Message passing syntax for objects | OOPv2

[Chris Angelico]

On Sun, May 12, 2013 at 11:02 AM, Gregory Ewing
<greg.ewing at canterbury.ac.nz> wrote:
> Chris Angelico wrote:
>>
>> On Sun, May 12, 2013 at 5:32 AM, Dennis Lee Bieber
>> <wlfraed at ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>
>
>>>        The coordinates of each particle storing the information in that
>>> teaspoon of matter.
>>
>>
>> Which is probably more data than any of us will keyboard in a
>> lifetime. Hence my point.
>
>
> My 1TB hard disk *already* contains more information than
> I could keyboard in my lifetime.
>
> The fact that it all got there is due to two things: (1)
> I didn't have to enter it all myself, and (2) most of it
> was auto-generated from other information, using compilers
> and other such tools.

I would like to differentiate between information and data, here.
Point 1 is correct, but point 2 is not; auto-generated data is not
more information, and basic data compression can improve that. (Simple
form of compression there: `rm *.o` - you've lost nothing.)

> Our disk capacities are increasing exponentially, but
> so is the rate at which we have the ability to create
> information. I wouldn't be surprised if, at some point
> before the human race becomes extinct, we build
> computers whose operating system requires more than
> a teaspoonful of atoms to store. Especially if
> Microsoft still exists by then. :-)

That's possible. But that would be data bloat, not true information.
It's certainly possible to conceive more data than can be stored.
Microsoft, as you cite, are experts at this :)

ChrisA