Living Computation: Robust-first programming in ULAM
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN points to it as an entry into Ackley's indefinitely scalable computing project, with a network-switch demo recommended as the best place to start.
What it is
Dave Ackley presents robust-first computing and the ULAM programming language for the Movable Feast Machine, a cellular-automata-like architecture. It was a short video for the Future Programming Workshop 2015.
Recommended by 2 HN commenters across 2 different months, 2015 to 2025.
What Hacker News said
Strong rec sgentle · 2019-08 · on “Local Routing in a new Indefinitely Scalable Architecture [pdf]”
I'll always upvote Dave Ackley. His vision for computing is so audacious it seems unbelievable. Global consistency? Don't need it! Determinism? An illusory safety blanket for wimps and suckers! Sure, everyone talks a big game about eventual consistency, but who's signing up to use an eventually consistent CPU? Dave freakin' Ackley, that's who. And the whole thing would sound like blue-sky bullshit except he's out there actually building it. I think the best place to start is this demo of a network switch made out of cells: [this video] (and then watch the rest of the video if you liked that) His more recent videos are weekly updates on a "T2 Tile" prototype made out of 3d printed parts, custom PC
Recommends DonHopkins · 2025-07 · on “LLMs bring new nature of abstraction – up and sideways”
Me to, and I'm always battling with the LLM's obsession with lazily writing reams of ridiculously defensive code and masking errors in the code it generates and calls, instead of finding the root cause and solving that. (Yes, I'm referring to the code LLMs generate, not the API for generating code itself, but "fail early and spectacularly" should apply to all code and apis.) But you have to draw the line at failures that happen in the real world, or in code you can't control. I'm a huge fan of Dave Ackley's "Robust First" computing architecture, and his Moveable Feast Machine. His "Robust First" philosophy is extremely relevant and has a lot of applications to programming with LLMs, not just
Cites daveackley · 2015-11 · on “The Movable Feast Machine”
There's also a more recent 'router' demo(1) that -- though still rigid and rectangular -- does build its own boundary rather than relying on the grid boundary. (1) [this video]
Cites akkartik · 2019-07 · on “Robust-First Computing: Distributed City Generation (2015) [video]”
More links. The underlying project for programming using Cellular Automata: [this video] . Previously on HN: [LINK] There's a Youtube channel: [LINK] Sources: [LINK] Paper for city generation in particular: [LINK]