[Axiom-developer] The Coming Persistence Apocalypse

[Tim Daly]

You are probably not old enough to remember 'core' memory.
It used to be the case that you could turn off a computer and
then, when you turned it on again, the memory image was
exactly remembered (in "magnetic core") and your program
would continue running exactly as though nothing happened.
Of course, a BIG memory machine had 8,192 bytes.

NVRAM (non-volitile RAM) is coming, in near terabyte sizes.
Unlike DRAM (dynamic RAM) it remembers everything even
though it has no power.

That changes everything we know about computing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBXbump35dg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8nMsabFD2w

For example, data structures no longer needs a "disk
representation" since they never leave memory. On the
other hand, neither does a mangled data structure or a
memory leak.

Lisp is well suited for this environment. Lisp with a form of
persistent data structures (Okasaki)  would be even more
interesting.

This has interesting implications for the new "Sane" Axiom
compiler / interpreter. For example, an "input" file actually
resides in interpreter memory at all times.

If nothing else, these videos are an interesting glimpse of
near-future computing issues.

Tim