l3400iYN027526 for cse584-sp07-list@listserv.buffalo.edu; Tue, 3 Apr 2007 20:00:44 -0400 (EDT) X-UB-Relay: (castor.cse.buffalo.edu) X-PM-EL-Spam-Prob: : 7% Message-ID: <200704040000.l3400iYN027526@castor.cse.Buffalo.EDU> Date: Tue, 3 Apr 2007 20:00:44 -0400 Reply-To: "William J. Rapaport" Sender: "Philosophy of Computer Science, Spring 2007" From: "William J. Rapaport" Subject: NEWS FLASH: ON ABSTRACTION To: CSE584-SP07-LIST@LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU Precedence: list List-Help: , List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Owner: List-Archive: X-UB-Relay: (castor.cse.buffalo.edu) X-DCC-Buffalo.EDU-Metrics: castor.cse.Buffalo.EDU 1029; Body=0 Fuz1=0 Fuz2=0 X-Spam-Status: No, score=-2.0 required=5.0 tests=AWL,BAYES_00,SUBJ_ALL_CAPS autolearn=no version=3.1.7 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.1.7 (2006-10-05) on ares.cse.buffalo.edu X-Virus-Scanned: ClamAV 0.88.6/3007/Tue Apr 3 08:26:03 2007 on ares.cse.buffalo.edu X-Virus-Status: Clean Status: R Content-Length: 1112 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Subject: ON ABSTRACTION ------------------------------------------------------------------------ We just finished talking about abstraction: how Smith thinks that it is both necessary for the creation of models of the real world and also partly responsible for the limits of program correctness. The latest issue of Communications of the ACM, hot off the press, contains the following article: Kramer, Jeff (2007), "Is Abstraction the Key to Computing?" Communications of the ACM 50(4) (April): 36-42. I have not yet had a chance to read it, but I wanted to let you all know about it while the topic is still fresh in your minds. It's online, in both HTML and PDF, available from buffalo.edu machines at: http://tinyurl.com/2m6b92 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ PS: That's not its real URL. The real one is about 288 characters long and would wrap around several lines. http://tinyurl.com is a Web service that provides shorter, pointer-URLs to long ones. I've found it very useful.