Expert to Expert: Erik Meijer and Butler Lampson - Abstraction, Security and Embodiment

Posted By: Charles | Sep 17th @ 9:09 AM | 42,874 Views | 23 Comments
This is a very special episode of Expert to Expert. We were very fortunate to get some time with renowned computer scientist and Microsoft Technical Fellow Butler Lampson. Butler's impact on general purpose computing is profound. Personal computing as it exists today is in part the result of the great work done by Butler over the past 30 years.

Programming language designer and high priest of the lamda calculus Erik Meijer hosts this episode of E2E and Erik and Butler cover a very wide swath of computing topics. It's simply beautiful and very deep geekiness. In fact, this is one of my favorite Channel 9 conversations of late. I know you will enjoy both the usual real conversational aspect of this and the depth of historical insight into some of the core aspects and unresolved problems of general purpose personal computing.

Go get some popcorn, stream this into your XBox or Media Center and learn from one of our industry's pioneers who still has a great deal to offer to the world of personal computing. What's Butler working on these days, you wonder? What's top of mind for him as it relates to today's biggest challenges in computing? What does software security really mean? How many levels of software abstraction do we need? Why is data synchronization such a hard problem? What is software embodiment, exactly (Butler will be presenting his thinking on software embodiment at PDC09, as part of the new Technical Leaders track (something yours truly is responsible for - I hope you plan on attending these very special sessions and if not you will be able to watch them right here on Channel 9))?

Tune in and meet a true legend in our industry. Microsoft is very forunate to have Butler Lampson thinking about some of the hardest problems we face as an industry and ensuring that Microsoft is capable of tackling these challenges in a way that extends the solutions for long term relevance in a changing and unpredictable environment.
Rating:
5
0
#Sep 17th @ 1:25 PM
tarlano
tarlano

Well I am sure that both Bulter and Erik know about Windows SteadyState, but it is exactly the implementation of a "red" machine that can allow "credible" state changes by credibel sources, i.e. Microsoft update or an Admin, but returns back to a "steadystate" after a user is finished using it.. 

 

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/sharedaccess/whatis/default.mspx

#Sep 17th @ 1:37 PM
Charles
Charles
Welcome Change

The Red and Green game involves one computer that NEVER connects to the Internet. One does, and it contains no personal data, no credit card numbers, nothing that a hacker can use to your disadvantage. In some sense, as I attempted to put forth in this conversation, if you ran your Internet browser in a virtualized environment with no access to the host computer than you could have dynamic virtual green on a "real" red base. Smiley
C

#Sep 17th @ 1:56 PM
tarlano
tarlano

Even if you ran a browser you would want to update the "kernel" since the OS always needs to mutate the state to update... Unless you are done on day 1..

 

Thus, the steadystate is a clear example of a system that allows explicit mutation by a credible source, Microsoft Update or Admin, but is also has an immutable "bubble" that the user lives in.. More along what Joe Duffy has in mind.. Bubble of mutability and bubble of immutability

#Sep 17th @ 5:19 PM
Charles
Charles
Welcome Change

Understood. I think it's fair to state that the notion of "credible" is not as certain as Admin or Microsoft Update sourcing implies. But, I get your points and, yes, Microsoft Windows SteadyState seems interesting and I did not know about it....

 

Disposable web browsing is a concept I like. Persistent state is overrated and overvalued for many common activities that require a web browser connected to the Internet (reading news, watching videos, anonymously entertained/educated, etc..).

C

#Sep 17th @ 8:42 PM
Bass
Bass
Channel 9, best used in moderation

This was a really awesome video. Smiley

#Sep 17th @ 9:24 PM
joechung
joechung

I literally did a spit take when you guys started talking about browsing porn! Looking forward to Butler's Embodiment talk, and thanks Charles and Erik for another great interview!

#Sep 17th @ 10:24 PM
Charles
Charles
Welcome Change

Truly our pleasure!

 

In terms of porn browsing commentary, that's just the canonical example for the context of that part of this discussion... Please don't read into it! Smiley
C

#Sep 18th @ 9:06 AM
JoshRoss
JoshRoss
A righteous infliction of retribution manifested by an appropriate agent.

Perhaps Butler has solved the CoffeeHouse spam problem.  Put a link on each post that is redeemable as a charitable donation to the salvation army. If the post is spam, redeem it.

Microsoft Communities