I really like the ideas in this language, unfortunately it’s developed by blockchain enthusiasts and used for some kind of proof-of-work-based computing machine (pun not intended).
The language can be compiled to their own virtual machine bytecode which can be translated to C. One target you don’t find enticing doesn’t sound like enough of a reason to write off the project imo
The author writes in the Kindelia Readme:
There is no native coin. It is not a cryptocurrency. It is a cryptocomputer.
Which to me says they’re focusing on the decentralized application portion of blockchains instead of the scam coins. There are some pretty cool ideas in here I still need to digest, but the benchmarks show they’re serious about improving the performance of functional (dependently typed) languages.
There is nothing about cryptocurrency that necessitates excessive power consumption. You are post-hoc rationalising a visceral response, not a rational one.
The proof-of-work consensus mechanism is literally designed to use as much energy as possible. If the consumption is too low, the required number of zeroes is increased.
That’s not true. It’s a cryptocurrency. Just read their whitepaper and don’t believe the bullshit their telling everyone to distract from that fact:
As for block rewards, the same principle holds. Tokens and applications can leave rewards that only the block miner can collect. For example, Kindelia’s Genesis Token, a no-premine currency which will be deployed by the Kindelia Foundation on the first block, will include a method that mints coins once per block, following Bitcoin’s emission curve. This serves as an incentive for miners that keep the network secure. In other words, Kindelia doesn’t need a built-in token to have block rewards and miner fees. Instead, it flexibly allows users to pay fees in whatever tokens they want, and miners to collect block rewards from a constellation of user-deployed tokens, rather than a single official one.
The idea of a blockchain without a coin made me curious (and suspicious), so i checked their whitepaper:
As for block rewards, the same principle holds. Tokens and applications can leave rewards that only the block miner can collect. For example, Kindelia’s Genesis Token, a no-premine currency which will be deployed by the Kindelia Foundation on the first block, will include a method that mints coins once per block, following Bitcoin’s emission curve. This serves as an incentive for miners that keep the network secure. In other words, Kindelia doesn’t need a built-in token to have block rewards and miner fees. Instead, it flexibly allows users to pay fees in whatever tokens they want, and miners to collect block rewards from a constellation of user-deployed tokens, rather than a single official one.
(emphasis mine)
So they didn’t remove the coin, they just made it pluggable with one being the de facto default.
Looks like it could be neat, but without more examples of the language’s benefits, it seems like one of the many “wait 5 years to see if this actually pans out” experimental languages. In particular, I would love to see some examples of their parallelism. I skimmed their Wikind and didn’t see any.
For everyone who’s believing the bullshit the author tells everyone as soon as someone brings up their projects crypto currency involvement, here’s an excerpt from their whitepaper:
As for block rewards, the same principle holds. Tokens and applications can leave rewards that only the block miner can collect. For example, Kindelia’s Genesis Token, a no-premine currency which will be deployed by the Kindelia Foundation on the first block, will include a method that mints coins once per block, following Bitcoin’s emission curve. This serves as an incentive for miners that keep the network secure. In other words, Kindelia doesn’t need a built-in token to have block rewards and miner fees. Instead, it flexibly allows users to pay fees in whatever tokens they want, and miners to collect block rewards from a constellation of user-deployed tokens, rather than a single official one.
Their manifesto has some bold claims about the theoretical underpinnings. It’s way beyond my depth, but does anyone know about these “Interaction Combinators” Kind is based on?
This raises the question: is there a model of computation, which, like the Turing Machine, has a reasonable physical implementation, and yet, like the Lambda Calculus, has a robust logical interpretation? In 1997, Yves Lafont proposed a new alternative, the Interaction Combinators, on which substitution is broken down into 2 fundamental laws: commutation, which creates and copies information, and annihilation, which observes and destroys information. … Its reduction laws are truly atomic: each operation can be completed in a constant amount of steps, and has a clear physical mapping. Not only that, they’re inherently parallel, in the same sense that the Lambda Calculus has been claimed to be, in theory, but without the issues that let it to be, in practice.
We, at the Kindelia Foundation, hold the view that Interaction Combinators are a more fundamental model of computation, and, consequently, that computers, processors and programming languages inspired by them would offer tangible benefits compared to the ones we built based on Turing Machines and the Lambda Calculus.
I really like the ideas in this language, unfortunately it’s developed by blockchain enthusiasts and used for some kind of proof-of-work-based computing machine (pun not intended).
The language can be compiled to their own virtual machine bytecode which can be translated to C. One target you don’t find enticing doesn’t sound like enough of a reason to write off the project imo
The author writes in the Kindelia Readme:
Which to me says they’re focusing on the decentralized application portion of blockchains instead of the scam coins. There are some pretty cool ideas in here I still need to digest, but the benchmarks show they’re serious about improving the performance of functional (dependently typed) languages.
I don’t want to support a project whose main use case is destroying the planet, even if it can be used in other ways.
I don’t care why they’re destroying the planet, they should stop it either way.
There is nothing about cryptocurrency that necessitates excessive power consumption. You are post-hoc rationalising a visceral response, not a rational one.
The proof-of-work consensus mechanism is literally designed to use as much energy as possible. If the consumption is too low, the required number of zeroes is increased.
Proof-of-work is not necessary for cryptocurrency.
We were talking specifically about Kindelia, which uses proof-of-work.
Kindelia is not a cryptocurrency. Their web site says that they will be proof-of-work “forever”, since proof of stake requires a coin.
That is fair enough. Thanks for correcting my misunderstanding.
That’s not true. It’s a cryptocurrency. Just read their whitepaper and don’t believe the bullshit their telling everyone to distract from that fact:
[Comment removed by author]
The idea of a blockchain without a coin made me curious (and suspicious), so i checked their whitepaper:
(emphasis mine)
So they didn’t remove the coin, they just made it pluggable with one being the de facto default.
-_- damn, I did not see that. I think HVM at least has more potential than most other crypto projects.
Has any one here built and run the benchmarks? I mean the claims are bold here. Can anyone attest to their claims?
Does this mean it’s dependently typed?
It has “self types”, which are even more powerful than dependent types.
I’m having trouble finding any literature on this, are there other words I should be googling for? Here’s what I find:
None of those seem like they’re in the realm of dependent types so I’m guessing the google well is tainted by all of the similar sounding terms?
https://github.com/Kindelia/Kind1/blob/master/blog/1-beyond-inductive-datatypes.md
How are they more powerful than dependent types. The paper I found about Self types proofs strong normalization by compiling it to CIC. https://fermat.github.io/document/papers/rta-tlca.pdf
Looks like it could be neat, but without more examples of the language’s benefits, it seems like one of the many “wait 5 years to see if this actually pans out” experimental languages. In particular, I would love to see some examples of their parallelism. I skimmed their Wikind and didn’t see any.
So, if the authors are here: can this be used to make, say, a chat application with no server but agreed upon message order?
For everyone who’s believing the bullshit the author tells everyone as soon as someone brings up their projects crypto currency involvement, here’s an excerpt from their whitepaper:
Their manifesto has some bold claims about the theoretical underpinnings. It’s way beyond my depth, but does anyone know about these “Interaction Combinators” Kind is based on?