Elon Musk and John Carmack Discuss Neuralink, Programming Languages on Twitter

Friday night CNET reported: With a device surgically implanted into the skull of a pig named Gertrude, Elon Musk demonstrated his startup Neuralink's technology to build a digital link between brains and computers. A wireless link from the Neuralink computing device showed the pig's brain activity as it snuffled around a pen on stage Friday night. Some reactions from Twitter: - "The potential of #Neuralink is mind-boggling, but fuckkkk why would they use Bluetooth???" - "they're using C/C++ too lmao" But then videogame programming legend John Carmack responded: "Quality, reliable software can be delivered in any language, but language choice has an impact. For me, C would be a middle-of-the-road choice; better than a dynamic language like javascript or python, but not as good as a more modern strongly static typed languages. However, the existence of far more analysis tools for C is not an insignificant advantage. If you really care about robustness, you are going to architect everything more like old Fortran, with no dynamic allocations at all, and the code is going to look very simple and straightforward. So an interesting question: What are the aspects of C++ that are real wins for that style over C? Range checked arrays would be good. What else? When asked "What's a better modern choice?" Carmack replied "Rust would be the obvious things, and I don't have any reason to doubt it would be good, but I haven't implemented even a medium sized application in it." But then somewhere in the discussion, Elon Musk made a joke about C's lack of "class" data structures. Elon Musk responded: I like C, because it avoids class warfare But then Musk also gave interesting responses to two more questions on Twitter: Which is your fav programming language? Python? Elon Musk: Actually C, although the syntax could be improved esthetically Could Neuralink simulate an alternate reality that could be entered at will, like Ready Player One? Implications for VR seem to be massive. Essentially, a simulation within a simulation if we're already in one ... Elon Musk: Later versions of a larger device would have that potential

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

from Slashdot https://ift.tt/3jpp2FV

Share on FacebookPlus on Google+

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER