On the page for the PATHNAME-HOST function, the function is defined as returning
a 'valid pathname host'. In the glossary, this type is defined to be a string,
a list of strings, the symbol :unspecific, or a string that is a logical pathname
host.
However, section 19.2.2.4.1 says 'It is implementation-dependent what object is
used to represent the host.' I take this to mean that PATHNAME-HOST may return
one of these implementation-dependent values.
What was intended here?
Paul
"Paul F. Dietz" <·····@dls.net> writes:
> On the page for the PATHNAME-HOST function, the function is defined
> as returning a 'valid pathname host'. In the glossary, this type is
> defined to be a string, a list of strings, the symbol :unspecific,
> or a string that is a logical pathname host.
>
> However, section 19.2.2.4.1 says 'It is implementation-dependent
> what object is used to represent the host.' I take this to mean
> that PATHNAME-HOST may return one of these implementation-dependent
> values.
>
> What was intended here?
One of these implementation-dependent values? Heh...
Or not.
Hmm, lemme try again.
Intended? Hahahahahahahaha....
You, of course, meant to ask what was "voted".
Committees operate by vote and this, if ever there was, is one of those
committee decisions they warn you about.
Hmm, lemme try again...
In the Symbolics implementation, it returned a file host object, and IMO
that works best so I personally wouldn't want to exclude it.
X3J13 kept adopting 1/2 (or some other fraction) of what Symbolics did and
calling that "conservative". Sometimes it was just "incomplete design".
I cleaned some of it up editorially, but some of it required a vote to fix
and we didn't get that far. The pathnames section was the worst in the spec
not because it was so badly designed at the lowest level, but because there
were so many details left vague. And we just had to stop and get the
standard out. So I apologize for leaving it hanging, and yet I also accept
that sometimes budgetary considerations come into play. It was next on my
list to fix up when we stopped for release.
I think just assuming it's an implementation-dependent object is good
and safe and reasonable.
I think it's reasonable to assume it's non-null, if that helps.
(Explaining why that is so is kind of a "derived fact" -- it's probably
not mentioned directly anywhere.)
Incidentally, a common question is what a list of strings is about, and
to answer that you'd have to go back to the vax notion of naming files by
allowing
FOO::BAR::BAZ::X
where FOO, BAR, and BAZ are hosts.
Kent M Pitman <······@nhplace.com> writes:
> [pathname host]
>
> I think it's reasonable to assume it's non-null, if that helps.
> (Explaining why that is so is kind of a "derived fact" -- it's probably
> not mentioned directly anywhere.)
Just to throw more oil on the troubled waters, note that the null
object NIL is a (degenerate) list of strings, and so is explicitly
permitted by at least one reading of the standard. :-)
Christophe "running for cover now"
--
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(set-pprint-dispatch 'number (lambda (s o) (declare (special b)) (format s b)))
(defvar b "~&Just another Lisp hacker~%") (pprint #36rJesusCollegeCambridge)
Christophe Rhodes <·····@cam.ac.uk> writes:
> Kent M Pitman <······@nhplace.com> writes:
>
> > [pathname host]
> >
> > I think it's reasonable to assume it's non-null, if that helps.
> > (Explaining why that is so is kind of a "derived fact" -- it's probably
> > not mentioned directly anywhere.)
>
> Just to throw more oil on the troubled waters, note that the null
> object NIL is a (degenerate) list of strings, and so is explicitly
> permitted by at least one reading of the standard. :-)
That's why I said it's a derived truth. The datatype permits it but
what doesn't permit it is that NIL is defined to mean "unfilled" and
you were able to use NIL in some single-file-system implementations as
the default host under CLTL because there might be only one file host,
and because there was no difference in such cases between filled and
unfilled. But once we introduced logical hosts, all implementations are,
by definition, multi-file-host, and as such, it matters whether the host
is filled or not. And as such, NIL cannot be used to mean filled without
merging rules being broken. So the value cannot be NIL.
Kent M Pitman <······@nhplace.com> writes:
> That's why I said it's a derived truth. The datatype permits it but
> what doesn't permit it is that NIL is defined to mean "unfilled" and
> you were able to use NIL in some single-file-system implementations as
> the default host under CLTL because there might be only one file host,
> and because there was no difference in such cases between filled and
> unfilled. But once we introduced logical hosts, all implementations are,
> by definition, multi-file-host, and as such, it matters whether the host
> is filled or not. And as such, NIL cannot be used to mean filled without
> merging rules being broken. So the value cannot be NIL.
I agree. Unfortunately, several implementations think that NIL is the
canonical name for localhost.
--
~jrm
Joe Marshall <·············@comcast.net> writes:
> Kent M Pitman <······@nhplace.com> writes:
>
> > That's why I said it's a derived truth. The datatype permits it but
> > what doesn't permit it is that NIL is defined to mean "unfilled" and
> > you were able to use NIL in some single-file-system implementations as
> > the default host under CLTL because there might be only one file host,
> > and because there was no difference in such cases between filled and
> > unfilled. But once we introduced logical hosts, all implementations are,
> > by definition, multi-file-host, and as such, it matters whether the host
> > is filled or not. And as such, NIL cannot be used to mean filled without
> > merging rules being broken. So the value cannot be NIL.
>
> I agree. Unfortunately, several implementations think that NIL is the
> canonical name for localhost.
Then they are in violation of the specification's restrictions on merging.
All pathnames have host merged in. That's a requirement.
It is further a requirement that merging does not disturb a filled field.
So they don't have to believe me that NIL is not a possible value for host;
they can just play with the puzzle themselves until they have a way to
satisfy those two constraints. But I bet when they're done, NIL will not
be a possible host value. ;)
Kent M Pitman <······@nhplace.com> writes:
> Joe Marshall <·············@comcast.net> writes:
>
>> Kent M Pitman <······@nhplace.com> writes:
>>
>> > That's why I said it's a derived truth. The datatype permits it but
>> > what doesn't permit it is that NIL is defined to mean "unfilled" and
>> > you were able to use NIL in some single-file-system implementations as
>> > the default host under CLTL because there might be only one file host,
>> > and because there was no difference in such cases between filled and
>> > unfilled. But once we introduced logical hosts, all implementations are,
>> > by definition, multi-file-host, and as such, it matters whether the host
>> > is filled or not. And as such, NIL cannot be used to mean filled without
>> > merging rules being broken. So the value cannot be NIL.
>>
>> I agree. Unfortunately, several implementations think that NIL is the
>> canonical name for localhost.
>
> Then they are in violation of the specification's restrictions on merging.
> All pathnames have host merged in. That's a requirement.
> It is further a requirement that merging does not disturb a filled field.
> So they don't have to believe me that NIL is not a possible value for host;
> they can just play with the puzzle themselves until they have a way to
> satisfy those two constraints. But I bet when they're done, NIL will not
> be a possible host value. ;)
Well let's see.
Starting an `out of the box' lisp with no init file:
Allegro CL:
(describe (user-homedir-pathname))
#p"c:\\" is a structure of type PATHNAME. It has these slots:
HOST NIL
DEVICE "c"
DIRECTORY (:ABSOLUTE)
NAME NIL
TYPE NIL
VERSION :UNSPECIFIC
NAMESTRING "c:\\"
HASH NIL
DIR-NAMESTRING "\\"
(make-pathname :host "localhost")
Lispworks:
(describe (user-homedir-pathname))
#P"C:/Home/Jrm/" is a PATHNAME
HOST "C"
DEVICE NIL
DIRECTORY (:ABSOLUTE "Home" "Jrm")
NAME NIL
TYPE NIL
VERSION NIL
CLisp:
(describe (user-homedir-pathname))
#P"C:\\Home\\Jrm\\" is a pathname, with the following components:
DEVICE = C:
DIRECTORY = \Home\Jrm\
The Lispworks one is weird, but I guess defensible. Personally,
though, I consider the various drives on my machine to be devices
rather than hosts. Since most other lisps concur, it makes it a pain
to write portable code.
--
~jrm
Joe Marshall <·············@comcast.net> writes:
> The Lispworks one is weird, but I guess defensible. Personally,
> though, I consider the various drives on my machine to be devices
> rather than hosts. Since most other lisps concur, it makes it a pain
> to write portable code.
In a perfect world, I would, too. But fortunately or unfortunately,
there are several operating systems (LispM, Windows, and Linux to name
three, and probably others I don't think of on spur of moment) that
have file structures with differing capabilities. LispWorks and
Symbolics, at least, prefer to refer to "file hosts" (distinguished
from "network hosts") to resolve this issue. FEPFS (the front end
processor's file system) is an example in the Lisp Machine where this
happens. Drives C and D being FAT vs NTFS on a Windows machine is
another example. These being different "file hosts" is useful because
the numbers of characters allowed in the file system, the kinds of
operations allowed, the kinds of properties maintained, the space of
permissions, and other things might vary. Calling these all "the same
host" doesn't give you much to dispatch off. Two processors with
different operating systems might both have the same kind of file
system accessible, and, in fact, it might be the same physical disk.
So I think their choice is quite defensible.
Kent M Pitman <······@nhplace.com> writes:
> "Paul F. Dietz" <·····@dls.net> writes:
>
> > On the page for the PATHNAME-HOST function, the function is defined
> > as returning a 'valid pathname host'. In the glossary, this type is
> > defined to be a string, a list of strings, the symbol :unspecific,
> > or a string that is a logical pathname host.
> >
> > However, section 19.2.2.4.1 says 'It is implementation-dependent
> > what object is used to represent the host.' I take this to mean
> > that PATHNAME-HOST may return one of these implementation-dependent
> > values.
> >
> > What was intended here?
> [...]
> I think it's reasonable to assume it's non-null, if that helps.
> (Explaining why that is so is kind of a "derived fact" -- it's probably
> not mentioned directly anywhere.)
[2]> (pathname-host #"/tmp")
NIL
--
__Pascal_Bourguignon__ . * * . * .* .
http://www.informatimago.com/ . * . .*
* . . /\ () . *
Living free in Alaska or in Siberia, a . . / .\ . * .
grizzli's life expectancy is 35 years, .*. / * \ . .
but no more than 8 years in captivity. . /* o \ .
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SCO Spam-magnet: ··········@sco.com ******************
Pascal Bourguignon <····@thalassa.informatimago.com> writes:
> Kent M Pitman <······@nhplace.com> writes:
>
> > "Paul F. Dietz" <·····@dls.net> writes:
> >
> > > On the page for the PATHNAME-HOST function, the function is defined
> > > as returning a 'valid pathname host'. In the glossary, this type is
> > > defined to be a string, a list of strings, the symbol :unspecific,
> > > or a string that is a logical pathname host.
> > >
> > > However, section 19.2.2.4.1 says 'It is implementation-dependent
> > > what object is used to represent the host.' I take this to mean
> > > that PATHNAME-HOST may return one of these implementation-dependent
> > > values.
> > >
> > > What was intended here?
> > [...]
> > I think it's reasonable to assume it's non-null, if that helps.
> > (Explaining why that is so is kind of a "derived fact" -- it's probably
> > not mentioned directly anywhere.)
>
> [2]> (pathname-host #"/tmp")
> NIL
I assume you mean #P"/tmp" here.
I don't think you have any reason to suppose this result to be either
definitive nor even conforming.
I have always assumed that pathname-host does make-pathname on the
local host. If it does not have a host against which to parse, it
can't know if / is a directory marker, an ordinary alphabetic or, for
that matter, a file host identifier.... There has to be a default
host in order for name parsing to succeed.
And if there is, it has to be not NIL because otherwise merging would
not hold onto it. That is,
(pathname-host (merge-pathnames #P"/tmp" "SYS:FOO;X.LISP"))
should return
#P"MY-DEFAULT-HOST:/tmp/x.lisp"
if MY-DEFAULT-HOST is a Unix and
#P"MY-DEFAULT-HOST:foo:/tmp"
if MY-DEFAULT-HOST is a Macintosh (since / is an alphabetic there).
But it should not return
#P"FOO:/tmp"
nor
#P"/tmp/x.lisp"
because this presupposes (falsely) that no file system semantics have
been used yet, which plainly they have at the time of the PARSE-NAMESTRING
in the #P reference.
Even just
(DESCRIBE #P"/tmp")
should show either
HOST: #<MACINTOSH-HOST "MY-DEFAULT-HOST">
DEVICE: :UNSPECIFIC
DIRECTORY: NIL
NAME "/TMP"
TYPE NIL
VERSION NIL
on a Mac and
HOST: #<UNIX-HOST "MY-DEFAULT-HOST">
DEVICE: :UNSPECIFIC
DIRECTORY: (:ABSOLUTE "TMP")
NAME NIL
TYPE NIL
VERSION NIL
for Unix.
because already you've used the host info.
Just putting NIL there invites a later confusion.
Kent M Pitman <······@nhplace.com> writes:
> Pascal Bourguignon <····@thalassa.informatimago.com> writes:
>
> > Kent M Pitman <······@nhplace.com> writes:
> >
> > > "Paul F. Dietz" <·····@dls.net> writes:
> > >
> > > > On the page for the PATHNAME-HOST function, the function is defined
> > > > as returning a 'valid pathname host'. In the glossary, this type is
> > > > defined to be a string, a list of strings, the symbol :unspecific,
> > > > or a string that is a logical pathname host.
> > > >
> > > > However, section 19.2.2.4.1 says 'It is implementation-dependent
> > > > what object is used to represent the host.' I take this to mean
> > > > that PATHNAME-HOST may return one of these implementation-dependent
> > > > values.
> > > >
> > > > What was intended here?
> > > [...]
> > > I think it's reasonable to assume it's non-null, if that helps.
> > > (Explaining why that is so is kind of a "derived fact" -- it's probably
> > > not mentioned directly anywhere.)
> >
> > [2]> (pathname-host #"/tmp")
> > NIL
>
> I assume you mean #P"/tmp" here.
I did. But clisp takes both as pathnames:
[10]> (type-of #"/tmp")
PATHNAME
[11]> (type-of #P"/tmp")
PATHNAME
> I don't think you have any reason to suppose this result to be either
> definitive nor even conforming.
Just to note that in practice some implementations that strive to be
conforming still return NIL. I don't think we can blame implementors
for such errors.
> I have always assumed that pathname-host does make-pathname on the
> local host. If it does not have a host against which to parse, it
> can't know if / is a directory marker, an ordinary alphabetic or, for
> that matter, a file host identifier.... There has to be a default
> host in order for name parsing to succeed.
>
> And if there is, it has to be not NIL because otherwise merging would
> not hold onto it. That is,
>
> (pathname-host (merge-pathnames #P"/tmp" "SYS:FOO;X.LISP"))
>
> should return
>
> #P"MY-DEFAULT-HOST:/tmp/x.lisp"
>
> if MY-DEFAULT-HOST is a Unix and
>
> #P"MY-DEFAULT-HOST:foo:/tmp"
>
> if MY-DEFAULT-HOST is a Macintosh (since / is an alphabetic there).
> But it should not return
>
> #P"FOO:/tmp"
>
> nor
>
> #P"/tmp/x.lisp"
>
> because this presupposes (falsely) that no file system semantics have
> been used yet, which plainly they have at the time of the PARSE-NAMESTRING
> in the #P reference.
[9]> (merge-pathnames #P"/tmp" "SYS:FOO;X.LISP")
#S(LOGICAL-PATHNAME :HOST "SYS" :DEVICE NIL :DIRECTORY (:ABSOLUTE) :NAME "tmp"
:TYPE "LISP" :VERSION :NEWEST)
[10]> (pathname-host (merge-pathnames #P"/tmp" "SYS:FOO;X.LISP"))
"SYS"
Perhaps you meant:
[12]> (namestring (merge-pathnames #P"/tmp" "SYS:FOO;X.LISP"))
"SYS:tmp.LISP.0"
Perhaps the standard did not specify enough...
> Even just
>
> (DESCRIBE #P"/tmp")
>
> should show either
>
> HOST: #<MACINTOSH-HOST "MY-DEFAULT-HOST">
> DEVICE: :UNSPECIFIC
> DIRECTORY: NIL
> NAME "/TMP"
> TYPE NIL
> VERSION NIL
>
> on a Mac and
>
> HOST: #<UNIX-HOST "MY-DEFAULT-HOST">
> DEVICE: :UNSPECIFIC
> DIRECTORY: (:ABSOLUTE "TMP")
> NAME NIL
> TYPE NIL
> VERSION NIL
>
> for Unix.
>
> because already you've used the host info.
>
> Just putting NIL there invites a later confusion.
--
__Pascal_Bourguignon__ . * * . * .* .
http://www.informatimago.com/ . * . .*
* . . /\ () . *
Living free in Alaska or in Siberia, a . . / .\ . * .
grizzli's life expectancy is 35 years, .*. / * \ . .
but no more than 8 years in captivity. . /* o \ .
http://www.theadvocates.org/ * '''||''' .
SCO Spam-magnet: ··········@sco.com ******************
Pascal Bourguignon <····@thalassa.informatimago.com> writes:
> Kent M Pitman <······@nhplace.com> writes:
>
>> I don't think you have any reason to suppose this result to be either
>> definitive nor even conforming.
>
> Just to note that in practice some implementations that strive to be
> conforming still return NIL. I don't think we can blame implementors
> for such errors.
The default startup mode for clisp is explicitly non-conforming in
several aspects. While the rhetoric in the manual page has been toned
down in recent years, it remains the case that there are differences
in behaviour between those specified and those implemented. And, to
the extent that these are conscious choices rather than just bugs (and
to the extent that the pathname specification is self-consistent...)
yes of course we can blame, or praise, implementors for the choices
they make.
Christophe
--
http://www-jcsu.jesus.cam.ac.uk/~csr21/ +44 1223 510 299/+44 7729 383 757
(set-pprint-dispatch 'number (lambda (s o) (declare (special b)) (format s b)))
(defvar b "~&Just another Lisp hacker~%") (pprint #36rJesusCollegeCambridge)
Kent M Pitman wrote:
> Pascal Bourguignon <····@thalassa.informatimago.com> writes:
>
>
>>Kent M Pitman <······@nhplace.com> writes:
>>
>>
>>>"Paul F. Dietz" <·····@dls.net> writes:
>>>
>>>
>>>>On the page for the PATHNAME-HOST function, the function is defined
>>>>as returning a 'valid pathname host'. In the glossary, this type is
>>>>defined to be a string, a list of strings, the symbol :unspecific,
>>>>or a string that is a logical pathname host.
>>>>
>>>>However, section 19.2.2.4.1 says 'It is implementation-dependent
>>>>what object is used to represent the host.' I take this to mean
>>>>that PATHNAME-HOST may return one of these implementation-dependent
>>>>values.
>>>>
>>>>What was intended here?
>>>
>>>[...]
>>>I think it's reasonable to assume it's non-null, if that helps.
>>>(Explaining why that is so is kind of a "derived fact" -- it's probably
>>>not mentioned directly anywhere.)
>>
>>[2]> (pathname-host #"/tmp")
>>NIL
>
>
> I assume you mean #P"/tmp" here.
>
> I don't think you have any reason to suppose this result to be either
> definitive nor even conforming.
>
> I have always assumed that pathname-host does make-pathname on the
> local host. If it does not have a host against which to parse, it
> can't know if / is a directory marker, an ordinary alphabetic or, for
> that matter, a file host identifier.... There has to be a default
> host in order for name parsing to succeed.
>
> And if there is, it has to be not NIL because otherwise merging would
> not hold onto it. That is,
>
> (pathname-host (merge-pathnames #P"/tmp" "SYS:FOO;X.LISP"))
>
> should return
>
> #P"MY-DEFAULT-HOST:/tmp/x.lisp"
>
> if MY-DEFAULT-HOST is a Unix and
>
> #P"MY-DEFAULT-HOST:foo:/tmp"
>
> if MY-DEFAULT-HOST is a Macintosh (since / is an alphabetic there).
> But it should not return
>
> #P"FOO:/tmp"
>
> nor
>
> #P"/tmp/x.lisp"
>
> because this presupposes (falsely) that no file system semantics have
> been used yet, which plainly they have at the time of the PARSE-NAMESTRING
> in the #P reference.
>
> Even just
>
> (DESCRIBE #P"/tmp")
>
> should show either
>
> HOST: #<MACINTOSH-HOST "MY-DEFAULT-HOST">
> DEVICE: :UNSPECIFIC
> DIRECTORY: NIL
> NAME "/TMP"
> TYPE NIL
> VERSION NIL
Well, Mac OS X is pretty much a Unix now (isn't it? :) )
>
> on a Mac and
>
> HOST: #<UNIX-HOST "MY-DEFAULT-HOST">
> DEVICE: :UNSPECIFIC
> DIRECTORY: (:ABSOLUTE "TMP")
> NAME NIL
> TYPE NIL
> VERSION NIL
>
> for Unix.
>
> because already you've used the host info.
This would make PARSE-NAMESTRING dependent on the state of the
underlying file system, wouldn't it? I always thought that
PARSE-NAMESTRING should be definable independently of the state of the
underlying file system. How can you reliably ask PARSE-NAMESTRING to
figure out, on a UNIX host, that "/tmp" refers to a directory and not to
a file without checking the state of the underlying file system?
>
> Just putting NIL there invites a later confusion.
Yes. On that I definitively agree.
Cheers
--
Marco
Marco Antoniotti <·······@cs.nyu.edu> writes:
> This would make PARSE-NAMESTRING dependent on the state of the
> underlying file system, wouldn't it? I always thought that
> PARSE-NAMESTRING should be definable independently of the state of the
> underlying file system.
The Lisp Machine, faced with this issue, used a convention called the
'host colon convention' for making the state independent of the host
machine (other than *default-pathname-defaults*). What it said was
that the first colon in a namestring would definitively terminate a
host and all parsing would be with respect to that host; otherwise,
all parsing was with respect to the host in *default-pathname-defaults*.
When you wanted to say
D:\foo
on some default PC, you'd write :D:\\foo to take the default file system.
The first : said "take the default host" (which is what "" represented).
If you wanted to name a specific machine, you wrote "FOO:D:\\foo".
Of course, an implication of the "host colon" convention is that the
namestring of a pathname could never be appropriate to give to a host,
since the host would not be expecting a host name (except VAX VMS, which
we'll ignore for simplicity as anomalous; in general, you can't make all
file systems do that because--well,--because they already don't and they
aren't likely to change on our account).
[Aside: Someone at Symbolics (I know who but am not sure he'd want his
name in lights on this) used to suggest that we make up a new
character which looked like a chalice and call it the 'host' character
and use it as a separator instead of colon so that the separator
didn't interfere with native operating system characters.
Probably-thankfully, we didn't. (I suppose if we had, it would have
gotten onto the 'giant colon' key on a lispm keyboard, and soon people
would have wanted keywords to start with chalices, and the whole thing
would have been a disaster. We did have SOME restraint in lispm
design, thank goodness.)]
Anyway, the CL committee did not like the host colon convention, I believe
(but am not sure I either ever understood nor that I remember right) because
it was overcomplicated and because it meant having yet another operator
(which I claim you need now anyway, so it was a false economy) to yield
the STRING-FOR-HOST of the pathname. (Then again, STRING-FOR-HOST would
have invited questions about what a host was, and then we'd have had to
define more of that, and ... pretty soon the pathname system would have
looked as complete as the lispm file system, and ... ok, ok, I'll try not
to sound too bitter about how I think in this case "gratuitous
conservativism" plus a healthy does of NIH led to what I think was
bad design (really mostly just "incomplete design", with not even a hint
of guidance for the future, in the way that MOP filled gaps in CLOS).
> How can you reliably ask PARSE-NAMESTRING to
> figure out, on a UNIX host, that "/tmp" refers to a directory and not
> to a file without checking the state of the underlying file system?
On the LispM, and again I suppose this is baggage no one wanted (but
it's not like you can pretend it's not something programs have to
represent, since it's real and it affects things), you can ask of a
file host what kind of file host it is. And there are tools for
maintaining that kind of 'database' about hosts. And fallbacks to weaker
sets of operations on hosts that haven't been declared and are assumed to
be of type "random host".
Hi
What you write is very interesting. However, what should
(setf foo (PARSE-NAMESTRING "/tmp"))
on a UNIX host return?
Should
(PATHANME-DIRECTORY foo) ==> (:ABSOLUTE)
or
(PATHNAME-DIRECTORY foo) ==> (:ABSOLUTE "tmp")
?
Of course, all of this maintaining the "PARSE-NAMESTRING must not
consult the File System to make the decision" mantra.
The question is important. This is one of those "implementation
dependent" details that should be removed from the language.
Cheers
--
Marco
Kent M Pitman wrote:
> Marco Antoniotti <·······@cs.nyu.edu> writes:
>
>
>>This would make PARSE-NAMESTRING dependent on the state of the
>>underlying file system, wouldn't it? I always thought that
>>PARSE-NAMESTRING should be definable independently of the state of the
>>underlying file system.
>
>
> The Lisp Machine, faced with this issue, used a convention called the
> 'host colon convention' for making the state independent of the host
> machine (other than *default-pathname-defaults*). What it said was
> that the first colon in a namestring would definitively terminate a
> host and all parsing would be with respect to that host; otherwise,
> all parsing was with respect to the host in *default-pathname-defaults*.
> When you wanted to say
>
> D:\foo
>
> on some default PC, you'd write :D:\\foo to take the default file system.
> The first : said "take the default host" (which is what "" represented).
> If you wanted to name a specific machine, you wrote "FOO:D:\\foo".
> Of course, an implication of the "host colon" convention is that the
> namestring of a pathname could never be appropriate to give to a host,
> since the host would not be expecting a host name (except VAX VMS, which
> we'll ignore for simplicity as anomalous; in general, you can't make all
> file systems do that because--well,--because they already don't and they
> aren't likely to change on our account).
>
> [Aside: Someone at Symbolics (I know who but am not sure he'd want his
> name in lights on this) used to suggest that we make up a new
> character which looked like a chalice and call it the 'host' character
> and use it as a separator instead of colon so that the separator
> didn't interfere with native operating system characters.
> Probably-thankfully, we didn't. (I suppose if we had, it would have
> gotten onto the 'giant colon' key on a lispm keyboard, and soon people
> would have wanted keywords to start with chalices, and the whole thing
> would have been a disaster. We did have SOME restraint in lispm
> design, thank goodness.)]
>
> Anyway, the CL committee did not like the host colon convention, I believe
> (but am not sure I either ever understood nor that I remember right) because
> it was overcomplicated and because it meant having yet another operator
> (which I claim you need now anyway, so it was a false economy) to yield
> the STRING-FOR-HOST of the pathname. (Then again, STRING-FOR-HOST would
> have invited questions about what a host was, and then we'd have had to
> define more of that, and ... pretty soon the pathname system would have
> looked as complete as the lispm file system, and ... ok, ok, I'll try not
> to sound too bitter about how I think in this case "gratuitous
> conservativism" plus a healthy does of NIH led to what I think was
> bad design (really mostly just "incomplete design", with not even a hint
> of guidance for the future, in the way that MOP filled gaps in CLOS).
>
>
>>How can you reliably ask PARSE-NAMESTRING to
>>figure out, on a UNIX host, that "/tmp" refers to a directory and not
>>to a file without checking the state of the underlying file system?
>
>
> On the LispM, and again I suppose this is baggage no one wanted (but
> it's not like you can pretend it's not something programs have to
> represent, since it's real and it affects things), you can ask of a
> file host what kind of file host it is. And there are tools for
> maintaining that kind of 'database' about hosts. And fallbacks to weaker
> sets of operations on hosts that haven't been declared and are assumed to
> be of type "random host".
>
Kent Pitman wrote:
> [Aside: Someone at Symbolics (I know who but am not sure he'd want his
> name in lights on this) used to suggest that we make up a new
> character which looked like a chalice and call it the 'host' character
> and use it as a separator instead of colon so that the separator
> didn't interfere with native operating system characters.
Superb (and, of course, insane). But <pedant>you'd want a paten,
not a chalice</pedant>.
...
> ]
--
Gareth McCaughan
.sig under construc
Marco Antoniotti <·······@cs.nyu.edu> writes:
> Well, Mac OS X is pretty much a Unix now (isn't it? :) )
And just to make things more interesting, on MacOSX, when accessing
files on HFS, as on UFS or NFS, we use unix syntax, not MacOS syntax.
So I'm not sure the rational given by Kent is really pertinent.
Is there really a system where paths have different syntax depending
on where they point to?
--
__Pascal_Bourguignon__ . * * . * .* .
http://www.informatimago.com/ . * . .*
* . . /\ () . *
Living free in Alaska or in Siberia, a . . / .\ . * .
grizzli's life expectancy is 35 years, .*. / * \ . .
but no more than 8 years in captivity. . /* o \ .
http://www.theadvocates.org/ * '''||''' .
SCO Spam-magnet: ··········@sco.com ******************
Pascal Bourguignon <····@thalassa.informatimago.com> writes:
> Marco Antoniotti <·······@cs.nyu.edu> writes:
> > Well, Mac OS X is pretty much a Unix now (isn't it? :) )
>
> And just to make things more interesting, on MacOSX, when accessing
> files on HFS, as on UFS or NFS, we use unix syntax, not MacOS syntax.
>
> So I'm not sure the rational given by Kent is really pertinent.
>
> Is there really a system where paths have different syntax depending
> on where they point to?
The Lisp Machine, certainly. Its native file system uses '>' for directory
portion end-markers and '<' for :UP.
The logical pathname system. It uses ';'.
Any future Lisp like the Lisp Machine (or certain Sun machines and
probably others) that wants to exist on the net, perhaps even
diskless, and to only use whatever file system it happens to be asked to.
It's very short-sighted to be doing the thing you're doing of saying
"couldn't we just imagine the world will be always constrained" or even
"is approaching convergence".
The ISO 9nnn (can't remember the number) file system is also different,
as I recall, so anyone who wants to address those things directly without
having it re-worked through some native OS sugar has an issue, too.
Kent M Pitman <······@nhplace.com> writes:
> Pascal Bourguignon <····@thalassa.informatimago.com> writes:
>
> > Marco Antoniotti <·······@cs.nyu.edu> writes:
> > > Well, Mac OS X is pretty much a Unix now (isn't it? :) )
> >
> > And just to make things more interesting, on MacOSX, when accessing
> > files on HFS, as on UFS or NFS, we use unix syntax, not MacOS syntax.
> >
> > So I'm not sure the rational given by Kent is really pertinent.
> >
> > Is there really a system where paths have different syntax depending
> > on where they point to?
>
> The Lisp Machine, certainly. Its native file system uses '>' for directory
> portion end-markers and '<' for :UP.
>
> The logical pathname system. It uses ';'.
>
> Any future Lisp like the Lisp Machine (or certain Sun machines and
> probably others) that wants to exist on the net, perhaps even
> diskless, and to only use whatever file system it happens to be asked to.
>
> It's very short-sighted to be doing the thing you're doing of saying
> "couldn't we just imagine the world will be always constrained" or even
> "is approaching convergence".
>
> The ISO 9nnn (can't remember the number) file system is also different,
> as I recall, so anyone who wants to address those things directly without
> having it re-worked through some native OS sugar has an issue, too.
I was asking whether there was OS (or implementation of Common-Lisp)
where you'd have to write:
cp macos-host:Macintosh\ HD:Personal\ Folder:My\ File \
unix-host:/home/pascal/my-file
(or:
(copy-file "MACOSHOST:MACINTOSH-HD;PERSONAL-FOLDER;MY-FILE"
"UNIXHOST:HOME;PASCAL;MY-FILE")
oops, I meant:
(copy-file #P"MACOSHOST:Macintosh HD:Personal Folder:My File"
#P"UNIXHOST:/home/pascal/my-file")
)
--
__Pascal_Bourguignon__ . * * . * .* .
http://www.informatimago.com/ . * . .*
* . . /\ () . *
Living free in Alaska or in Siberia, a . . / .\ . * .
grizzli's life expectancy is 35 years, .*. / * \ . .
but no more than 8 years in captivity. . /* o \ .
http://www.theadvocates.org/ * '''||''' .
SCO Spam-magnet: ··········@sco.com ******************
From: Christopher C. Stacy
Subject: Re: (CLtS question) Pathname hosts
Date:
Message-ID: <uwu9675dz.fsf@news.dtpq.com>
>>>>> On 09 Dec 2003 09:02:20 +0100, Pascal Bourguignon ("Pascal") writes:
Pascal> I was asking whether there was OS (or implementation of Common-Lisp)
Pascal> where you'd have to write:
Pascal> (copy-file #P"MACOSHOST:Macintosh HD:Personal Folder:My File"
Pascal> #P"UNIXHOST:/home/pascal/my-file")
That's what you would do on the Lisp Machine.
I might be missing the point of your message, though.
Your wording "have to write" suggests that you don't
think this is the wonderful feature that some people
consider it to be. Why is that?
······@news.dtpq.com (Christopher C. Stacy) writes:
> >>>>> On 09 Dec 2003 09:02:20 +0100, Pascal Bourguignon ("Pascal") writes:
>
> Pascal> I was asking whether there was OS (or implementation of Common-Lisp)
> Pascal> where you'd have to write:
>
> Pascal> (copy-file #P"MACOSHOST:Macintosh HD:Personal Folder:My File"
> Pascal> #P"UNIXHOST:/home/pascal/my-file")
>
> That's what you would do on the Lisp Machine.
>
> I might be missing the point of your message, though.
> Your wording "have to write" suggests that you don't
> think this is the wonderful feature that some people
> consider it to be. Why is that?
Hey, I was going to write that!!
Indeed, my only problem with the question is the "have to" rather than
"get to". People who have used this have loved it. It was SO much more
simple to have connectivity to the entire then-Arpanet/now-Internet worked
into the basic functions of Lisp rather than having to write elaborate
programs....
And, of course, you rarely wrote it as constant strings. More often
you wrote it as [I'm simplifying the syntax for this situation]:
(define-command-processor-command "Copy File" ((from-file pathname)
(to-file pathname))
(copy-file from-file to-file))
and then you let someone issue a command like:
Command: Copy File (from file [default HOST:FRED:MY.LETTER]) "MACOSHOST:FRED:My Files:my-favorite-file" (to file) UNIXHOST:/home/sam/freds-favorite-file
The nice thing was taht the definition of the command processor never
had to mention it was doing network I/O at all, yet it would do it if
asked. If you wanted to do something that only copied in the local
file system and made it hard to be general, you could do that. But no
one much did, as far as I know.
Kent M Pitman <······@nhplace.com> writes:
> ······@news.dtpq.com (Christopher C. Stacy) writes:
>
> > >>>>> On 09 Dec 2003 09:02:20 +0100, Pascal Bourguignon ("Pascal") writes:
> >
> > Pascal> I was asking whether there was OS (or implementation of Common-Lisp)
> > Pascal> where you'd have to write:
> >
> > Pascal> (copy-file #P"MACOSHOST:Macintosh HD:Personal Folder:My File"
> > Pascal> #P"UNIXHOST:/home/pascal/my-file")
> >
> > That's what you would do on the Lisp Machine.
That sounds crazy to me.
The Lisp Machine OS was not able to provide the user a single syntax
to navigate file systems? How would the user be able to browse any
alien file system then?
I'm happy to be able to mount NFS from MacOS servers, from MS-Windows
servers, or Samba file systems from Linux or MS-WIndows servers, and
in ALL cases, access the imported volumes with the same unix
syntax. Come to think of it, the unix path syntax is like the logical
path syntax: a uniformizing one.
It just happens that MacOS did the same thing and uniformized all
paths to MacOS paths. And MSDOS did the same thing once again and
uniformized all paths to MS-DOS paths. When I mounted SCO unix file
systems thru NFS on MS-Windows 3.11, I accessed unix files with MS-DOS
paths: "E:\USR\LOCAL\SRC\PROJECT1\FILE.C".
I can't imagine what path you would have to write when accessing thru
one NFS server volumes mounted on that NFS server from another server
with a different again kind of file system and path syntax.
--
__Pascal_Bourguignon__ . * * . * .* .
http://www.informatimago.com/ . * . .*
There is no worse tyranny than to force * . . /\ () . *
a man to pay for what he does not . . / .\ . * .
want merely because you think it .*. / * \ . .
would be good for him. -- Robert Heinlein . /* o \ .
http://www.theadvocates.org/ * '''||''' .
SCO Spam-magnet: ··········@sco.com ******************
Pascal Bourguignon <····@thalassa.informatimago.com> writes:
> It just happens that MacOS did the same thing and uniformized all
> paths to MacOS paths. And MSDOS did the same thing once again and
> uniformized all paths to MS-DOS paths. When I mounted SCO unix file
> systems thru NFS on MS-Windows 3.11, I accessed unix files with MS-DOS
> paths: "E:\USR\LOCAL\SRC\PROJECT1\FILE.C".
foo:>usr>local>src>project1>file.c.newest
Joe Marshall <···@ccs.neu.edu> writes:
> Pascal Bourguignon <····@thalassa.informatimago.com> writes:
>
> > It just happens that MacOS did the same thing and uniformized all
> > paths to MacOS paths. And MSDOS did the same thing once again and
> > uniformized all paths to MS-DOS paths. When I mounted SCO unix file
> > systems thru NFS on MS-Windows 3.11, I accessed unix files with MS-DOS
> > paths: "E:\USR\LOCAL\SRC\PROJECT1\FILE.C".
>
> foo:>usr>local>src>project1>file.c.newest
I'm sorry, but you NEVER write that on a MS-DOS system.
--
__Pascal_Bourguignon__ . * * . * .* .
http://www.informatimago.com/ . * . .*
There is no worse tyranny than to force * . . /\ () . *
a man to pay for what he does not . . / .\ . * .
want merely because you think it .*. / * \ . .
would be good for him. -- Robert Heinlein . /* o \ .
http://www.theadvocates.org/ * '''||''' .
SCO Spam-magnet: ··········@sco.com ******************
* Pascal Bourguignon wrote:
> I'm happy to be able to mount NFS from MacOS servers, from MS-Windows
> servers, or Samba file systems from Linux or MS-WIndows servers, and
> in ALL cases, access the imported volumes with the same unix
> syntax. Come to think of it, the unix path syntax is like the logical
> path syntax: a uniformizing one.
Yes, you can make all filesystems look like the Unix filesystem.
Unfortunately the Unix filesystem is deficient and can't reliably
express a lot of things that one could want to express in a
filesystem. Syntactically: how do you distinguish between :UP and
:BACK in directory specifications (and why does it matter); between
files and directories; between two versions of a file? Semantically:
How do you do access control (no, don't tell me about chown); how do
you know when a file was backed up, and where to? How do you know
what's *in* a file or otherwise keep metadata about it? (Oh, and by
the way: actually, all these alien filesystem only look *nearly* like
the Unix one: even remote Unix filesystems don't really look like Unix
filesystems, becuase it's terribly hard to preserve the semantics over
a network connection, as anyone who has written non-trivial programs
that might need to use NFS knows.)
Of course, the Unix filesystem - along with the rest of Unix - is a
truly amazing feat of engineering. To get something even reasonably
competent, let alone with the simplicity and elegance of Unix and
decent performance to boot, to work on a machine as small as a PDP-11
is just a wonderful feat. We all have a lot to be grateful for:
instead of those hugely expensive DEC 10s we used to have, we can
almost buy *personal* PDP-11s nowadays, they're well under 100k for
quite a decent configuration, after all.
Oh, I forget myself. It's the 80s already, and we have these personal
32-bit workstations now. Well, we can probably afford to think about
using a more sophisticated filesystem now, can't we?
Well, no, tragically we can't. Linux has seen to it that the OS that
was nearly state of the art in 1972 is what we all think is state of
the art in 2003. Yes, rather than doing anything slightly new, we've
wasted 10 years slavishly reinventing a system that was obsolete 5
years before we started reinventing it, and dressed it all up as a
religion, as well. Now no one can even remember that there might have
been alternatives once: it's a Unix clone, or it's nothing. The very
suggestion that we might want to allow variant filesystems is
anathama: if it doesn't have (or nearly have) Unix semantics, burn it!
The tragedy is, that, of course, there is actually life in the Unix
filesystem. Solaris has real ACLs, and I think has or will soon have
user-definable file metadata. The Linux slaves have probably already
copied it, if they haven't already. Progress is being made, even in
this dark age.
--tim
Tim Bradshaw <···@cley.com> writes, OT:
> [...]
Nice rant, but you're forgetting one thing.
> The tragedy is, that, of course, there is actually life in the Unix
> filesystem. Solaris has real ACLs, and I think has or will soon have
> user-definable file metadata. The Linux slaves have probably already
> copied it, if they haven't already. Progress is being made, even in
> this dark age.
It's no more this dark age. We came out of the dark age.
What you're forgetting is the dark side of the force, I mean, the
forces of evil who closed and hide the sources. That' why there has
not been any progress in software for almost twenty years (apart for
the viruses and worms). Of course, freedom developers had to rewrite
from scratch something that was state of the art before the dark age:
there was no free source of anything equivalent available to further
research and progress!
Now that free sources are available for OS and application, research
and progress can continue from where it left in 1981.
To revert to the topic, you did not see my point:
On a unix system, users want to use unix pathnames.
The unix system therefore presents all file systems to the user with
the unix path syntax.
On a MS-DOS system, users want to use MS-DOS pathnames.
The MS-DOS system therefore presents all file systems to the user with
the MS-DOS path syntax.
On a MacOSX system, users want to use MacOSX pathnames.
The MacOSX system therefore presents all file systems to the user with
the MacOSX path syntax.
And:
It is crazy to want a system where you dynamically change the path
syntax depending on the place from where the files come. Ad
absurdum, (in the case of relaying NFS/Samba/AppleShare/whatever
this would lead you to write things like:
HOST:dir>her>home/pascal/Macintosh\ HD:Personal\ Folder:E:\\MYFILE.DOC
(a MS-DOS server publish its E: volume, which is mounted via samba on
a MacOS server on Macintosh\ HD:Personal\ Folder:E: and republished
along with the whole disk, which is mounted via AppleShare on a unix
system on /home/pascal/Macintosh\ HD and republished along with /home,
which is mounted (via NFS) on a VMS or whatever on HOST:dir>her>home).
Ok, this is an ad-absurdum, but I'm saying that it's the same to be
wanting to have in the same system paths that must be written as:
HOST1:dir>ect>ory>file.lisp
HOST2:dir/ect/ory/file.lisp
HOST3:dir\\ect\\ory\\file.lisp
HOST4:dir:ect:ory:file.lisp
just because HOST1 happens to be a remote VMS, HOST2 a remote unix,
HOST3 a remote MS-DOS and HOST4 a remote MacOS.
Why do you think the logical path names were invented???
And of course, the physical paths must containt the only syntax local
to the OS where we're running, and there there's no notion of host. So
I'm not surprised that: (pathname-host #P"/tmp") be nil, given that
Common-Lisp does not specify that something portably understandable by
all implementations on any OS be returned.
Let's traverse Alice's mirror and imagine a utopia where such a thing
would have been specified. I'd be happy to get on a unix system:
(pathname-host #P"/tmp")
=> (:unix "thalassa.informatimago.com")
or:
(pathname-host #P"Macintosh HD:Perso Files:")
=> (:macos "naiad.informatimago.com")
the more so if I can send these result to another lisp in Japan and
have it retrieve remotely the files on these hosts.
But as it has been remarked:
1- URL are not supported (just a fact),
2- URL have a unique UNIFORM syntax for all resources.
So when you want to fetch files on remote hosts, you use in ALL cases:
file://naiad.informatimago.com/Macintosh%20HD/Perso%20Files/
file://thalassa.informatimago.com/tmp
while these URLs will be converted by the servers into the local syntax.
--
__Pascal_Bourguignon__ . * * . * .* .
http://www.informatimago.com/ . * . .*
There is no worse tyranny than to force * . . /\ () . *
a man to pay for what he does not . . / .\ . * .
want merely because you think it .*. / * \ . .
would be good for him. -- Robert Heinlein . /* o \ .
http://www.theadvocates.org/ * '''||''' .
SCO Spam-magnet: ··········@sco.com ******************
From: james anderson
Subject: Re: (CLtS question) Pathname hosts
Date:
Message-ID: <3FD6C3C2.43ADE52D@setf.de>
?
Pascal Bourguignon wrote:
>
>
> To revert to the topic, you did not see my point:
>
> On a unix system, users want to use unix pathnames.
> The unix system therefore presents all file systems to the user with
> the unix path syntax.
>
> On a MS-DOS system, users want to use MS-DOS pathnames.
> The MS-DOS system therefore presents all file systems to the user with
> the MS-DOS path syntax.
>
> On a MacOSX system, users want to use MacOSX pathnames.
> The MacOSX system therefore presents all file systems to the user with
> the MacOSX path syntax.
>
may i note that it is not our custom to submit to the royal user. we do not
actively use physical pathname namestrings. we use them only to specify
translations in a logical host definitions. we have followed this practice for
several years. if physical pathnames are presented to us in the listener, we
will occasionally cut-and-past them in the listener. under which circumstances
the namestring syntax does not matter to us.
> Why do you think the logical path names were invented???
so, if we use logical pathnames, and
> ...
>
> So when you want to fetch files on remote hosts, you use in ALL cases:
>
> file://naiad.informatimago.com/Macintosh%20HD/Perso%20Files/
> file://thalassa.informatimago.com/tmp
>
> while these URLs will be converted by the servers into the local syntax.
>
if we use urls, what reason do we have to require the implementation or the
application to impose or expect the same uniformity for physical pathname namestrings?
james anderson <··············@setf.de> writes:
> may i note that it is not our custom to submit to the royal user. we
> do not actively use physical pathname namestrings. we use them only
> to specify translations in a logical host definitions. we have
> followed this practice for several years. if physical pathnames are
> presented to us in the listener, we will occasionally cut-and-past
> them in the listener. under which circumstances the namestring
> syntax does not matter to us.
I'd love to see you update your copy of libX11.so.1 using just logical
pathnames. Or .bash_profile, for that matter.
Or maybe you'd just put your head in the sand and say that those files
are irrelevant, in a bizarre manifestation of Sapir-Whorf?
Christophe
--
http://www-jcsu.jesus.cam.ac.uk/~csr21/ +44 1223 510 299/+44 7729 383 757
(set-pprint-dispatch 'number (lambda (s o) (declare (special b)) (format s b)))
(defvar b "~&Just another Lisp hacker~%") (pprint #36rJesusCollegeCambridge)
From: james anderson
Subject: Re: (CLtS question) Pathname hosts
Date:
Message-ID: <3FD6EF80.16A743BD@setf.de>
Christophe Rhodes wrote:
>
> james anderson <··············@setf.de> writes:
>
> > may i note that it is not our custom to submit to the royal user. we
> > do not actively use physical pathname namestrings. we use them only
> > to specify translations in a logical host definitions. we have
> > followed this practice for several years. if physical pathnames are
> > presented to us in the listener, we will occasionally cut-and-past
> > them in the listener. under which circumstances the namestring
> > syntax does not matter to us.
>
> I'd love to see you update your copy of libX11.so.1 using just logical
> pathnames.
we are still discussing the syntax of physical pathname namestrings in lisp?
in any case, we are at a loss as to what we would write into a shared library
from lisp at the moment,
> Or .bash_profile, for that matter.
but, for a bash profile, we can conceive of something which shouldn't hurt,
and demonstrate that there are at least two ways to use a logical pathname to
designate a file which contains in its name a character which cannot appear in
a logical pathname namestring.
Welcome to Macintosh Common Lisp Version 4.3.1! (nb. under os 9.1)
? (setf (logical-pathname-translations "unix")
`(("**;dotfile;*.*"
,(make-pathname :name ".*" :type :wild
:directory '(:absolute :wild-inferiors)))
("**;dot-*.*"
,(make-pathname :name ".*" :type :wild
:directory '(:absolute :wild-inferiors)))
("**;*.*" "**:*.*")))
(("**;dotfile;*.*" #P"**:*.*.*") ("**;dot-*.*" #P"**:*.*.*") ("**;*.*" "**:*.*"))
? (probe-file "unix:dotfile;bash_profile")
NIL
? (with-open-file (stream "unix:dotfile;bash_profile"
:direction :output
:if-exists :supersede
:if-does-not-exist :create)
(format stream "# i'm not sure what bash would want~%"))
NIL
? (probe-file "unix:dot-bash_profile")
···············@paz:MCL 4.3.1:.bash_profile"
? (describe *)
···············@paz:MCL 4.3.1:.bash_profile"
Type: PATHNAME
Class: #<BUILT-IN-CLASS PATHNAME>
TYPE: PATHNAME
%PATHNAME-DIRECTORY: (:ABSOLUTE ············@paz" "MCL 4.3.1")
%PATHNAME-NAME: ""
%PATHNAME-TYPE: "bash_profile"
?
which brings up the question, whether phyisical pathnames are themselves
sufficient. but that's a thread of its own. in any case, while
pathname-match-p and translate-pathname are not completely specified, they can
do more than we might think.
>
> Or maybe you'd just put your head in the sand and say that those files
> are irrelevant,
our head is not likely in the sand at the moment. we are orthographically
challenged enough as it is.
> in a bizarre manifestation of Sapir-Whorf?
on the contrary, were i pushed, i would have to admit deconstructivist
tendancies, and would sooner suggest that, despite that one cannot think about
something which one cannot express, given a coherent means of expression and
sufficient motivation, one may discover that one can express things which one
did not know that one could think about.
...
james anderson <··············@setf.de> writes:
> Christophe Rhodes wrote:
>>
>> james anderson <··············@setf.de> writes:
>>
>> > may i note that it is not our custom to submit to the royal user. we
>> > do not actively use physical pathname namestrings. we use them only
>> > to specify translations in a logical host definitions. we have
>> > followed this practice for several years. if physical pathnames are
>> > presented to us in the listener, we will occasionally cut-and-past
>> > them in the listener. under which circumstances the namestring
>> > syntax does not matter to us.
>>
>> I'd love to see you update your copy of libX11.so.1 using just logical
>> pathnames.
>
> we are still discussing the syntax of physical pathname namestrings
> in lisp?
I'm not the one who brought up logical pathnames.
> in any case, we are at a loss as to what we would write into a shared library
> from lisp at the moment,
How about copying an upgrade from your vendor?
Copy File "[DEBIAN]:>POOL>MAIN>X>XFREE86>NEW>libX11.so.1" ":/usr/lib/libX11.so.1"
is how one might do it in a physical pathname parallel world.
>> Or .bash_profile, for that matter.
>
> but, for a bash profile, we can conceive of something which
> shouldn't hurt, and demonstrate that there are at least two ways to
> use a logical pathname to designate a file which contains in its
> name a character which cannot appear in a logical pathname
> namestring.
>
> Welcome to Macintosh Common Lisp Version 4.3.1! (nb. under os 9.1)
> ? (setf (logical-pathname-translations "unix")
> `(("**;dotfile;*.*"
> ,(make-pathname :name ".*" :type :wild
> :directory '(:absolute :wild-inferiors)))
> ("**;dot-*.*"
> ,(make-pathname :name ".*" :type :wild
> :directory '(:absolute :wild-inferiors)))
> ("**;*.*" "**:*.*")))
> [snip]
> ?
You know, I'm aware of the renaming tricks one can play with logical
pathname translations. I was hoping that the suggestion that one
might wish commonly to deal with files whose names are not under the
full control of the user could bring forth the realization that such
renaming workarounds are just that: workarounds; one shouldn't claim
that everything can conveniently be done with logical pathnames
without a suitable definition of "everything".
And in any case, it is not the dot that leads to unspecified behaviour
in logical pathnames (just confusing behaviour); the underscore is not
a portable pathname character. And yes, one can play the same game,
accessing .bash_profile through the pathname
":dotfile;bash;underscore;profile", but I hope you begin to see the
point.
> which brings up the question, whether phyisical pathnames are
> themselves sufficient. but that's a thread of its own. in any case,
> while pathname-match-p and translate-pathname are not completely
> specified, they can do more than we might think.
The question of whether physical pathnames are sufficient on Unix
(actually, I claim they are overspecified, because they force the
implementation to give semantics to the "type" concept which does not
exist in a standard Unix filesystem) is certainly relevant for
implementors hoping that community consensus will build that (minor)
revision of the Common Lisp standard is necessary.
Christophe
--
http://www-jcsu.jesus.cam.ac.uk/~csr21/ +44 1223 510 299/+44 7729 383 757
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From: james anderson
Subject: Re: (CLtS question) Pathname hosts
Date:
Message-ID: <3FD70BD4.E6C16928@setf.de>
Christophe Rhodes wrote:
>
> james anderson <··············@setf.de> writes:
>
> > Christophe Rhodes wrote:
> >>
> >> james anderson <··············@setf.de> writes:
> >>
> >> > may i note that it is not our custom to submit to the royal user. we
> >> > do not actively use physical pathname namestrings. we use them only
> >> > to specify translations in a logical host definitions. we have
> >> > followed this practice for several years. if physical pathnames are
> >> > presented to us in the listener, we will occasionally cut-and-past
> >> > them in the listener. under which circumstances the namestring
> >> > syntax does not matter to us.
> >>
> >> I'd love to see you update your copy of libX11.so.1 using just logical
> >> pathnames.
> >
> > we are still discussing the syntax of physical pathname namestrings
> > in lisp?
>
> I'm not the one who brought up logical pathnames.
the point at issue was whether one should elevate physical pathnames to a
quasi-logical status. an aspect of the imperative was that the royal user
deems such syntactic uniformity necessary for their usual actions. this user
demurred, questioned the necessity, and suggested that, where uniformity is
necessary, logical pathnames usually suffice. where they do not, translations
accomplish much. where they do not suffice, this user has managed to survive,
above ground, usually by treating physical pathname namestrings as opaque
objects which are delivered and accepted by the user interface. i would accede
that there must have been occasions when i have resorted to pathname operators
for purposes other than constructing translation targets, but i cannot recall
when the last occasion was.
>
> > in any case, we are at a loss as to what we would write into a shared library
> > from lisp at the moment,
>
> How about copying an upgrade from your vendor?
> Copy File "[DEBIAN]:>POOL>MAIN>X>XFREE86>NEW>libX11.so.1" ":/usr/lib/libX11.so.1"
i do not customarily do that in a lisp listener.
were i to need to, then whatever physical pathname syntax the implementation
supported would either be able to name the file or it would not. were it
unable, it would likely be a structural issue rather than a lexical issue.
whether the implementation expressed the pathnames in the same syntax as used
by the common unix shells is, in itself, not material.
> is how one might do it in a physical pathname parallel world.
i do not disavow physical pathnames. i suggest only that their use does not
warrant the proposed form of standardization.
>
> ...
>
> one shouldn't claim
> that everything can conveniently be done with logical pathnames
> without a suitable definition of "everything".
i did not claim everything. i described active use. as in operating on them
programmatically. and that in response to the implications that the user
requires a uniformity in physical pathname syntax.
>
> And in any case, it is not the dot that leads to unspecified behaviour
> in logical pathnames (just confusing behaviour); the underscore is not
> a portable pathname character. And yes, one can play the same game,
> accessing .bash_profile through the pathname
> ":dotfile;bash;underscore;profile", but I hope you begin to see the
> point.
>
> > which brings up the question, whether phyisical pathnames are
> > themselves sufficient. but that's a thread of its own. in any case,
> > while pathname-match-p and translate-pathname are not completely
> > specified, they can do more than we might think.
>
> The question of whether physical pathnames are sufficient on Unix
> (actually, I claim they are overspecified, because they force the
> implementation to give semantics to the "type" concept which does not
> exist in a standard Unix filesystem) is certainly relevant for
> implementors hoping that community consensus will build that (minor)
> revision of the Common Lisp standard is necessary.
but remains a thread separate from one which concerns the extent to which any
given underlying os dictates the physical pathname syntax for a given lisp implementation.
take a couple of hours and spend them debugging simultaneously in a windows
lisp, a unix lisp, and a classic mac os lisp. i'd suggest more, but those are
the ones within reach of the little hole i'm sitting in. working from a single
source. maybe even just an hour. throw in a user interface which accepts both
quoted and unquoted pathnames. maybe a thought experiment suffices.
does physical namestring verisimilitude still matter?
...
james anderson <··············@setf.de> writes:
> take a couple of hours and spend them debugging simultaneously in a
> windows lisp, a unix lisp, and a classic mac os lisp. i'd suggest
> more, but those are the ones within reach of the little hole i'm
> sitting in. working from a single source. maybe even just an
> hour. throw in a user interface which accepts both quoted and
> unquoted pathnames. maybe a thought experiment suffices.
>
> does physical namestring verisimilitude still matter?
Right. I think on this point we're probably in agreement :-)
Christophe
--
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james anderson <··············@setf.de> writes:
> but remains a thread separate from one which concerns the extent to
> which any given underlying os dictates the physical pathname syntax
> for a given lisp implementation.
>
> take a couple of hours and spend them debugging simultaneously in a windows
> lisp, a unix lisp, and a classic mac os lisp. i'd suggest more, but those are
> the ones within reach of the little hole i'm sitting in. working from a single
> source. maybe even just an hour. throw in a user interface which accepts both
> quoted and unquoted pathnames. maybe a thought experiment suffices.
>
> does physical namestring verisimilitude still matter?
You could even simplify your experiment and just try to debug them
simultaneously on the SAME unix OS with ONLY two different
implementations of Common Lisp.
I've not used MacOS since the advent of NeXTSTEP and I just don't use
MSDOS/MS-Windows since 1985. My gripes are with the differences
between implementations on UNIX. What I'd like to see is a new
version of Common Lisp Standard that would try to eliminate all
unspecified or undefined parts, if only by noting that sub-standards
shall be specified for target platforms. We could specify meaningful
conversions and convention between logical path names and physical
path names in POSIX or in UNIX platform, and the same could be done in
MS-Windows (and if it matters, on MacOS and VMS). What's dreadful are
the divergent implementations the standard allow on the same platform.
(And of course, all objects that can be named in the host file systems
should be namable in logical paths too, otherwise there will be strong
incentive to use C to write generic tools instead of Common-Lisp).
--
__Pascal_Bourguignon__ . * * . * .* .
http://www.informatimago.com/ . * . .*
There is no worse tyranny than to force * . . /\ () . *
a man to pay for what he does not . . / .\ . * .
want merely because you think it .*. / * \ . .
would be good for him. -- Robert Heinlein . /* o \ .
http://www.theadvocates.org/ * '''||''' .
SCO Spam-magnet: ··········@sco.com ******************
Pascal Bourguignon wrote:
> Tim Bradshaw <···@cley.com> writes, OT:
>
>>[...]
>
>
> Nice rant, but you're forgetting one thing.
>
>
>>The tragedy is, that, of course, there is actually life in the Unix
>>filesystem. Solaris has real ACLs, and I think has or will soon have
>>user-definable file metadata. The Linux slaves have probably already
>>copied it, if they haven't already. Progress is being made, even in
>>this dark age.
>
>
> It's no more this dark age. We came out of the dark age.
Yep!
>
...
>
>
> To revert to the topic, you did not see my point:
>
> On a unix system, users want to use unix pathnames.
> The unix system therefore presents all file systems to the user with
> the unix path syntax.
Yes and no.
>
> On a MS-DOS system, users want to use MS-DOS pathnames.
> The MS-DOS system therefore presents all file systems to the user with
> the MS-DOS path syntax.
Yes and no (what about UNC pathnames?)
>
> On a MacOSX system, users want to use MacOSX pathnames.
> The MacOSX system therefore presents all file systems to the user with
> the MacOSX path syntax.
Mac OS pathnames are at this point UNIX pathnames.
>
> Ok, this is an ad-absurdum, but I'm saying that it's the same to be
> wanting to have in the same system paths that must be written as:
>
> HOST1:dir>ect>ory>file.lisp
> HOST2:dir/ect/ory/file.lisp
> HOST3:dir\\ect\\ory\\file.lisp
> HOST4:dir:ect:ory:file.lisp
>
> just because HOST1 happens to be a remote VMS, HOST2 a remote unix,
> HOST3 a remote MS-DOS and HOST4 a remote MacOS.
Why not? I can live with that, given that you have logical pathnames
(which can be improved nevertheless)
>
> Why do you think the logical path names were invented???
ditto.
>
> And of course, the physical paths must containt the only syntax local
> to the OS where we're running, and there there's no notion of host. So
> I'm not surprised that: (pathname-host #P"/tmp") be nil, given that
> Common-Lisp does not specify that something portably understandable by
> all implementations on any OS be returned.
This is a problem in the spec. The spec should have specified an
"implementation dependent non-nil structure".
>
>
> But as it has been remarked:
>
> 1- URL are not supported (just a fact),
> 2- URL have a unique UNIFORM syntax for all resources.
>
> So when you want to fetch files on remote hosts, you use in ALL cases:
>
> file://naiad.informatimago.com/Macintosh%20HD/Perso%20Files/
> file://thalassa.informatimago.com/tmp
>
> while these URLs will be converted by the servers into the local syntax.
>
>
>
>
Ahem! What should
(pathname-directory
(parse-namestring "file://thalassa.informatigo.com/tmp"))
return?
Either you specify that or we are back to the starting point. UR{NIL}
or not. Moreover, even with UR{NIL} NOBODY wants to write
(open "file://localhost/some/dir/foo.lisp")
when
(open "/some/dir/foo.lisp")
will do.
Cheers
--
Marco Antoniotti
Marco Antoniotti <·······@cs.nyu.edu> writes:
> Ahem! What should
>
> (pathname-directory
> (parse-namestring "file://thalassa.informatigo.com/tmp"))
>
> return?
Is this a trick question, or (assuming ordinary URIish semantics) is
(:ABSOLUTE) the answer? (as in, I can't work out how you would get
anything else)
Christophe
--
http://www-jcsu.jesus.cam.ac.uk/~csr21/ +44 1223 510 299/+44 7729 383 757
(set-pprint-dispatch 'number (lambda (s o) (declare (special b)) (format s b)))
(defvar b "~&Just another Lisp hacker~%") (pprint #36rJesusCollegeCambridge)
Marco Antoniotti <·······@cs.nyu.edu> writes:
> Pascal Bourguignon wrote:
> Yes and no (what about UNC pathnames?)
> > On a MacOSX system, users want to use MacOSX pathnames.
> > The MacOSX system therefore presents all file systems to the user with
> > the MacOSX path syntax.
>
> Mac OS pathnames are at this point UNIX pathnames.
Oops, indeed I wanted to write MacOS there.
> > Ok, this is an ad-absurdum, but I'm saying that it's the same to
> > be
> > wanting to have in the same system paths that must be written as:
> > HOST1:dir>ect>ory>file.lisp
> > HOST2:dir/ect/ory/file.lisp
> > HOST3:dir\\ect\\ory\\file.lisp
> > HOST4:dir:ect:ory:file.lisp
> > just because HOST1 happens to be a remote VMS, HOST2 a remote
> > unix,
> > HOST3 a remote MS-DOS and HOST4 a remote MacOS.
>
> Why not? I can live with that, given that you have logical pathnames
> (which can be improved nevertheless)
One reason: because there is no way to know from a string "HOSTn" what
syntax should be obeyed to build a path beginning with "HOSTn:". And
think about it: you could well have such syntax as:
<host> ':' '(' <file> ')' { 'in' <directory> } [ 'of' 'type' <type> ]
[ 'version' ( 'latest' | 'oldest' | <number> )
or anything more or less complex.
> > Why do you think the logical path names were invented???
>
> ditto.
So, that's why logical path names were invented: you write:
"HOST1:DIR;ECT;ORY;FILE.LISP"
and you get one or the other.
But now, please name me one Common-Lisp implementation where:
(translate-logical-pathname "HOST1:DIR;ECT;ORY;FILE.LISP" )
(translate-logical-pathname "HOST2:DIR;ECT;ORY;FILE.LISP" )
don't return two physical pathnames with the SAME syntax.
> > And of course, the physical paths must containt the only syntax
> > local
> > to the OS where we're running, and there there's no notion of host. So
> > I'm not surprised that: (pathname-host #P"/tmp") be nil, given that
> > Common-Lisp does not specify that something portably understandable by
> > all implementations on any OS be returned.
>
> This is a problem in the spec. The spec should have specified an
> "implementation dependent non-nil structure".
>
> > But as it has been remarked: 1- URL are not supported (just a
> > fact),
> > 2- URL have a unique UNIFORM syntax for all resources.
> > So when you want to fetch files on remote hosts, you use in ALL
> > cases:
> > file://naiad.informatimago.com/Macintosh%20HD/Perso%20Files/
> > file://thalassa.informatimago.com/tmp
> >
> > while these URLs will be converted by the servers into the local syntax.
>
> Ahem! What should
>
> (pathname-directory
> (parse-namestring "file://thalassa.informatigo.com/tmp"))
>
> return?
Nothing. That's my point here: even for URL, the relevant standard
specify that the entity who interprets them is the server, not the
client.
BUT! There is ONE standard for the syntax of URL which allows the
client to build URLs for ALL servers, whatever the syntax used by the
servers.
> Either you specify that or we are back to the starting point. UR{NIL}
> or not. Moreover, even with UR{NIL} NOBODY wants to write
>
> (open "file://localhost/some/dir/foo.lisp")
>
> when
> (open "/some/dir/foo.lisp")
>
> will do.
>
> Cheers
> --
> Marco Antoniotti
>
--
__Pascal_Bourguignon__ . * * . * .* .
http://www.informatimago.com/ . * . .*
There is no worse tyranny than to force * . . /\ () . *
a man to pay for what he does not . . / .\ . * .
want merely because you think it .*. / * \ . .
would be good for him. -- Robert Heinlein . /* o \ .
http://www.theadvocates.org/ * '''||''' .
SCO Spam-magnet: ··········@sco.com ******************
Paul Foley <···@below.invalid> writes:
> AFAIK, no current CL implementation supports multiple physical hosts
Symbolics' ANSI Common Lisp does. I have one running on the desk behind
me. I even use it to debug portable code sometimes.
What does it mean to be current?
It runs. It runs correctly.
Does it deviate? Once in a while.
Do other CL's deviate? Yes.
Does it have bugs? A small number.
Can you obtain support to get fixes if you need them? I'm sure you can.
Does it run at the same speed as Lisp on some other box? Depends on the
processor, but probably not.
Is speed a requirement of conformance? Nope.
Does it have a live user community? Yep. (And not just me.)
I wish people would stop trying to universally quantify across
implementations. Old implementations are allowed to stay and
new ones to arrive. Trying to name the ones you know and use
in your own experience denies (a) the past, (b) the future, and
(c) the possibility of things today outside of your own experience.
It is not even a requirement of a conforming implementation that the
implementor tell anyone that he/she created it. This goes to the very
heart of what it means for there to be a public standard. Ironically,
the private nature of the public denies your ability to quantify and
control it. (This is one reason that many governments fear privacy.
The more you know about something, the more you can control it. And,
in due relation, it's one of the many reasons that private people seek
not to have their privacy invaded: they have no desire to lose their
right to deviate from some gratuitously established norm.)
> (of different kinds; LispWorks on Windows has a host for each drive,
> but they're all the same kind of thing), so of course all logical
> pathname translations bottom out in a physical pathname on the single
> supported physical host, and they all have the same syntax.
I'm not sure I see your point here. Is there some specific action on
someone's part advocated on the basis of this controversial claim you've
made?
Variant implementations are not to be beaten into the ground, they are
to be permitted their right to exist. Our language was built around
tolerance for deviation of a variety of kinds, and thank goodness it was.
I recall a very early presentation by Steele about Java and how it was
going to run EXACTLY the same on every implementation and get rid of this
whole business of having to debug for each platform. I recall stopping
him after the talk and asking "If I have a terminal with a different
resolution than someone else, are you going to make there be more pixels
on my console or fewer on the other person's? Because if not, then either
Java was going to run differently and what you just said isn't true, or
else they were going to run the same and you were going to not work
correctly on some devices." He didn't have a very good answer to that.
I'm forever grateful that CL doesn't make portability claims like
"this will behave the same for all platforms". I'm glad that instead it
gives you a framework for REPRESENTING YOUR INTENT and for OBSERVING THE
DIFFERENCES that occur in the things that vary across implementations,
to include character sets, numerical representation, pathname details,
etc. If it falls short, it's not for lack of having tried. Trying to
beat everything into a "one size fits all" configuration is the very
essence of "deciding not to try".
If we had it to redesign today, would we have picked different ways of
addressing that same variation? Probably we'd have done some things
better. But you know, I bet a lot of things we'd have done worse.
Because back in the dank, dark, distant past that seems so icky to
proponents of Let's Just Do It One Way, we really understood diversity
and its purpose. And while there are some legitimately new concepts
(like URLs) and some concepts that seem to have gone to the side for
now (like devices and versions), we didn't have enough experience with
what was to come to claim we were experts in future history. So we
legislated conservatively. Now there's been a mere decade or two of
history to follow and already we have legions of people who have grown
up never seeing change because the local politics of the day is to not
allow much choice in the market, and those legions of people confuse
that with a promise that the world will always remain the same way.
Perhaps it will for quite a while. But that's not forward-thinking.
It reminds me more of someone who grew up under the modern electrical
system saying "Why is the voltage a symbolic constant and not just
110?" It's not like the electric company is going to change it. (And
they're not very likely to, btw.) But it turns out Columbus was
right, and there really are people who use 220 elsewhere in the world.
(Oops, he discovered the 110 world, we didn't discover his 220 world.
Silly me for thinking you could see it either way. I must remember
not to think of the world in such a natively American-centric way...)
But my point is that the 220 world isn't likely to change either. And
I don't know that any good is served by one world trying bludgeon the
other out of existence. Would some processes be simplified if
everyone did the same thing? Sure. But how do we equitably decide
who is backward-thinking and who is forward-thinking? A headcount?
Is that a good metric?
We live in a hopefully-unalterably pluralistic society. It's about
time we started to take the "live and let live" philosophy to heart
except where all corners of the universe are saying "we want out of
the corner we're in". It's one thing if some people have b&w screens
only because they can't afford color, as happened with TV, and we hope
one day everyone will upgrade. It's quite another if some people have
file systems with versioning and people who never got to use
versioning are scared by it and want to define it out of existence
without trying it. Pluralism is intended to allow little enclaves of
progress to test out an idea and gradually market it. Such new ideas
will ALWAYS start small. Sometimes they will grow and be beaten back.
Sometimes they'll be beaten away entirely and have to be reinvented.
But the goodness or badness of the idea isn't about how many people
use it. It's about whether it's even conceivably rational to use it
if you have it. That's what will decide whether people protect and
defend it. That's what will cause it to come back if you kill off
every last defender.
Thank goodness for Unicode, for example, even though a lot of us don't
use it, so that others may. But the one thing that bugs me about Unicode
is that it was built by a bunch of people concerned that some people would
be otherwise-outcasts from the ability to represent their languages and
yet it's still too small to represent all languages, and at least
some of those very same people are willing to commit to others the same
sin they didn't want to commit to themselves. So you find languages
that simply define that Unicode is enough. (I think I recall that
Dylan does this.) Which is wrong. Unicode is good as an implementation
of tolerance, but not it loses its goodness when wielded as as an
implementation of confinement.
I'm all for people mucking around with pathname specs in ways that improve
our ability to use pathnames without denying the breadth of things out
there in the real world that must be accomodated...
Kent M Pitman <······@nhplace.com> writes:
> Paul Foley <···@below.invalid> writes:
>
> > AFAIK, no current CL implementation supports multiple physical hosts
>
> Symbolics' ANSI Common Lisp does. I have one running on the desk behind
> me. I even use it to debug portable code sometimes.
> [...]
> Variant implementations are not to be beaten into the ground, they are
> to be permitted their right to exist. Our language was built around
> tolerance for deviation of a variety of kinds, and thank goodness it was.
>
> I recall a very early presentation by Steele about Java and how it was
> going to run EXACTLY the same on every implementation and get rid of this
> whole business of having to debug for each platform. I recall stopping
> him after the talk and asking "If I have a terminal with a different
> resolution than someone else, are you going to make there be more pixels
> on my console or fewer on the other person's? Because if not, then either
> Java was going to run differently and what you just said isn't true, or
> else they were going to run the same and you were going to not work
> correctly on some devices." He didn't have a very good answer to that.
> I'm forever grateful that CL doesn't make portability claims like
> "this will behave the same for all platforms". I'm glad that instead it
> gives you a framework for REPRESENTING YOUR INTENT and for OBSERVING THE
> DIFFERENCES that occur in the things that vary across implementations,
> to include character sets, numerical representation, pathname details,
> etc. If it falls short, it's not for lack of having tried. Trying to
> beat everything into a "one size fits all" configuration is the very
> essence of "deciding not to try".
You must make things _explicit_ to avoid problems. For example for
the size AND resolution of a bitmap screen, there is no problem of
portability to different screen size and resolutions if the system
does not assume an implicit size or an implicit resolution and
_explicitely_ exports primitives to get:
- the list of screens (there can be more than one!),
- for each screen:
- the number of vertical pixels,
- the number of horizontal pixels,
- the vertical resolution,
- the horizontal resolution,
- the "depth" of the screen:
- the number of color plane,
- list of number of bits per pixel per color plane.
(just a little exercise in explicting things out).
So yes, we're probably missing a (STRING-FOR-HOST pathname host)
function, and explicitly allowing and managing several kind of
physical host in the same lisp image (even if 99% of the
implementations have only one physical host ever).
> [...]
> I'm all for people mucking around with pathname specs in ways that improve
> our ability to use pathnames without denying the breadth of things out
> there in the real world that must be accomodated...
--
__Pascal_Bourguignon__ . * * . * .* .
http://www.informatimago.com/ . * . .*
There is no worse tyranny than to force * . . /\ () . *
a man to pay for what he does not . . / .\ . * .
want merely because you think it .*. / * \ . .
would be good for him. -- Robert Heinlein . /* o \ .
http://www.theadvocates.org/ * '''||''' .
SCO Spam-magnet: ··········@sco.com ******************
Pascal Bourguignon wrote:
> You must make things _explicit_ to avoid problems. For example for
> the size AND resolution of a bitmap screen, there is no problem of
> portability to different screen size and resolutions if the system
> does not assume an implicit size or an implicit resolution and
> _explicitely_ exports primitives to get:
[...]
I am not following the thread wrt pathnames, so I don't know if this is
related, but: Knowing the size and resolution of the screen is not
sufficient. As soon as the size of a screen crosses a certain boundary
you have to change the UI approach. The desktop metaphor, for example,
doesn't work well on PDAs or cell phones.
This means that you cannot solve UI issues in a strictly
platform-independent way. (At least AFAIK.)
Pascal
--
Tyler: "How's that working out for you?"
Jack: "Great."
Tyler: "Keep it up, then."
Pascal Costanza <········@web.de> writes:
> Pascal Bourguignon wrote:
>
> > You must make things _explicit_ to avoid problems. For example for
> > the size AND resolution of a bitmap screen, there is no problem of
> > portability to different screen size and resolutions if the system
> > does not assume an implicit size or an implicit resolution and
> > _explicitely_ exports primitives to get:
> [...]
>
> I am not following the thread wrt pathnames, so I don't know if this
> is related, but: Knowing the size and resolution of the screen is not
> sufficient. As soon as the size of a screen crosses a certain boundary
> you have to change the UI approach. The desktop metaphor, for example,
> doesn't work well on PDAs or cell phones.
>
> This means that you cannot solve UI issues in a strictly
> platform-independent way. (At least AFAIK.)
Indeed.
And are all fonts guaranteed to be available on all platforms? Does
Java magically arrange for licenses? Or does it just forbid you from
using fonts at any location that might not be available everywhere?
And what about speakers...
I mean, seriously, this is a real cop out to say that the program would
work the same if all of its inputs were the same. There are too many
variables for this to be a meaningful claim. When people say code is
platform-independent, they don't mean "runs the same on any platform
that is 100% identical in detail to the one the app was debugged on".
They mean "runs the same on any platform [and no more fine print goes here]".
It's possible for people who are in CYA mode here to retroactively claim
that's not what they meant. But really, it's what the community inferred
until it got some sense. And once the community realized what was really
meant, they learned not to trust it". And in particular they learned to
distrust phrases like "write once, run anywhere", replacing them instead
with more cynical but more predictive phrases like "write once, debug
everywhere".
Kent M Pitman wrote:
> And in particular they learned to
> distrust phrases like "write once, run anywhere", replacing them instead
> with more cynical but more predictive phrases like "write once, debug
> everywhere".
"Write once, run away."
Paul
Paul Dietz <············@motorola.com> wrote:
+---------------
| Kent M Pitman wrote:
| > And in particular they learned to
| > distrust phrases like "write once, run anywhere", replacing them instead
| > with more cynical but more predictive phrases like "write once, debug
| > everywhere".
|
| "Write once, run away."
+---------------
No, that's Perl. ;-}
-Rob
-----
Rob Warnock <····@rpw3.org>
627 26th Avenue <URL:http://rpw3.org/>
San Mateo, CA 94403 (650)572-2607
Pascal Costanza <········@web.de> writes:
> Pascal Bourguignon wrote:
>
> > You must make things _explicit_ to avoid problems. For example for
> > the size AND resolution of a bitmap screen, there is no problem of
> > portability to different screen size and resolutions if the system
> > does not assume an implicit size or an implicit resolution and
> > _explicitely_ exports primitives to get:
> [...]
>
> I am not following the thread wrt pathnames, so I don't know if this
> is related, but: Knowing the size and resolution of the screen is not
> sufficient. As soon as the size of a screen crosses a certain boundary
> you have to change the UI approach. The desktop metaphor, for example,
> doesn't work well on PDAs or cell phones.
>
> This means that you cannot solve UI issues in a strictly
> platform-independent way. (At least AFAIK.)
But then there are more considerations. For example, my first PDA is
a 64 MB RAM 400 MHz machine. I DO expect it to be able to multitask
(and don't get it) and while I don't expect to move and resize windows
on its 320x320 screen most problems come from applications that don't
expect such a BIG real estate (and the increased resolution). Note
that there are PDAs with 320x480 screen that come quite close to the
512x342 of the original Macintosh. I'd say that the choice of GUI
flavor has more to do with the usage pattern than the actual
capability of the hardware.
--
__Pascal_Bourguignon__ . * * . * .* .
http://www.informatimago.com/ . * . .*
There is no worse tyranny than to force * . . /\ () . *
a man to pay for what he does not . . / .\ . * .
want merely because you think it .*. / * \ . .
would be good for him. -- Robert Heinlein . /* o \ .
http://www.theadvocates.org/ * '''||''' .
SCO Spam-magnet: ··········@sco.com ******************
>>>>> "Pascal" == Pascal Bourguignon <····@thalassa.informatimago.com> writes:
Pascal> Pascal Costanza <········@web.de> writes:
[...]
>> This means that you cannot solve UI issues in a strictly
>> platform-independent way. (At least AFAIK.)
Pascal> But then there are more considerations. For example, my first
Pascal> PDA is a 64 MB RAM 400 MHz machine. I DO expect it to be able
Pascal> to multitask (and don't get it) and while I don't expect to
Pascal> move and resize windows on its 320x320 screen most problems
Pascal> come from applications that don't expect such a BIG real estate
Pascal> (and the increased resolution). Note that there are PDAs with
Pascal> 320x480 screen that come quite close to the 512x342 of the
Pascal> original Macintosh.
[...]
Tell me about it. I use a Sharp Zaurus SL-C760, which has a 640x480
screen. Most older applications written for the older Zaurus models do
not expect this screen resolution. What's worse, even though it is
really VGA resolution, you don't get VGA monitor screen size, which
means you really have to design carefully, taking DPI into account. You
don't want to paint tiny UI controls that no one can use.
Just to try to keep this thread a bit on-topic: I am dreaming of the day
when I'll be able to program my GUI applications on a PDA such as this
one using Common Lisp. Mind you, the hardware should be fully
sufficient: it's a 400MHz processor, 64MB of RAM, 128MB of built-in
flash plus SD expansion cards. I run xemacs on it, and I have tried
using CLISP, that someone compiled for it.
I am somehow convinced that a well-designed framework in CL could even
be more efficient memory-wise than the crazy C++ shared library world of
Qtopia on Linux (which is what the Sharp Zaurus PDAs use).
--J.
On 11 Dec 2003 09:54:14 -0500, Kent M Pitman wrote:
> Paul Foley <···@below.invalid> writes:
>> AFAIK, no current CL implementation supports multiple physical hosts
> Symbolics' ANSI Common Lisp does. I have one running on the desk behind
> me. I even use it to debug portable code sometimes.
[...]
> I wish people would stop trying to universally quantify across
> implementations. Old implementations are allowed to stay and
> new ones to arrive. Trying to name the ones you know and use
> in your own experience denies (a) the past, (b) the future, and
> (c) the possibility of things today outside of your own experience.
I did say "as far as I know" -- and I was wrong, because I did know
about Symbolics; I just didn't think of it. I wasn't trying to
exclude anything.
>> (of different kinds; LispWorks on Windows has a host for each drive,
>> but they're all the same kind of thing), so of course all logical
>> pathname translations bottom out in a physical pathname on the single
>> supported physical host, and they all have the same syntax.
> I'm not sure I see your point here. Is there some specific action on
> someone's part advocated on the basis of this controversial claim you've
> made?
> Variant implementations are not to be beaten into the ground, they are
> to be permitted their right to exist. Our language was built around
> tolerance for deviation of a variety of kinds, and thank goodness it was.
Did you read the post I was replying to? You seem to think I'm
bashing LispWorks, or something. I'm not. Pascal asked to be pointed
to a CL implementation that had at least two different physical
pathname syntaxes; I just said that no implementation I know of has
two physical hosts at all, except LispWorks, and that the multiple
hosts supported by LispWorks all use the same syntax since they're all
for the same Windows filesystem.
--
You don't have to agree with me; you can be wrong if you want.
(setq reply-to
(concatenate 'string "Paul Foley " "<mycroft" '(··@) "actrix.gen.nz>"))
* Paul Foley wrote:
> AFAIK, no current CL implementation supports multiple physical hosts
> (of different kinds; LispWorks on Windows has a host for each drive,
> but they're all the same kind of thing), so of course all logical
> pathname translations bottom out in a physical pathname on the single
> supported physical host, and they all have the same syntax.
LispWorks does on Windows:
CL-USER 1 > (type-of #p"//fs/tfb-project/tmp/foo.bar")
system::unc-pathname
CL-USER 2 > (type-of #p"D:/tfb-project/tmp/foo.bar")
pathname
--tim
* Pascal Bourguignon wrote:
> It's no more this dark age. We came out of the dark age.
Oh no, I don't think so. Computing has *never* been out of the dark
ages (don't assume I'm some kind of 36-bit-golden-ager please).
> What you're forgetting is the dark side of the force, I mean, the
> forces of evil who closed and hide the sources. That' why there has
> not been any progress in software for almost twenty years (apart for
> the viruses and worms). Of course, freedom developers had to rewrite
> from scratch something that was state of the art before the dark age:
> there was no free source of anything equivalent available to further
> research and progress!
(a) There *was* no `before the dark age';
(b) Near-functional BSD sources were available circa 1990 and
functional ones not much later (91 or 92?). So tell me, *why* did
Linux reinvent it all? Maybe because he couldn't think of
anything more interesting to do.
> Why do you think the logical path names were invented???
To provide a way of portably naming files which was just good enough
to let you load code, of course. Not to provide a general purpose
portable pathname facility.
Never mind, you won't understand: the worms have eaten your brain and
are chewing their way out through your eyes.
--tim
Tim Bradshaw <···@cley.com> wrote:
+---------------
| (b) Near-functional BSD sources were available circa 1990 and
| functional ones not much later (91 or 92?). So tell me, *why* did
| Linux reinvent it all? Maybe because he couldn't think of
| anything more interesting to do.
+---------------
Well, let's see... He *might* have wanted to use BSD as a base,
but wasn't that right around the time of the AT&T lawsuit against
BSDI & UCB? Perhaps he got scared off.
And by the time the lawsuit was finally settled (mostly against AT&T),
Linux had already been written and had a fast-growing community.
-Rob
-----
Rob Warnock <····@rpw3.org>
627 26th Avenue <URL:http://rpw3.org/>
San Mateo, CA 94403 (650)572-2607
Actually, the reason was that, at the time Torvalds started the
project, there wasn't a good x86 version of BSD widely available.
386BSD wasn't released until nearly 1 year after the first release of
Linux. However, Linus has been quoted as saying it was because of the
AT&T lawsuit that he continued Linux beyond the initial stages.
> Tim Bradshaw <···@cley.com> wrote:
> +---------------
> | (b) Near-functional BSD sources were available circa 1990 and
> | functional ones not much later (91 or 92?). So tell me, *why* did
> | Linux reinvent it all? Maybe because he couldn't think of
> | anything more interesting to do.
> +---------------
>
> Well, let's see... He *might* have wanted to use BSD as a base,
> but wasn't that right around the time of the AT&T lawsuit against
> BSDI & UCB? Perhaps he got scared off.
>
> And by the time the lawsuit was finally settled (mostly against AT&T),
> Linux had already been written and had a fast-growing community.
>
>
> -Rob
>
> -----
> Rob Warnock <····@rpw3.org>
> 627 26th Avenue <URL:http://rpw3.org/>
> San Mateo, CA 94403 (650)572-2607
> > Tim Bradshaw <···@cley.com> wrote:
> > +---------------
> > | (b) Near-functional BSD sources were available circa 1990 and
> > | functional ones not much later (91 or 92?). So tell me, *why* did
> > | Linux reinvent it all? Maybe because he couldn't think of
> > | anything more interesting to do.
> > +---------------
> >
> > Well, let's see... He *might* have wanted to use BSD as a base,
> > but wasn't that right around the time of the AT&T lawsuit against
> > BSDI & UCB? Perhaps he got scared off.
> >
> > And by the time the lawsuit was finally settled (mostly against AT&T),
> > Linux had already been written and had a fast-growing community.
·······@mindspring.com (Rayiner Hashem) writes:
> Actually, the reason was that, at the time Torvalds started the
> project, there wasn't a good x86 version of BSD widely available.
> 386BSD wasn't released until nearly 1 year after the first release of
> Linux. However, Linus has been quoted as saying it was because of the
> AT&T lawsuit that he continued Linux beyond the initial stages.
Indeed, my first FreeBSD Version 1.0 CD-ROM is dated December 1993.
It's very important to make the difference between Open Source and
Free Software!
Of course, anybody with a deep pocket could buy the sources of AT&T
unix or get BSD sources from Berkeley University and pay lawyers.
That would not have meant that they could do whatever they wanted with
"their" sources.
If Linus had proceeded like the FSF and requested to obtains signed
paper assigning the copyright to any line of code added to Linux to
him or a Linux Foundation, we would not have problems like SCO right
now.
--
__Pascal_Bourguignon__ . * * . * .* .
http://www.informatimago.com/ . * . .*
There is no worse tyranny than to force * . . /\ () . *
a man to pay for what he does not . . / .\ . * .
want merely because you think it .*. / * \ . .
would be good for him. -- Robert Heinlein . /* o \ .
http://www.theadvocates.org/ * '''||''' .
SCO Spam-magnet: ··········@sco.com ******************
Begin of a quotation from a message written by mere mortal:
Pascal Bourguignon <····@thalassa.informatimago.com>:
> Of course, anybody with a deep pocket could buy the sources of AT&T
> unix or get BSD sources from Berkeley University and pay lawyers.
> That would not have meant that they could do whatever they wanted with
> "their" sources.
>
>
> If Linus had proceeded like the FSF and requested to obtains signed
> paper assigning the copyright to any line of code added to Linux to
> him or a Linux Foundation, we would not have problems like SCO right
> now.
But who do you sue ? when nobody _owns_ linux as an entity in a judicial sense,
apart from n*10^2 different people worldwide with a copyrigh-part to
a total of n*10^6 lines of code from an multitude of IP//law-sytems ?
It is (practically) impossible to put the cat back in the bag.
cor
--
The Worlds best understood IM-appliance...........Avtomat Kalashnikov AK-47
NO !! I Will NOT Fix Your Computer http://www.geekgrrrl.nl
(setq reply-to (concatenate 'string "Cor Gest " "<cor"'(··@) "clsnet.nl>")
Cor Gest <···@clsnet.nl> writes:
> Begin of a quotation from a message written by mere mortal:
> Pascal Bourguignon <····@thalassa.informatimago.com>:
>
> > Of course, anybody with a deep pocket could buy the sources of AT&T
> > unix or get BSD sources from Berkeley University and pay lawyers.
> > That would not have meant that they could do whatever they wanted with
> > "their" sources.
> >
> >
> > If Linus had proceeded like the FSF and requested to obtains signed
> > paper assigning the copyright to any line of code added to Linux to
> > him or a Linux Foundation, we would not have problems like SCO right
> > now.
>
> But who do you sue ?
SCO's lawyers have a response: the users.
> when nobody _owns_ linux as an entity in a judicial sense,
> apart from n*10^2 different people worldwide with a copyrigh-part to
> a total of n*10^6 lines of code from an multitude of IP//law-sytems ?
>
> It is (practically) impossible to put the cat back in the bag.
I don't know that is better (and I object to "unconditionnaly" assign
Copyright to a third party while I have no objections to the GPL for
example (which did not prevent me to have assigned copyright of some
sources contributed to some FSF project)).
Just that in this specific case, SCO could not have sued, because
there would have been SCO CEO's signature on file with the Linux
Foundation.
--
__Pascal_Bourguignon__ . * * . * .* .
http://www.informatimago.com/ . * . .*
There is no worse tyranny than to force * . . /\ () . *
a man to pay for what he does not . . / .\ . * .
want merely because you think it .*. / * \ . .
would be good for him. -- Robert Heinlein . /* o \ .
http://www.theadvocates.org/ * '''||''' .
SCO Spam-magnet: ··········@sco.com ******************
> Indeed, my first FreeBSD Version 1.0 CD-ROM is dated December 1993.
But this is by no means the first freely-available BSD. i386 BSD came
first, and then there was the patchkit, then netbsd, then freebsd,
then openbsd.
In retrospect, it's actually kind of amazing what the inability to get
along with others can lead to. :-)
--
Fred Gilham ······@csl.sri.com
Is, then, the loving cup so often filled
that we may toss a draught aside?....
-Jeff Iverson
From: Coby Beck
Subject: [OT] Re: Linux & BSD history [was: (CLtS question) Pathname hosts]
Date:
Message-ID: <brderr$2ksq$1@otis.netspace.net.au>
"Pascal Bourguignon" <····@thalassa.informatimago.com> wrote in message
···················@thalassa.informatimago.com...
> There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to
> pay for what he does not want merely because you
> think it would be good for him.
-- Robert Heinlein
With all due respect to Robert Heinlein, what a ridiculous statement.
--
Coby Beck
(remove #\Space "coby 101 @ big pond . com")
"Coby Beck" <·····@mercury.bc.ca> writes:
> "Pascal Bourguignon" <····@thalassa.informatimago.com> wrote in message
> ···················@thalassa.informatimago.com...
>
> > There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to
> > pay for what he does not want merely because you
> > think it would be good for him.
> -- Robert Heinlein
>
> With all due respect to Robert Heinlein, what a ridiculous statement.
I assume you object to the "There is no worse tyranny" part. For some
of us, moral inconveniences are more hurting than physical ones. Some
even say: "Freedom or Death!".
--
__Pascal_Bourguignon__ . * * . * .* .
http://www.informatimago.com/ . * . .*
There is no worse tyranny than to force * . . /\ () . *
a man to pay for what he does not . . / .\ . * .
want merely because you think it .*. / * \ . .
would be good for him. -- Robert Heinlein . /* o \ .
http://www.theadvocates.org/ * '''||''' .
SCO Spam-magnet: ··········@sco.com ******************
Pascal Bourguignon <····@thalassa.informatimago.com> writes:
> "Coby Beck" <·····@mercury.bc.ca> writes:
>
> > "Pascal Bourguignon" <····@thalassa.informatimago.com> wrote in message
> > ···················@thalassa.informatimago.com...
> >
> > > There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to
> > > pay for what he does not want merely because you
> > > think it would be good for him.
> > -- Robert Heinlein
> >
> > With all due respect to Robert Heinlein, what a ridiculous statement.
>
> I assume you object to the "There is no worse tyranny" part. For some
> of us, moral inconveniences are more hurting than physical ones. Some
> even say: "Freedom or Death!".
While generally finding myself in agreement with Pascal, I have to say
I'm with Coby here. I think I've read too much Solzhenitsyn or
something.
I definitely agree that what Heinlein describes *is* a species of
tyranny.
--
Fred Gilham ······@csl.sri.com
...every candid Reader will easily understand my Discourse to be
intended only in Defence of *nominal* Christianity, the other having
been for some time wholly laid aside by general Consent, as utterly
inconsistent with all our present Schemes of Wealth and Power.
--- Jonathan Swift, "Against Abolishing Christianity"
From: Rahul Jain
Subject: Re: [OT] Re: Linux & BSD history
Date:
Message-ID: <87zndwbp3z.fsf@nyct.net>
>> > "Pascal Bourguignon" <····@thalassa.informatimago.com> wrote in message
>> > ···················@thalassa.informatimago.com...
>> >
>> > > There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to
>> > > pay for what he does not want merely because you
>> > > think it would be good for him.
>> > -- Robert Heinlein
Not that anyone asked, but my opinion is that forcing someone to do pay
for something they don't want forces them to work when they don't want
the benefits of that work. Forcing someone to work when they don't want
the benefits of that work is slavery. The fact that you justify it by
claiming that it's good for them just makes the perpetrator that much
more devious. Maybe my imagination is weak, but I can't think of much
worse tyranny than slavery osentsibly for the slave's good.
--
Rahul Jain
·····@nyct.net
Professional Software Developer, Amateur Quantum Mechanicist
From: Marco Antoniotti
Subject: Re: [OT] Re: Linux & BSD history [was: (CLtS question) Pathname hosts]
Date:
Message-ID: <rUkDb.25$Nq.2277@typhoon.nyu.edu>
Fred Gilham wrote:
> Pascal Bourguignon <····@thalassa.informatimago.com> writes:
>
>
>>"Coby Beck" <·····@mercury.bc.ca> writes:
>>
>>
>>>"Pascal Bourguignon" <····@thalassa.informatimago.com> wrote in message
>>>···················@thalassa.informatimago.com...
>>>
>>>
>>>>There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to
>>>>pay for what he does not want merely because you
>>>>think it would be good for him.
>>>
>>> -- Robert Heinlein
>>>
>>>With all due respect to Robert Heinlein, what a ridiculous statement.
>>
>>I assume you object to the "There is no worse tyranny" part. For some
>>of us, moral inconveniences are more hurting than physical ones. Some
>>even say: "Freedom or Death!".
>
>
> While generally finding myself in agreement with Pascal, I have to say
> I'm with Coby here. I think I've read too much Solzhenitsyn or
> something.
>
> I definitely agree that what Heinlein describes *is* a species of
> tyranny.
The tyranny of the IRS. Why should a CEO (of, say, Enron) be willing to
pay for public education? :)
.. but wait, the CEO is not paying anymore, isn't that the case? Wasn't
a huge tax cut just passed to benefit those who are not willing to pay
for public education? We truly live in a country of freedom :)
Cheers
--
Marco
From: Rahul Jain
Subject: Re: [OT] Re: Linux & BSD history
Date:
Message-ID: <87ad5tpr7l.fsf@nyct.net>
Marco Antoniotti <·······@cs.nyu.edu> writes:
> .. but wait, the CEO is not paying anymore, isn't that the case? Wasn't
> a huge tax cut just passed to benefit those who are not willing to pay
> for public education? We truly live in a country of freedom :)
If there were any such tax cuts, they don't apply to the whole country,
as property taxes are levied by the states.
--
Rahul Jain
·····@nyct.net
Professional Software Developer, Amateur Quantum Mechanicist
OT OT OT
Rahul Jain wrote:
> Marco Antoniotti <·······@cs.nyu.edu> writes:
>
>
>>.. but wait, the CEO is not paying anymore, isn't that the case? Wasn't
>>a huge tax cut just passed to benefit those who are not willing to pay
>>for public education? We truly live in a country of freedom :)
>
>
> If there were any such tax cuts, they don't apply to the whole country,
> as property taxes are levied by the states.
>
Yes. And the property taxes are raising because federal aid to States
(including public education) is decreasing sharply. Starve the beast,
starve the beast! :)
If you do not like the public education thing, shall we raise the .....
Publich Health Care issue? :)
Cheers
--
Marco
From: Rahul Jain
Subject: Re: [OT] Re: Linux & BSD history
Date:
Message-ID: <877k0tu01d.fsf@nyct.net>
Marco Antoniotti <·······@cs.nyu.edu> writes:
> OT OT OT
> Yes. And the property taxes are raising because federal aid to States
> (including public education) is decreasing sharply. Starve the beast,
> starve the beast! :)
And federal requirements for education are forcing them to spend more
money on education.
> If you do not like the public education thing, shall we raise the
> ..... Publich Health Care issue? :)
I think that topic deserves a thread of its own, if not an entire usenet
group. :)
--
Rahul Jain
·····@nyct.net
Professional Software Developer, Amateur Quantum Mechanicist
OT OT OT
Rahul Jain wrote:
> Marco Antoniotti <·······@cs.nyu.edu> writes:
>
>
>>OT OT OT
>
>
>>Yes. And the property taxes are raising because federal aid to States
>>(including public education) is decreasing sharply. Starve the beast,
>>starve the beast! :)
>
>
> And federal requirements for education are forcing them to spend more
> money on education.
Aren't they devious? :)
>
>
>>If you do not like the public education thing, shall we raise the
>>..... Publich Health Care issue? :)
>
>
> I think that topic deserves a thread of its own, if not an entire usenet
> group. :)
>
I think it needs a party with some guts :(
--
Marco
On Fri, 19 Dec 2003 12:15:56 -0500,
Marco Antoniotti <·······@cs.nyu.edu> wrote:
>
> I think it needs a party with some guts :(
We've got one and they have this health care issue figured out!
The Libertarian party!
They're better than the stupid and the evil parties rolled into one!
--
Kenneth P. Turvey <··@squeakydolphin.com> (only half joking)
"Kenneth P. Turvey" <··@squeakydolphin.com> writes:
> The Libertarian party!
>
> They're better than the stupid and the evil parties rolled into one!
You're right!
No one's stupid and evil quite like American fascism!
--
/|_ .-----------------------.
,' .\ / | No to Imperialist war |
,--' _,' | Wage class war! |
/ / `-----------------------'
( -. |
| ) |
(`-. '--.)
`. )----'
Kenneth P. Turvey wrote:
> On Fri, 19 Dec 2003 12:15:56 -0500,
> Marco Antoniotti <·······@cs.nyu.edu> wrote:
>
>>I think it needs a party with some guts :(
>
>
> We've got one and they have this health care issue figured out!
>
> The Libertarian party!
>
> They're better than the stupid and the evil parties rolled into one!
>
Yeah, the Libertarian Party is surely in line with the Heinlein quote.
Unfortunately in their pamphlet I do not see provisions for people who
cannot afford health insurance. Nor should I expect any, given the
extremist ideology of the Libertarian Party. It is also obvious that the
Libertarian party leaders do not read the WHO yearly reports. The 2000
one (if memory does not fail me) being quite entertaining :)
Cheers
--
Marco
Marco Antoniotti <·······@cs.nyu.edu> writes:
> Kenneth P. Turvey wrote:
> > On Fri, 19 Dec 2003 12:15:56 -0500, Marco Antoniotti
> > <·······@cs.nyu.edu> wrote:
> >
> >>I think it needs a party with some guts :(
> > We've got one and they have this health care issue figured out!
> > The Libertarian party!
> > They're better than the stupid and the evil parties rolled into one!
> >
>
> Yeah, the Libertarian Party is surely in line with the Heinlein quote.
> Unfortunately in their pamphlet I do not see provisions for people who
> cannot afford health insurance. Nor should I expect any, given the
> extremist ideology of the Libertarian Party. It is also obvious that
> the Libertarian party leaders do not read the WHO yearly reports. The
> 2000 one (if memory does not fail me) being quite entertaining :)
You must have a really poor idea of humanity and men if you believe
nobody would try and help the needing. People have had some use for
charity long before the state interfered and allowed some tax
deduction, but up to a limit. Remember that the first step to allow
people to help those who cannot afford, is to let them be able to
afford it! Big state cannot allow it, when it must take from them 400
billion/yeare only to build new weapons.
400 billion, it's $1428 per person, from 1 day old baby to 102 years
old veteran. Don't you think that everyone would be able to afford
true insurance (not state sponsored wasting such as HMO) for $1428 per
year?
--
__Pascal_Bourguignon__ . * * . * .* .
http://www.informatimago.com/ . * . .*
There is no worse tyranny than to force * . . /\ ( . *
a man to pay for what he does not . . / .\ . * .
want merely because you think it .*. / * \ . .
would be good for him. -- Robert Heinlein . /* o \ .
http://www.theadvocates.org/ * '''||''' .
SCO Spam-magnet: ··········@sco.com ******************
On Mon, 22 Dec 2003 20:24:46 +0100, Pascal Bourguignon wrote:
> People have had some use for
> charity long before the state interfered...
Yes, and it has always been insufficient, which is why governments have
to step in to pick up the pieces.
> 400 billion, it's $1428 per person, from 1 day old baby to 102 years
> old veteran. Don't you think that everyone would be able to afford
> true insurance (not state sponsored wasting such as HMO) for $1428 per
> year?
Have you actually priced health insurance lately? Here in the States,
for an individual, a good insurance policy runs at least twice that per
annum. My family of four pays more than that each month.
faa
On Mon, 22 Dec 2003 16:17:32 -0800, Frank A. Adrian <·······@ancar.org> wrote:
> On Mon, 22 Dec 2003 20:24:46 +0100, Pascal Bourguignon wrote:
>> People have had some use for
>> charity long before the state interfered...
>
> Yes, and it has always been insufficient, which is why governments have
> to step in to pick up the pieces.
Actually it has always been insufficient because we keep raising the
standards as we become more affluent. There is no reason to believe
that charity would not have improved as much as other aspects of our
economy. It can't happen when the government is spending $20,000 per
household per year.
>> 400 billion, it's $1428 per person, from 1 day old baby to 102 years
>> old veteran. Don't you think that everyone would be able to afford
>> true insurance (not state sponsored wasting such as HMO) for $1428 per
>> year?
>
> Have you actually priced health insurance lately? Here in the States,
> for an individual, a good insurance policy runs at least twice that per
> annum. My family of four pays more than that each month.
Actually his numbers are wrong. This year we had a 500 billion
deficit. Actual spending was much higher. It works out to be roughly
$20,000 per household as I said earlier.
The government spent a total or $826 billion in fiscal 2003. That
works out to be about $2,888 per man, woman, and child in the country.
You could get health insurance for a fraction of that in most
situations, but that isn't really the point. More people would be
able to afford their own health insurance, and we could take care of
those that couldn't through charity, given that we would have more
than $2,000 more a year each to devote to charitable giving among
other things.
That is the Libertarian philosophy anyway, one that I'm finding myself
having more sympathy for every day.
They really are the only party that believes in reducing the size of
government and controlling its power.
--
Kenneth P. Turvey <··@squeakydolphin.com>
Artificial Intelligence Algorithms Wiki
http://ai.squeakydolphin.com
On Mon, 22 Dec 2003 20:54:44 -0600, Kenneth P. Turvey wrote:
> They really are the only party that believes in reducing the size of
> government and controlling its power.
The current problem is not that it has too much power, but that its power
always seems to be directed at something other than helping to solve the
problems of the people whom it is supposed to represent. The only
feasible counterweight to overbearing private power is some sort of
collective public power. It is much easier to redirect the existing public
power towards proper ends than to destroy it and expect some counterweight
to private power to magically appear.
faa
From: Rahul Jain
Subject: Re: [OT] Re: Linux & BSD history
Date:
Message-ID: <873cbbiivz.fsf@nyct.net>
"Frank A. Adrian" <·······@ancar.org> writes:
> It is much easier to redirect the existing public power towards proper
> ends than to destroy it and expect some counterweight to private power
> to magically appear.
This philosophy only makes sense for major infrastructure which requires
a huge capital outlay to create, and for which multiple systems is a
significant waste of resources. For example, power grids, water lines,
etc. We already have medical infrastructure. Building more doesn't
require laying lines or pipes to peoples' homes.
If people are willing to pay for it, people will be willing to get paid
for it. If people aren't willing to pay for it, then we'll have to find
doctors who are willing to live in poverty. Note that these people will
probably be quite horrible doctors, much like the doctors you often find
in countries with socialized healthcare. Coincidence? I doubt it.
If the state of medical care in the US is so horrible, why do people
from all over the world come to the US to practice medicine and to get
operations done on them? Would you rather that instead of some people
only being able to afford minimal medical care (I agree that some amount
of medical care must be guaranteed for even those who can't afford it),
should we instead have everyone being forced to have minimal medical
care because a corrupt monopoly (via the government) controls the
industry?
It's ironic that people complain about the evil corporations only to
advocate legal enforcement of that situation for an entire industry.
--
Rahul Jain
·····@nyct.net
Professional Software Developer, Amateur Quantum Mechanicist
Rahul Jain <·····@nyct.net> writes:
> If the state of medical care in the US is so horrible, why do people
> from all over the world come to the US to practice medicine and to get
> operations done on them?
You should have said "... why do RICH people
from all over the world come to the US ..." which I think
would make the answer obvious. Nobody is disputing that if
you have the money to spend, you can get excellent care.
> Would you rather that instead of some people
> only being able to afford minimal medical care (I agree that some amount
> of medical care must be guaranteed for even those who can't afford it),
> should we instead have everyone being forced to have minimal medical
> care because a corrupt monopoly (via the government) controls the
> industry?
Of course. Except the care doesn't need to be minimal (or even bad),
and the monopoly doesn't need to be corrupt. See, e.g. Canada.
This basically goes to the heart of what is civilized society, and
what one is willing to do/pay/sacrifice to live in one.
Merry Christmas.
From: Rahul Jain
Subject: Re: [OT] Re: Linux & BSD history
Date:
Message-ID: <87d6afp2ou.fsf@nyct.net>
Alain Picard <············@memetrics.com> writes:
> This basically goes to the heart of what is civilized society, and
> what one is willing to do/pay/sacrifice to live in one.
Well, when there's a capped rate, you're guaranteed that the quality of
service will reduce to the level of that cap. The answer isn't in
regulating revenues and forbidding incentive to be better, it's in
stopping people from corruption like the pharmaceutical industry's
purchase of the loyalty of doctors. Doctors should prescribe the best
medication (providing multiple options is fine, of course) for the
patient's needs, not the medication made by the company who took him to
the nicest restaurant. Most importantly, liabilities for doctors should
be limited to reasonable amounts, so that insurance costs for doctors
don't force them out of the industry, reducing competition.
--
Rahul Jain
·····@nyct.net
Professional Software Developer, Amateur Quantum Mechanicist
On Wed, 24 Dec 2003 09:22:12 +1100,
Alain Picard <············@memetrics.com> wrote:
> Of course. Except the care doesn't need to be minimal (or even bad),
> and the monopoly doesn't need to be corrupt. See, e.g. Canada.
>
> This basically goes to the heart of what is civilized society, and
> what one is willing to do/pay/sacrifice to live in one.
The problem with this is that by socializing the system you reduce
the incentive for advancement in the art of medicine. By reducing
the rate of this advancement you are condemning people in future
generations to pain and death that they could have otherwise avoided.
There is a balancing act to be performed between helping out those
poor today that cannot help themselves and making sure that future
generations are also served well.
To believe that this is only about the wealthy refusing to help out
those less fortunate than themselves is really missing the point.
--
Kenneth P. Turvey <··@squeakydolphin.com>
Artificial Intelligence Algorithms Wiki
http://ai.squeakydolphin.com
In article <·················@premium.geo.yahoo.akadns.net>,
"Kenneth P. Turvey" <··@squeakydolphin.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 24 Dec 2003 09:22:12 +1100,
> Alain Picard <············@memetrics.com> wrote:
>
> > Of course. Except the care doesn't need to be minimal (or even bad),
> > and the monopoly doesn't need to be corrupt. See, e.g. Canada.
> >
> > This basically goes to the heart of what is civilized society, and
> > what one is willing to do/pay/sacrifice to live in one.
>
> The problem with this is that by socializing the system you reduce
> the incentive for advancement in the art of medicine.
"The" problem?
You have offered several arguments against national healthcare,
such as the claim that the uninsured are largely young, single
people who would rather spend their income elsewhere (presumably
on lisp manuals and extreme vacations).
With respect to the advancement of the state of the medical art,
perhaps it would work like elementary and secondary education
in the US. The majority of families would use public health
services, which would vary in quality from poor to excellent.
A large minority would pay into this system with their taxes
but would opt out, paying additional money for a private
option they view as more desirable. These private options
would vary from mediocre to excellent, and would be chosen
based on their medical excellence or for religious, social,
or other reasons. Medical companies would continue to
innovate, with new products available first to subscribers
of private plans willing to pay even exhorbitant costs.
These innovatiopns would eventually be available to all, in
the worst case 23 years after their discovery/invention.
Seems like a plausible way to combine public health care
and medical progress to me...
Sashank Varma <····@vanderbilt.edu> wrote:
> With respect to the advancement of the state of the medical art,
> perhaps it would work like elementary and secondary education
> in the US. The majority of families would use public health
> services, which would vary in quality from poor to excellent.
> A large minority would pay into this system with their taxes
> but would opt out, paying additional money for a private
> option they view as more desirable. These private options
> would vary from mediocre to excellent, and would be chosen
> based on their medical excellence or for religious, social,
> or other reasons. Medical companies would continue to
> innovate, with new products available first to subscribers
> of private plans willing to pay even exhorbitant costs.
> These innovatiopns would eventually be available to all, in
> the worst case 23 years after their discovery/invention.
>
> Seems like a plausible way to combine public health care
> and medical progress to me...
The problem with this model is the same one we have ended up with in
public education. Public schools are good only in those places where
any system would work well. In rural and urban america the schools
are all sub-standard. Most people that would like to send their
children to private institutions cannot because the combined costs of
the tuition and the additional tax burden is substantial enough to
make it impossible. The education the average student receives is not
as good as that they would have received under a private system.
In education you might be able to justify this by saying that some
people will gain access to the system that would never have had access
to any kind of education under a private system and there is no
additional cost for future generations to bear. This is not true of
medicine. Future generations will have to suffer because of the
reduced incentive to innovate that a public system provides. This is
true even if people can opt out of the system because there is still a
reduction in the funds that may be directed toward research and
development of new technologies. The market is simply better at
deciding how to efficiently use resources.
I wonder if we have missed out in advancements in education because of
our public schools. Education isn't as dependent on technological
advancement, but it certainly uses it. Better measures of success are
developed. Better teaching methods are tested and applied. Maybe we
really have missed out and just don't realize it because we don't have
an alternate to compare ourselves to.
Sashank Varma wrote:
>
> With respect to the advancement of the state of the medical art,
> perhaps it would work like elementary and secondary education
> in the US. The majority of families would use public health
> services, which would vary in quality from poor to excellent.
> A large minority would pay into this system with their taxes
> but would opt out, paying additional money for a private
> option they view as more desirable.
Actually, in the US, _everybody_ pays for public education, but the very
poor don't pay directly. Most school systems get the majority of their
funding from property taxes. An appalling number of people think that
because they own no property, they don't pay those taxes. Well, they
don't pay them directly. But they pay them in the form of higher rents
and also in higher prices for everything they buy so that landlords and
businesses can pay those taxes. These people don't seem to have any
inkling that when the taxes are raised on the "rich" and the "big
corporations", they just pass those increased costs on to their
customers. I suppose you could just pass a law prohibiting them from
doing that, but there'd be serious economic impacts from fewer and fewer
people willing to start businesses because of the low profits and high
aggravation factor of dealing with government regulations. If it got bad
enough, people would even shut down shop to escape. No doubt this could
be "cured" by more laws preventing them from doing that, and yet more
laws to "fix" the effects of those laws. The end result would be the
same as the late Roman period which saw the enserfment of whole
populations to keep them from voting with their feet. This is a
historical tendency of governments worldwide.
> These private options
> would vary from mediocre to excellent, and would be chosen
> based on their medical excellence or for religious, social,
> or other reasons. Medical companies would continue to
> innovate, with new products available first to subscribers
> of private plans willing to pay even exhorbitant costs.
> These innovatiopns would eventually be available to all, in
> the worst case 23 years after their discovery/invention.
>
> Seems like a plausible way to combine public health care
> and medical progress to me...
If US public education actually did a decent job of educating their
students, I might agree. However, there's a reason a majority of _public
school_ teachers send their children to _private_ schools -- the public
schools usually suck.
--Larry
Alain Picard <············@memetrics.com> writes:
> Rahul Jain <·····@nyct.net> writes:
>
> > If the state of medical care in the US is so horrible, why do people
> > from all over the world come to the US to practice medicine and to get
> > operations done on them?
>
> You should have said "... why do RICH people
> from all over the world come to the US ..." which I think
> would make the answer obvious. Nobody is disputing that if
> you have the money to spend, you can get excellent care.
I think Canada ships people over here to get operations as part of their
socialized medicine, you see they *can* get them over here and they can not
get them in Canada in a timely manner(before they die).
>
> > Would you rather that instead of some people
> > only being able to afford minimal medical care (I agree that some amount
> > of medical care must be guaranteed for even those who can't afford it),
> > should we instead have everyone being forced to have minimal medical
> > care because a corrupt monopoly (via the government) controls the
> > industry?
>
> Of course. Except the care doesn't need to be minimal (or even bad),
> and the monopoly doesn't need to be corrupt. See, e.g. Canada.
An ex boss of mine was Canadian and his sister is a nurse there. Ex boss
went to get a mri because he hurt his arm. He calls up and gets an
appointment and get his mri in a week and the thing that blew his sister
away is that he got it on a *Saturday*. Capitalism and markets work better
then any other system we have tried.
>
> This basically goes to the heart of what is civilized society, and
> what one is willing to do/pay/sacrifice to live in one.
Well there is this thing called the US Constitution that says what the
Federal Government should and should not do. Medicine is not on the list.
What I am willing to pay to help others is charity, this is a good thing
because it is freely given. What you take from me is extortion, theft or
taxes and those words speak for them selves
marc
>
> Merry Christmas.
On Wed, 24 Dec 2003 05:22:21 +0000, Marc Spitzer wrote:
> Well there is this thing called the US Constitution that says what the
> Federal Government should and should not do. Medicine is not on the list.
However, there is this entity within the government called "Congress"
that, within certain bounds, can also choose to do certain things at the
behest of the populace. The US Constitution neither requires nor prohibits
a wide variety of legislative actions that the Congress undertakes (all
of which can eventually be vetted by the constitutionally mandated Supreme
Court). Regulation and provision of healthcare is one of these issues that
is neither required nor proscribed by the constitution. As such, if the
populace decides that this is an issue for the government to deal with,
since people often cross state lines to get healthcare (i.e., interstate
commerce issues), it may do so. There is ample constitutional precedent
to support such a program. You may question the wisdom, but not the
constitutionality, unless you wish to undermine the past two-hundred or so
years of constitutional law.
faaa
"Frank A. Adrian" <·······@ancar.org> writes:
> On Wed, 24 Dec 2003 05:22:21 +0000, Marc Spitzer wrote:
>
> > Well there is this thing called the US Constitution that says what the
> > Federal Government should and should not do. Medicine is not on the list.
>
> However, there is this entity within the government called "Congress"
> that, within certain bounds, can also choose to do certain things at the
> behest of the populace. The US Constitution neither requires nor prohibits
> a wide variety of legislative actions that the Congress undertakes (all
> of which can eventually be vetted by the constitutionally mandated Supreme
> Court). Regulation and provision of healthcare is one of these issues that
> is neither required nor proscribed by the constitution. As such, if the
The federal government's job is not to feed, cloth or care for you or me.
If you want to see what happens when the fed gets involved in things it
has no legal mandate or constitutional design doing look at:
1: Welfare
It destroyed the Idea of a family by forcing the husband to abandon
his family to get them the money the needed to pay rent/buy food ...
2: Education
I remember reading that NYC students could tale a special test on graduation
that would certify that they had an 8th grade education
> populace decides that this is an issue for the government to deal with,
> since people often cross state lines to get healthcare (i.e., interstate
> commerce issues), it may do so. There is ample constitutional precedent
Well regulated commerce clause means orderly in this context not managed.
The idea is that it prevents states from imposing internal tariffs on goods
transported over them, ie if I am taking a truck load of scotch from NY to
VA and it travels through NJ then NJ cannot tax it or block its transport.
> to support such a program. You may question the wisdom, but not the
> constitutionality, unless you wish to undermine the past two-hundred or so
> years of constitutional law.
Well we now have a supreme court that said that certain types of speech are
prohibited 60 days before an election now the first amendment says:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of
speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to
assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
and the supreme court added unless it is 60 days or less before an
election. And justice Oconner said in a recent different decision
that she would look at what Europe was doing and use that to influence
her judgment, Near as I can tell that is a clear violation of her oath
as a justice.
Now if a state wants to try socialized medicine they are free to do so.
Most/all the Doctors would go some where else though.
marc
>
> faaa
On Thu, 25 Dec 2003 19:40:41 +0000, Marc Spitzer wrote:
[long rant snipped]
Marc -
Just as I had suspected, you chose to ignore the fact that what the
Supreme Court has decided *is* de jure and de facto constitutional. If
enough of the other branches of government believe this is not so, there
are governmental ways of undoing the damage (impeachment, conviction, and
reappointment of SC members via Congress or use of the armed forces by the
executive branch). Or, if that fails, you can always start working on
political action or a popular revolution. As none of these actions have
resulted, as yet, in the removal of the SC, I believe that your
arguments against the constitutionality of healthcare being a
government concern deserve as much consideration as those of tax
cranks and other such types.
As I said before, you can argue the wisdom of government involvement all
you want. Just don't try to argue the constitutionality unless you also
want to propose removal of the SC, revolution, or a new constitutional
convention, together with all of the chaos that would entail. Government
is a heavy responsibility. Those who propose undermining its foundations
have a heavy burden of proof before being allowed to bring down the house.
faa
On Thu, 25 Dec 2003 16:18:46 -0800,
Frank A. Adrian <·······@ancar.org> wrote:
>
> Just as I had suspected, you chose to ignore the fact that what the
> Supreme Court has decided *is* de jure and de facto constitutional.
I thought I would jump in here and point something out.
Where exactly does the constitution give the Supreme court the power
to interpret the constitution?
It doesn't. This power was taken by the supreme court. We can argue
about whether it was a good thing. I might even argue that it was,
but it is a de facto power, not a de jure power.
--
Kenneth P. Turvey <··@squeakydolphin.com>
Artificial Intelligence Algorithms Wiki
http://ai.squeakydolphin.com
"Kenneth P. Turvey" <··@squeakydolphin.com> wrote in message news:<·················@premium.geo.yahoo.akadns.net>...
> Where exactly does the constitution give the Supreme court the power
> to interpret the constitution?
Where does it say the Court can't? The populace gives the power.
IIRC, the Court built up its position of respect (especially after it
was brought to the brink of destruction by trying to oppose the New
Deal), to the point where it commands far more trust than the
presidency/legislature.
Is this a purely theoretical point, or does this apply to the
discussion? Who else would defend the powers of the Constitution? In
a world where every person can find some president or representative
to hate, is there anything wrong in using the Constitution to aid in
judgin'?
"Kenneth P. Turvey" <··@squeakydolphin.com> wrote in message news:<·················@premium.geo.yahoo.akadns.net>...
> Where exactly does the constitution give the Supreme court the power
> to interpret the constitution?
>
> It doesn't. This power was taken by the supreme court. We can argue
> about whether it was a good thing. I might even argue that it was,
> but it is a de facto power, not a de jure power.
Incidentally, I'm not taking a stand on any issue, just trying to
clarify. The problem with flamewars on language forums is that
there's just too much vocabulary that needs to be built up. Ideally,
people could go to a forum where people talk about these things
seriously.
"Frank A. Adrian" <·······@ancar.org> writes:
> On Thu, 25 Dec 2003 19:40:41 +0000, Marc Spitzer wrote:
>
> [long rant snipped]
>
> Marc -
>
> Just as I had suspected, you chose to ignore the fact that what the
> Supreme Court has decided *is* de jure and de facto constitutional. If
*NO*, the SC justices can not *make up* what the Constitution means
and be true to their oath.
> enough of the other branches of government believe this is not so, there
> are governmental ways of undoing the damage (impeachment, conviction, and
> reappointment of SC members via Congress or use of the armed forces by the
> executive branch). Or, if that fails, you can always start working on
> political action or a popular revolution. As none of these actions have
> resulted, as yet, in the removal of the SC, I believe that your
> arguments against the constitutionality of healthcare being a
> government concern deserve as much consideration as those of tax
> cranks and other such types.
Well fuck you too. You are not arguing the mater you are saying that the
that might makes right. This country was founded on the idea of might in
the service of right. And it has been imperfect at times, but it is still
a noble ideal and worth striving for.
>
> As I said before, you can argue the wisdom of government involvement all
> you want. Just don't try to argue the constitutionality unless you also
> want to propose removal of the SC, revolution, or a new constitutional
> convention, together with all of the chaos that would entail. Government
> is a heavy responsibility. Those who propose undermining its foundations
> have a heavy burden of proof before being allowed to bring down the house.
The idea is that the government works for the people not that it rules
them, if you really want that then the US is not the place for you. I
agree that there should be a high bar of proof but the SC is not
passing that bar but just making things up that it thinks are the way
is *should be* not doing its *Sworn duty* to do what it must to defend
the constitution as I said the SC is what is undermining the house.
marc
From: Rahul Jain
Subject: Re: [OT] Re: Linux & BSD history
Date:
Message-ID: <87ad5aalpn.fsf@nyct.net>
Marc Spitzer <········@optonline.net> writes:
> *NO*, the SC justices can not *make up* what the Constitution means
> and be true to their oath.
In 3 words: "Rule of law". :)
Unfortunately, some judges don't really care about having an orderly,
cooperative government, it seems.
--
Rahul Jain
·····@nyct.net
Professional Software Developer, Amateur Quantum Mechanicist
"Frank A. Adrian" <·······@ancar.org> writes:
>to support such a program. You may question the wisdom, but not the
>constitutionality, unless you wish to undermine the past two-hundred or so
>years of constitutional law.
Try less than 70 years. Nearly all this crap started during FDR's "New
Deal", and courts had repeatedly rejected previous measures tending in
this direction because the Constitution did not give the Federal
government the authority to do any such thing.
--Larry
"Marc Spitzer" <········@optonline.net> wrote in message
···················@bogomips.optonline.net...
> An ex boss of mine was Canadian and his sister is a nurse there. Ex boss
> went to get a mri because he hurt his arm. He calls up and gets an
> appointment and get his mri in a week and the thing that blew his sister
> away is that he got it on a *Saturday*. Capitalism and markets work
better
> then any other system we have tried.
Aside from personal anecdotes, I would like to ask what metrics you use to
determine one system is better than another? What level of success does the
US health care system have by these metrics?
> > This basically goes to the heart of what is civilized society, and
> > what one is willing to do/pay/sacrifice to live in one.
>
> Well there is this thing called the US Constitution that says what the
> Federal Government should and should not do. Medicine is not on the list.
You seem to imply that the US constitution defines what is a civilised
society. Is that what you meant?
--
Coby Beck
(remove #\Space "coby 101 @ big pond . com")
"Coby Beck" <·····@mercury.bc.ca> writes:
> "Marc Spitzer" <········@optonline.net> wrote in message
> ···················@bogomips.optonline.net...
> > An ex boss of mine was Canadian and his sister is a nurse there. Ex boss
> > went to get a mri because he hurt his arm. He calls up and gets an
> > appointment and get his mri in a week and the thing that blew his sister
> > away is that he got it on a *Saturday*. Capitalism and markets work
> better
> > then any other system we have tried.
>
> Aside from personal anecdotes, I would like to ask what metrics you use to
> determine one system is better than another? What level of success does the
> US health care system have by these metrics?
new drug/tool creation, MRI's for example.
I would not consider the story so anecdotal. I would expect that
a nurse would knowledgeable about standard medical practices in his/her
region/country. So the shock that "MRIs Hut" was open on a weekend
to reflect at least how the city/province where she works behaves
professionally
>
> > > This basically goes to the heart of what is civilized society, and
> > > what one is willing to do/pay/sacrifice to live in one.
> >
> > Well there is this thing called the US Constitution that says what the
> > Federal Government should and should not do. Medicine is not on the list.
>
> You seem to imply that the US constitution defines what is a civilised
> society. Is that what you meant?
The US constitution is the fundamental document that defines civil/lawful
society in the USA. Other countries have other systems and that is their
business.
marc
"Marc Spitzer" <········@optonline.net> wrote in message
···················@bogomips.optonline.net...
> "Coby Beck" <·····@mercury.bc.ca> writes:
> > Aside from personal anecdotes, I would like to ask what metrics you use
to
> > determine one system is better than another? What level of success does
the
> > US health care system have by these metrics?
>
> new drug/tool creation, MRI's for example.
I think this is a very shallow goal for a healthcare system. Are you sure
this is not just a means to some other end? I suspect you have just
declined to answer my question.
> > > > This basically goes to the heart of what is civilized society, and
> > > > what one is willing to do/pay/sacrifice to live in one.
> > >
> > > Well there is this thing called the US Constitution that says what the
> > > Federal Government should and should not do. Medicine is not on the
list.
> >
> > You seem to imply that the US constitution defines what is a civilised
> > society. Is that what you meant?
>
> The US constitution is the fundamental document that defines civil/lawful
> society in the USA. Other countries have other systems and that is their
> business.
I agree. But this makes your response to Alain rather non seqitur.
--
Coby Beck
(remove #\Space "coby 101 @ big pond . com")
"Coby Beck" <·····@mercury.bc.ca> writes:
> "Marc Spitzer" <········@optonline.net> wrote in message
> ···················@bogomips.optonline.net...
> > "Coby Beck" <·····@mercury.bc.ca> writes:
> > > Aside from personal anecdotes, I would like to ask what metrics you use
> to
> > > determine one system is better than another? What level of success does
> the
> > > US health care system have by these metrics?
> >
> > new drug/tool creation, MRI's for example.
>
> I think this is a very shallow goal for a healthcare system. Are you sure
> this is not just a means to some other end? I suspect you have just
> declined to answer my question.
I do not really care why they do it, I care that it gets done. When
these things get done it benefits me.
>
> > > > > This basically goes to the heart of what is civilized society, and
> > > > > what one is willing to do/pay/sacrifice to live in one.
> > > >
> > > > Well there is this thing called the US Constitution that says what the
> > > > Federal Government should and should not do. Medicine is not on the
> list.
> > >
> > > You seem to imply that the US constitution defines what is a civilised
> > > society. Is that what you meant?
> >
> > The US constitution is the fundamental document that defines civil/lawful
> > society in the USA. Other countries have other systems and that is their
> > business.
>
> I agree. But this makes your response to Alain rather non seqitur.
are you talking about this article:
Message-ID: <··············@bogomips.optonline.net>
or this one:
Message-ID: <··············@bogomips.optonline.net>
In the top one I stated that free market improved medicine and the
ability to get medical treatment.
In the bottom one I stated that the federal government should
do the job it is authorized to and only that. I gave some
examples engaged in "feature creep" with welfare and education.
or to put it shortly:
How?
marc
On Tue, 23 Dec 2003 08:34:14 -0800,
Frank A. Adrian <·······@ancar.org> wrote:
>
> The current problem is not that it has too much power, but that its power
> always seems to be directed at something other than helping to solve the
> problems of the people whom it is supposed to represent. The only
> feasible counterweight to overbearing private power is some sort of
> collective public power. It is much easier to redirect the existing public
> power towards proper ends than to destroy it and expect some counterweight
> to private power to magically appear.
Why do you think that the government will be a sword in the hand of
the people fighting against their oppressors instead of a tool of the
oppressors in keeping the people down? :-)
There are far more examples of government protecting elites in power
than there are of governments acting on behalf of the people. Once
the power has been concentrated in one institution it is far easier
for a few elites to control it.
Widely distributed private power is what you want, ideally, not
concentrated power in a single institution.
--
Kenneth P. Turvey <··@squeakydolphin.com>
Artificial Intelligence Algorithms Wiki
http://ai.squeakydolphin.com
Pascal Bourguignon wrote:
> Marco Antoniotti <·······@cs.nyu.edu> writes:
>
>
>>Kenneth P. Turvey wrote:
>>
>>>On Fri, 19 Dec 2003 12:15:56 -0500, Marco Antoniotti
>>><·······@cs.nyu.edu> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>I think it needs a party with some guts :(
>>>
>>>We've got one and they have this health care issue figured out!
>>>The Libertarian party!
>>>They're better than the stupid and the evil parties rolled into one!
>>>
>>
>>Yeah, the Libertarian Party is surely in line with the Heinlein quote.
>>Unfortunately in their pamphlet I do not see provisions for people who
>>cannot afford health insurance. Nor should I expect any, given the
>>extremist ideology of the Libertarian Party. It is also obvious that
>>the Libertarian party leaders do not read the WHO yearly reports. The
>>2000 one (if memory does not fail me) being quite entertaining :)
>
>
> You must have a really poor idea of humanity and men if you believe
> nobody would try and help the needing. People have had some use for
> charity long before the state interfered and allowed some tax
> deduction, but up to a limit. Remember that the first step to allow
> people to help those who cannot afford, is to let them be able to
> afford it! Big state cannot allow it, when it must take from them 400
> billion/yeare only to build new weapons.
To let people be able to afford health care on a privatized basis (as
proposed by the Libertarian, the Conservative, the Republican and the
"electable" part of the Democratic party (and some of the "democratic"
part as well) here in the US, you have to make sure their paychecks are up.
Given that this morning the radio (NPR) reported that the number of
people in the US that became uninsured since 2001 rose by more than a
million (what is the total now? About 15% of the US citizens?), I'd say
that something is not working here. Given also that "raising the
paychecks" does not ring well to the ears of the same people that want
to fully privatize health care, you can see what kind of quandary we
find ourselves in. And no. Charity is good but not enough.
> 400 billion, it's $1428 per person, from 1 day old baby to 102 years
> old veteran. Don't you think that everyone would be able to afford
> true insurance (not state sponsored wasting such as HMO) for $1428 per
> year?
I never consider aggregate numbers without an explanation of what they
mean. The 1 million more uninsured since 2001 is a simple counting.
What do the 400 billions include? Do they include the multiplied
bureoucracy present in each HMO? Do they include federally sponsored
research into Malaria(*)? Do they include extra cost of emergency care
due to the fact that uninsured people (15% of the US population) do not
have access to preventive care? Do they take into account that maybe,
health care cannot be really considered a "free market" after all?
I am perfectly fine with my insurance because I am healthy and I have a
good job. And I do not forget that the quality of my health insurance
comes at a price: that 15% of the US population does not have one.
regards
--
Marco
(*) The Malaria case is interesting. Pharmaceutical companies are much
more eager to find another analgesyc drug (big money coming from the
aging population of the US and Europe) than to put money into research
on the dynamics of P. falciparum. This is beacuse the millions of
people who die of Malaria come from "poor" countries in Africa and Asia.
Marco Antoniotti <·······@cs.nyu.edu> writes:
> Given that this morning the radio (NPR) reported that the number of
> people in the US that became uninsured since 2001 rose by more than
> a million (what is the total now? About 15% of the US citizens?),
> I'd say that something is not working here.
That number alone doesn't justify any conclusions. Does Bill Gates
have health insurance? Does anybody care? Many people prefer to live
without health insurance because that way they're likely to actually
save money. If everybody got more money out of health insurance than
they pay for it, health insurance would be a rather miraculous
business. I for one haven't seen a doctor since my physical
examination for the military. Nevertheless, I am forced by the German
government to pay an /awful/ amount of money every month for a health
insurance I don't use, for potential medical treatment the quality of
which (determined in detail by the government) gets worse and worse
every year. The money accumulated there already would be enough to
pay for so many operations that I'd look like Michael Jackson if I
used that all up.
If you want to arrive at any interesting statements at all, you'd have
to compare the quality of medical treatment people actually get in the
US, insured or not, to what we get in Germany, England, or France.
Such comparisons have been done many times, and the US system wins
easily. It is really funny to see how eager certain Americans are to
repeat our mistakes ;-)
> Given also that "raising the paychecks" does not ring well to the
> ears of the same people that want to fully privatize health care,
> you can see what kind of quandary we find ourselves in. And no.
> Charity is good but not enough.
I think it was Milton Friedman, of all people, who had the idea of a
negative income tax, so it is not quite clear which people you're
talking about here.
Regards,
--
Nils G�sche
"Don't ask for whom the <CTRL-G> tolls."
PGP key ID #xEEFBA4AF
Nils G�sche wrote:
> Marco Antoniotti <·······@cs.nyu.edu> writes:
>
>
>>Given that this morning the radio (NPR) reported that the number of
>>people in the US that became uninsured since 2001 rose by more than
>>a million (what is the total now? About 15% of the US citizens?),
>>I'd say that something is not working here.
>
>
> That number alone doesn't justify any conclusions. Does Bill Gates
> have health insurance?
I assume he does.
> Does anybody care?
Some of us do.
> Many people prefer to live
> without health insurance because that way they're likely to actually
> save money.
You are talking about 15% of the population in the US. More than 40
millions people. I wonder how many of these people would like to have
insurance but cannot.
> If everybody got more money out of health insurance than
> they pay for it, health insurance would be a rather miraculous
> business. I for one haven't seen a doctor since my physical
> examination for the military. Nevertheless, I am forced by the German
> government to pay an /awful/ amount of money every month for a health
> insurance I don't use, for potential medical treatment the quality of
> which (determined in detail by the government) gets worse and worse
> every year.
Today I made an appointment for a routine physical check up. I got my
appointment in February. It is not that bad, but it is worse than what
I was used to in Italy. This is not cheap either, and at the same time,
there are people who cannot get a check-up because they cannot afford it.
As per "being forced by the government to pay etc etc", it is called
"spreding the risk", i.e. it is exactly what you do with an insurance.
The difference is that the majority of the people in a given country
have decided to spread it to you, who cannot know that the German system
ios getting worse year by year, since, by your own admission, you have
not dealt with it since the Military visit.
> The money accumulated there already would be enough to
> pay for so many operations that I'd look like Michael Jackson if I
> used that all up.
>
> If you want to arrive at any interesting statements at all, you'd have
> to compare the quality of medical treatment people actually get in the
> US, insured or not, to what we get in Germany, England, or France.
> Such comparisons have been done many times, and the US system wins
> easily. It is really funny to see how eager certain Americans are to
> repeat our mistakes ;-)
It is obvious that you do not have any first hand understanding of the
US health Care system. As an example, you have never had to deal with
you prescription insurance interacting with your pharmacy (wait, you
just changed job, health insurance and now you also have to change
pharmacy.) Apart from that, given that who cannot pay is left out of
the system (which is what is happening here) it is not surprising that
if you are in you get decent care.
Morevoer - as the leaders of the Libertarian Party - you are not reading
the reports of the World Health Organization (they are online.) In the
2000 edition - if I remember correctly - the US system got ranked 37th
or so: right next to Cuba. France got the top score to the dismay of
the WSJ. Moreover, Health Costs in Europe are lower than in the US.
Except in sad Lomdardy where the Right wing goverment has proven that
you can get the Health Care cost through the roof by "privatazing".
Also it is not a case that the quality of the services in Italy went
down in coincidence with the "reforms" pushed forth by various Right
Wing administrations (e.g. at a certain point it became impossible to
get a prescription in Rome if your primary care physician had her
practice in Milan.)
>>Given also that "raising the paychecks" does not ring well to the
>>ears of the same people that want to fully privatize health care,
>>you can see what kind of quandary we find ourselves in. And no.
>>Charity is good but not enough.
>
>
> I think it was Milton Friedman, of all people, who had the idea of a
> negative income tax, so it is not quite clear which people you're
> talking about here.
>
Come on. You know very well who I am talking about here. Let's try to
have a bill in Congress rainsing the federally mandated minimum wage and
let's see what happens. Or maybe let's have a bill in Congress
mandating paid maternity and paternity leave (it's still there in
Germany, isn't it? In the US until Bill Clinton passed a law in '92 you
did not even have the right to unpaid maternity leave.) You will see
immediately who they are. They are more or less the same who castigate
Milton Friedman and his proposal to liberalize the drug trade. It does
not matter how you call it or how you want to do it. The bottom line is
that in the US more than 40 million people (that's half of Germany) do
not have health insurance, mostly because they cannot afford it.
On top of that, I may even be favorable to privatized health insurance,
as long as some form of life imprisonment is guaranteed to any insurance
company manager who takes a peek to my medical records. But this is
truly science-fiction and, of course, a slap to the "centrality of the
enterprise". :)
It's your vote against mine. But I bet that I have better arguments to
convince a majority of the people. I just don't have the TVs and the
newspapers :)
Cheers
--
marco
On Tue, 23 Dec 2003 18:21:00 -0500,
Marco Antoniotti <·······@cs.nyu.edu> wrote:
> Come on. You know very well who I am talking about here. Let's try to
> have a bill in Congress raising the federally mandated minimum wage and
> let's see what happens. Or maybe let's have a bill in Congress
> mandating paid maternity and paternity leave (it's still there in
> Germany, isn't it? In the US until Bill Clinton passed a law in '92 you
> did not even have the right to unpaid maternity leave.) You will see
> immediately who they are. They are more or less the same who castigate
> Milton Friedman and his proposal to liberalize the drug trade. It does
> not matter how you call it or how you want to do it. The bottom line is
> that in the US more than 40 million people (that's half of Germany) do
> not have health insurance, mostly because they cannot afford it.
OK, some of this is just dishonest. In the United States there
certainly are a number of people that don't have health insurance, but
most of them are young, able bodied people who choose to go without it
in order to save money. And you know what? When something bad
happens to them, they get into a car accident, or they break a leg, and
they show up at the emergency room, the doctors there fix them. They
don't turn them away and let them bleed to death. Some of this they
do as a form of charity, but most of it is by government mandate or to
avoid legal liability. To pretend that these people have no coverage
is simply untrue. They don't have health insurance, but they are
taken care of by the system because the government has forced the
system to take care of them. Who pays for this? We all do. Just
because there isn't a directed tax doesn't mean the United States
government is letting people die.
Is this the best way to run things? Probably not, but I don't think
that a completely socialized system is an improvement.
> On top of that, I may even be favorable to privatized health insurance,
> as long as some form of life imprisonment is guaranteed to any insurance
> company manager who takes a peek to my medical records. But this is
> truly science-fiction and, of course, a slap to the "centrality of the
> enterprise". :)
OK, but you don't mind that the government that controls 20% of
everything bought and sold in the country has easy access to your
medical records? In the U.S. if we have socialized medicine law
enforcement will have access to your medical records. When you are
out protesting the W.T.O. they will be looking through them. You
really can't trust the government.
--
Kenneth P. Turvey <··@squeakydolphin.com>
Artificial Intelligence Algorithms Wiki
http://ai.squeakydolphin.com
"Kenneth P. Turvey" <··@squeakydolphin.com> writes:
> OK, some of this is just dishonest. In the United States there
> certainly are a number of people that don't have health insurance, but
> most of them are young, able bodied people who choose to go without it
> in order to save money.
You can't really believe this garbage. >10% of children in the US are
uninsured, and the richest, most powerful imperialist nation on earth
has an infant mortaility rate, and median age expectancy comparable to
an impoverished carribean nation (Cuba).
--
/|_ .-----------------------.
,' .\ / | No to Imperialist war |
,--' _,' | Wage class war! |
/ / `-----------------------'
( -. |
| ) |
(`-. '--.)
`. )----'
···@famine.OCF.Berkeley.EDU (Thomas F. Burdick) wrote in message news:<···············@famine.OCF.Berkeley.EDU>...
> "Kenneth P. Turvey" <··@squeakydolphin.com> writes:
>
> > OK, some of this is just dishonest. In the United States there
> > certainly are a number of people that don't have health insurance, but
> > most of them are young, able bodied people who choose to go without it
> > in order to save money.
>
> You can't really believe this garbage. >10% of children in the US are
> uninsured, and the richest, most powerful imperialist nation on earth
> has an infant mortaility rate, and median age expectancy comparable to
> an impoverished carribean nation (Cuba).
Some facts:
14.1 million of those without insurance are eligible for government
sponsored health insurance, but have not applied.
About 1/3 of those uninsured make over $50,000 a year.
The fastest growing segment of the uninsured are those that make more
than $75,000 a year.
5.7 million of those uninsured are "short term uninsured", people
between jobs or recent college grads.
60% of the uninsured are younger than 34.
------
I'm not saying that people going without health insurance isn't a
problem, but the problem is not as severe as one would assume based on
the statistics being tossed around. The fact is that most people who
are going without insurance are doing so by choice, not because they
couldn't afford it if they chose to. You might believe this makes
them bad parents, or irresponsible adults, but they are not helpless
victims. The children that are uninsured do get poorer treatment
through no fault of their own, but for the most part they do not die,
they do not suffer needlessly, they are taken care of by the system.
BTW, our infant mortality rate is 6.75 deaths per 1000 births, Cuba's
is 7.15 deaths per 1000 births. This is a difference of only about
5.75%, but it masks the real question. The real question is whether
you would want to go to a Cuban hospital or a hospital in the U.S. I
think most of us would not have a problem with this question. I
wonder what percentage of people in Cuba get an MRI when they need
one? Infant mortality is easy to measure so it is widely documented,
but there are a number of factors that impact this statistic. Would
it be nice if our infant mortality numbers were lower? Yes, and if we
socialized our medical care this is a benefit that would probably be
realized and easily documented, but the loss of access to the latest
technology might cause many more deaths. The lack of incentive to
improve would lead to an increase in suffering over time that, though
more difficult to document, would be far more severe than our
increased levels of infant mortality.
Kenneth P. Turvey wrote:
> ···@famine.OCF.Berkeley.EDU (Thomas F. Burdick) wrote in message news:<···············@famine.OCF.Berkeley.EDU>...
>
>>"Kenneth P. Turvey" <··@squeakydolphin.com> writes:
>>
>>
>>>OK, some of this is just dishonest. In the United States there
>>>certainly are a number of people that don't have health insurance, but
>>>most of them are young, able bodied people who choose to go without it
>>>in order to save money.
>>
>>You can't really believe this garbage. >10% of children in the US are
>>uninsured, and the richest, most powerful imperialist nation on earth
>>has an infant mortaility rate, and median age expectancy comparable to
>>an impoverished carribean nation (Cuba).
>
>
> Some facts:
>
> 14.1 million of those without insurance are eligible for government
> sponsored health insurance, but have not applied.
>
> About 1/3 of those uninsured make over $50,000 a year.
>
> The fastest growing segment of the uninsured are those that make more
> than $75,000 a year.
>
> 5.7 million of those uninsured are "short term uninsured", people
> between jobs or recent college grads.
>
> 60% of the uninsured are younger than 34.
>
Interesting breakdown. What is the source?
Cheers
--
Marco
On Mon, 29 Dec 2003 14:34:29 -0500,
Marco Antoniotti <·······@cs.nyu.edu> wrote:
>>
>> Some facts:
>>
>> 14.1 million of those without insurance are eligible for government
>> sponsored health insurance, but have not applied.
>>
>> About 1/3 of those uninsured make over $50,000 a year.
>>
>> The fastest growing segment of the uninsured are those that make more
>> than $75,000 a year.
>>
>> 5.7 million of those uninsured are "short term uninsured", people
>> between jobs or recent college grads.
>>
>> 60% of the uninsured are younger than 34.
>>
>
> Interesting breakdown. What is the source?
Red Cross / Blue Shield
--
Kenneth P. Turvey <··@squeakydolphin.com>
Artificial Intelligence Algorithms Wiki
http://ai.squeakydolphin.com
Thomas F. Burdick wrote:
> "Kenneth P. Turvey" <··@squeakydolphin.com> writes:
>
>
>>OK, some of this is just dishonest. In the United States there
>>certainly are a number of people that don't have health insurance, but
>>most of them are young, able bodied people who choose to go without it
>>in order to save money.
>
>
> You can't really believe this garbage. >10% of children in the US are
> uninsured, and the richest, most powerful imperialist nation on earth
> has an infant mortaility rate, and median age expectancy comparable to
> an impoverished carribean nation (Cuba).
I do wonder just how accurate the Cuban figures are. Does anyone else
remember how wonderful the health, crime and other statistics were in
other Socialist Worker's Paradises? And how accurate they turned out to
be? Revolutionary slogans and jargon are nothing but ad campaigns for
the All-Powerful State (and against its competition).
--Larry
Larry Elmore <·········@_comcast_._net> writes:
> Thomas F. Burdick wrote:
> > "Kenneth P. Turvey" <··@squeakydolphin.com> writes:
> >
> >>OK, some of this is just dishonest. In the United States there
> >>certainly are a number of people that don't have health insurance, but
> >>most of them are young, able bodied people who choose to go without it
> >>in order to save money.
> > You can't really believe this garbage. >10% of children in the US
> > are
> > uninsured, and the richest, most powerful imperialist nation on earth
> > has an infant mortaility rate, and median age expectancy comparable to
> > an impoverished carribean nation (Cuba).
>
> I do wonder just how accurate the Cuban figures are. Does anyone else
> remember how wonderful the health, crime and other statistics were in
> other Socialist Worker's Paradises? And how accurate they turned out
> to be? Revolutionary slogans and jargon are nothing but ad campaigns
> for the All-Powerful State (and against its competition).
The point doesn't have anything to do with the Cuban figure. The point
is that despite being one of the wealthiest nations on earth, the USA
has an infant mortality rate much higher than for instance most
Western European countries.
Bj�rn
On Thu, 25 Dec 2003 12:48:52 +0100, Bj�rn Lindberg wrote:
> The point
> is that despite being one of the wealthiest nations on earth, the USA
> has an infant mortality rate much higher than for instance most
> Western European countries.
You'll never win a fight with the true believers with facts. If the facts
show otherwise, they must be wrong, because the US can't have worse health
care than them ol' debbil socialists over in the EU!!!
I think the standard anti-gov take on this is that we try to keep all
babies alive rather than trying to convince high-risk moms to get
abortions or most of the dead babies come from bad choices made by
moms-to-be because the government held a gun with the horrid welfare
system or because they didn't choose to buy healtcare or some such crap
like that. Or that keeping more babies alive doesn't count because here in
the US, you can get an MRI in an hour to show your dyspepsia isn't a
stomach tumor before they send you on your way, telling you to get some
Maalox.
In reality, the US spends more of its GDP on healthcare than any other
Western nation, but manages to have worse outcomes in several areas.
Something tells me there's something screwed up there that our vaunted
addition of the "free market" hasn't come to grips with yet, but the
governmentally controlled healthcare systems of other Western countries
have. Oh yeah, I forgot. That's because our government does anything WRT
healthcare or because of sue-happy lawyers. It couldn't be that
healthcare is a necessity and has much less pricing elasticty and so
corporations might choose to crank up prices. No, the free market would
never allow an oligopoly on healthcare...
faa
On Thu, 25 Dec 2003 16:41:49 -0800,
Frank A. Adrian <·······@ancar.org> wrote:
>
> You'll never win a fight with the true believers with facts. If the facts
> show otherwise, they must be wrong, because the US can't have worse health
> care than them ol' debbil socialists over in the EU!!!
Some facts support your argument and infant mortality is one of them,
but it isn't the best measure of the success of a medical system. The
fact is that most new technologies and drugs come from the United
States. Your socialized medical systems benefit from these advances
because we are willing to share or sell them to you. Otherwise
countries with socialized medicine would not even know what they were
missing out on.
In the end these advances will help far more children survive and
thrive than the small change in infant mortality would help.
> In reality, the US spends more of its GDP on healthcare than any other
> Western nation, but manages to have worse outcomes in several areas.
And far better outcomes in many areas. We spend more of our GDP on
medicine because it is important to us. We are willing to pay for
higher quality. I want to I would much rather be sick in the United
States than in Canada. I think this is probably true for most
Canadians as well.
--
Kenneth P. Turvey <··@squeakydolphin.com>
Artificial Intelligence Algorithms Wiki
http://ai.squeakydolphin.com
"Kenneth P. Turvey" <··@squeakydolphin.com> writes:
> On Thu, 25 Dec 2003 16:41:49 -0800,
> Frank A. Adrian <·······@ancar.org> wrote:
> >
> > You'll never win a fight with the true believers with facts. If the facts
> > show otherwise, they must be wrong, because the US can't have worse health
> > care than them ol' debbil socialists over in the EU!!!
>
> Some facts support your argument and infant mortality is one of them,
> but it isn't the best measure of the success of a medical system. The
> fact is that most new technologies and drugs come from the United
> States.
Do you have any evidence for this?
> I want to I would much rather be sick in the United
> States than in Canada. I think this is probably true for most
> Canadians as well.
Independent of financial situation? (Honest question; I know very
little about either the Usonian or Canadian helthcare systems.)
Bj�rn
·······@nada.kth.se (Bj�rn Lindberg) writes:
> "Kenneth P. Turvey" <··@squeakydolphin.com> writes:
>
>> I want to I would much rather be sick in the United
>> States than in Canada. I think this is probably true for most
>> Canadians as well.
>
> Independent of financial situation? (Honest question; I know very
> little about either the Usonian or Canadian helthcare systems.)
Just think about it for a microsecond. If you're poor
and uninsured, would you rather be sick in a country where
a) you're solid out of luck
b) you can walk into a hospital, say "I'm sick", and get
to see a doctor and receive treatment?
Even worse, what if your _child_ is sick? Would you prefer
a system where you have to weigh and diagnose how serious
the illness might be, because you can't afford the consultation,
or one where you don't take a chance and get your child to
a doctor immediately?
People who spout this "canadians would rather have care
in the states" propaganda have _no_ _f*cking_ _clue_ what
they're talking about. It's insulting, period.
Alain Picard <············@memetrics.com> writes:
> > Independent of financial situation? (Honest question; I know very
> > little about either the Usonian or Canadian helthcare systems.)
>
> Just think about it for a microsecond. If you're poor
> and uninsured, would you rather be sick in a country where
> a) you're solid out of luck
> b) you can walk into a hospital, say "I'm sick", and get
> to see a doctor and receive treatment?
In the USA, if you have a medical emergency (e.g. heart attack) and go
to a hospital emergency room, you receive treatment regardless of your
ability to pay. However, if your condition isn't an emergency
(e.g. you have high blood pressure that you should take medicine for
so you won't have a heart attack someday), you are out of luck unless
you can pay for your own treatment. That means that a lot of
uninsured people leave their conditions untreated until they get so
bad that they become emergencies they have to be taken to emergency
rooms, where they need much more expensive care than if they'd been
treated properly earlier. That's one of the stronger arguments for
implementing public health care in the US, to treat more non-emergency
conditions early, thereby avoiding incurring much larger public
expenses from treating emergencies later.
Paul Rubin wrote:
> Alain Picard <············@memetrics.com> writes:
>
>>>Independent of financial situation? (Honest question; I know very
>>>little about either the Usonian or Canadian helthcare systems.)
>>
>>Just think about it for a microsecond. If you're poor
>>and uninsured, would you rather be sick in a country where
>> a) you're solid out of luck
>> b) you can walk into a hospital, say "I'm sick", and get
>> to see a doctor and receive treatment?
>
>
> In the USA, if you have a medical emergency (e.g. heart attack) and go
> to a hospital emergency room, you receive treatment regardless of your
> ability to pay. However, if your condition isn't an emergency
> (e.g. you have high blood pressure that you should take medicine for
> so you won't have a heart attack someday), you are out of luck unless
> you can pay for your own treatment. That means that a lot of
> uninsured people leave their conditions untreated until they get so
> bad that they become emergencies they have to be taken to emergency
> rooms, where they need much more expensive care than if they'd been
> treated properly earlier. That's one of the stronger arguments for
> implementing public health care in the US, to treat more non-emergency
> conditions early, thereby avoiding incurring much larger public
> expenses from treating emergencies later.
This line of argument is bullshit. I know because I was at that point
once. I got treated. It took me a year to pay off the bill, but I got
pretty decent medical care. Would it have been nice if the "government"
paid it in full for me? I suppose so, but I don't have such an inflated
sense of self-importance that I think I'm _entitled_ to anything from
anybody. Why on earth should anybody be _forced_ to provide anything to
me just because I exist? "I'm here, I'm breathing -- feed me, clothe me,
house me -- it's my _right_!" That's the world as an infant sees it, and
his/her parents _do_ owe them that, but no one else should as a matter
of obligation enforced by the state.
Anybody who feels strongly about this in the other direction is _more_
_than_ _welcome_ to put up as much of their own money and as much money
as they can voluntarily get others to put up, and do whatever they feels
best to help those they want to help. Charity is important, but
"government charity" is as much an oxymoron as "government efficiency."
--Larry
Larry Elmore <·········@_comcast_._net> writes:
> This line of argument is bullshit. I know because I was at that point
> once. I got treated. It took me a year to pay off the bill, but I got
> pretty decent medical care. Would it have been nice if the
> "government" paid it in full for me? I suppose so, but I don't have
> such an inflated sense of self-importance that I think I'm _entitled_
> to anything from anybody. Why on earth should anybody be _forced_ to
> provide anything to me just because I exist?
You said it took you a year to pay off the bill. Someone in another
situation may have never been able to pay it off. So the only way to
make sure anyone pays is to collect payment in advance before they're
treated, or at least demand proof of ability to pay.
Would you have been able to pay in advance? Are you really saying the
hospital should have turned you away if you couldn't?
Paul Rubin wrote:
> Larry Elmore <·········@_comcast_._net> writes:
>
>>This line of argument is bullshit. I know because I was at that point
>>once. I got treated. It took me a year to pay off the bill, but I got
>>pretty decent medical care. Would it have been nice if the
>>"government" paid it in full for me? I suppose so, but I don't have
>>such an inflated sense of self-importance that I think I'm _entitled_
>>to anything from anybody. Why on earth should anybody be _forced_ to
>>provide anything to me just because I exist?
>
>
> You said it took you a year to pay off the bill. Someone in another
> situation may have never been able to pay it off. So the only way to
> make sure anyone pays is to collect payment in advance before they're
> treated, or at least demand proof of ability to pay.
>
> Would you have been able to pay in advance? Are you really saying the
> hospital should have turned you away if you couldn't?
I'd say that, yes, they should have that right. The same right everyone
else has, to decide whether or not they're going to do something for
somebody for free. BTW, many doctors _do_ perform charity work -- and
it's not mandated by the government.
If it had been an emergency situation, I'd have been treated regardless.
If I'd been in a somewhat worse financial situation, I'd have been
treated anyway under MedicAid. That's the situation as it is in this
country now.
Personally, I think MediCare and MedicAid are perfectly rotten ideas.
They are so wonderfully well-intentioned and well-meaning, but I think
they are a case of the cure being worse than the disease. (i.e., what is
the road to Hell paved with?) Look at the huge bureaucracies needed to
administer them, the massive amounts of overhead required by hospitals
and other health providers to comply with government regs (my wife works
in the industry so I get an earful about this at least weekly), not to
mention the similar effects it has on the insurance side. Anybody who
thinks the health care business in America is "free market" knows next
to nothing about it. It's not socialist, but has a lot of socialist
elements in it. One of the major factors driving health care costs is
government regulation. I mostly worked my way through college at a
nursing home. After one round of medical "reform" laws went through,
they needed to add a fifth nurse to each shift _just_ to do the
additional paperwork that needed to be filled out by an RN on each
patient (plus an additional office person). However, their requests to
raise rates were refused by the state, so they ended up laying off the
additional nurses. The other nurses were forced to cut back on patient
time so they could fill out all the paperwork. The "solution" of course
always seems to be for more of what began making the system sick in the
first place. Every "fix" requires yet more government intervention
because (surprise, surprise!) each previous intervention made things
worse. My wife tells me that more than half the cost of a new wheelchair
is the administrative and production costs of complying with all the
Federal and state regs involved in building and selling them.
I think government is about the least effective provider of charity
possible, over the long run (several generations). The way things are
set up in this country, at least, the government agencies do little or
nothing effective that gets people up on their own feet. If one were
cynical, one might wonder why, as an institution, the agencies would
have any interest at all in taking away their reason for being funded
(regardless of what individuals who work for it might think). I wouldn't
necessarily mind a government "safety net", but both those being helped
and those doing the "helping" (who themselves consume a very large
proportion of the funds forcibly raised by taxes for the purpose) have
strong incentives to turn the safety net into a hammock, and keep
increasing its size and scope.
I don't think health care is a fundamental right to be protected by
government. I think a large part of the current problem has been caused
by government interference ("for our own good", of course -- may
whatever gods that be save us from do-gooders!) and recent actions like
the stupid drug plan Bush signed recently will only exacerbate the
problem. Eventually, government will take effective control of the field
if trends continue. It may take a generation or more for the really bad
results to become apparent, but guess who _won't_ take the blame?
--Larry
Alain Picard wrote:
> ·······@nada.kth.se (Bj�rn Lindberg) writes:
>
>
>>"Kenneth P. Turvey" <··@squeakydolphin.com> writes:
>>
>>
>>>I want to I would much rather be sick in the United
>>>States than in Canada. I think this is probably true for most
>>>Canadians as well.
>>
>>Independent of financial situation? (Honest question; I know very
>>little about either the Usonian or Canadian helthcare systems.)
>
>
> Just think about it for a microsecond. If you're poor
> and uninsured, would you rather be sick in a country where
> a) you're solid out of luck
> b) you can walk into a hospital, say "I'm sick", and get
> to see a doctor and receive treatment?
>
> Even worse, what if your _child_ is sick? Would you prefer
> a system where you have to weigh and diagnose how serious
> the illness might be, because you can't afford the consultation,
> or one where you don't take a chance and get your child to
> a doctor immediately?
>
> People who spout this "canadians would rather have care
> in the states" propaganda have _no_ _f*cking_ _clue_ what
> they're talking about. It's insulting, period.
No, people who think that poor people and children of poor people can't
get treatment in this country just because they have no insurance "have
_no_ _f*cking_ _clue_ what they're talking about." You poor victim of
propaganda, do a little research before spouting off.
--Larry
On 26 Dec 2003 13:04:28 +0100,
Bj�rn Lindberg <·······@nada.kth.se> wrote:
> I wrote:
>
>> Some facts support your argument and infant mortality is one of them,
>> but it isn't the best measure of the success of a medical system. The
>> fact is that most new technologies and drugs come from the United
>> States.
>
> Do you have any evidence for this?
It is a widely accepted fact that the health care system in the United
States is the best in the world. I have anecdotal evidence to
support my statement, but nothing concrete. I will look into this
further for my own benefit. I'll forward any results I come up with
to you since you seem interested in the topic.
>> I want to I would much rather be sick in the United
>> States than in Canada. I think this is probably true for most
>> Canadians as well.
>
> Independent of financial situation? (Honest question; I know very
> little about either the Usonian or Canadian helthcare systems.)
Actually if the ailment is life threatening, or of an otherwise
serious nature, I would prefer to be in the United States. The only
case where I would not make this choice would be a problem that
required regular expensive treatments, was not life threatening, where
my income was too high to qualify for government assistance or
assistance from the hospital (they do that), and too low to afford my
own health insurance.
Basically without any details I would choose the U.S. over Canada
the vast majority of the time.
--
Kenneth P. Turvey <··@squeakydolphin.com>
Artificial Intelligence Algorithms Wiki
http://ai.squeakydolphin.com
"Kenneth P. Turvey" wrote:
>
> On 26 Dec 2003 13:04:28 +0100,
> Björn Lindberg <·······@nada.kth.se> wrote:
> > I wrote:
> >
> >> Some facts support your argument and infant mortality is one of them,
> >> but it isn't the best measure of the success of a medical system. The
> >> fact is that most new technologies and drugs come from the United
> >> States.
> >
> > Do you have any evidence for this?
>
> It is a widely accepted fact that the health care system in the United
> States is the best in the world.
No, it is not. The quality of a health care system is measured by the
life expectancy of the citizens living with it, and the US does not have
as high a life expectancy as most of the developed world.
What is true is that in the US you can get higher-quality care than
anywhere else in the world *if you have a lot of money to pay for it*.
People who rely on insurance get competent care comparable to care
elsewhere in the world, but are seldom the beneficiaries of topnotch
care. Lots of people can't even afford health insurance.
This follows a perennial American pattern; we tend to establish a lower
average than most nations, but those who excel, excel at a higher level.
We've done this in education, health care, and several other fields of
public endeavor.
Bear
Ray Dillinger <····@sonic.net> writes:
> "Kenneth P. Turvey" wrote:
> >
> > It is a widely accepted fact that the health care system in the
> > United States is the best in the world.
>
> No, it is not. The quality of a health care system is measured by
> the life expectancy of the citizens living with it, and the US does
> not have as high a life expectancy as most of the developed world.
So, by definition, life expectancy is determined solely and totally by
the quality of the health care system? There cannot be any other
reasons than the American health care system for a lower life
expectancy in some crack hole in East LA?
Life expectancy is very high in Japan. Is everybody using the life
expectancy measure willing to copy the Japanese system?
If everybody is screaming Yes! now, there seems to be an easy way out
of this whole debate: The Japanese system isn't very different from
the American one :-)
> What is true is that in the US you can get higher-quality care than
> anywhere else in the world *if you have a lot of money to pay for
> it*.
Actually, it is not that much money, as the American system is the
most efficient. You seem to be unaware of just how much money people
in countries with socialized medicine pay for their health care. It
is funny how many people seem to believe that once you socialize
medicine, the whole health care system will all of a sudden cease to
need money. Who do you think is paying for all this stuff? Santa
Claus? Big corporations? No: It's the people, again, who pay for the
system, any system. Whatever you think about the American system, one
thing is out of the question: It is the most efficient, you get the
most for your money. This is because the market works wonderfully in
this case. It might not in some other cases, but in this case it
does: There is lots of competition, and lots of direct exchanges take
place every minute, determining in the course the most efficient way
of using resources, as reflected by the market prices of things.
These market prices provide important information: What is the system
capable of, and just how much are people willing to pay for it. There
/is/ a tradeoff, even when it comes to health.
Now, in a socialized system, you lose this important piece of
information provided by the market price! There will still be prices,
of course, but these prices are not determined by the market anymore,
they are just arbitrary values determined by the government.
Inevitably, these prices will be wrong, leading to inefficiency of the
system. As the system fails to provide what people want, everybody
will cry for more money for the health care system, which will be
granted, but the system won't get any better, as it is fundamentally
flawed. It will get worse and worse, all the while eating up more and
more money. Such is the nature of socialist systems. You cannot get
around this.
There is another problem. Suppose there is a certain cure for a
certain disease, but using it costs $50,000,000 in every case. What
does this mean, it "costs such and such an amount of money"? It means
that, with current technology, it is not possible to provide this
particular cure without an enormous effort, as measured by its price.
Now, are we willing to take this effort? And in which cases? Do
those who want to socialize medicine want to tax-and-spend it every
time? I can tell you what happens in a socialized system: The
government will decide, for you, that it isn't worth it. The
government will decide to let you die instead. Are you really
comfortable with such a situation? You might say that you are not a
millionaire, and under the current system, you would die, too, because
you can't afford that much money yourself, either. Now, what if it
doesn't cost $50,000,000 dollars, but only $200,000? At least if the
disease is widespread, the government will, again, decide that you
aren't worth that much money. But this time, you might disagree. If
you aren't poor, you might sell your house, for instance, and buy the
cure. You decide. And let's hope the price was determined by the
market, and not some public servant. In the latter case, the price
might be too low -- in which case there will be a shortage: You just
sold your house, show up with the money, but there is nobody who can
provide the cure at this moment. What now? Or the price is too
high. In which case you have just sold your house when selling your
car would have been enough, and people with cars but no houses will
die because of a public servant's mistake.
These examples are artificial, of course, but they might serve to
clarify a fundamental problem with socialized medicine that needs to
be considered. By socializing medicine, you take away the decision of
how much your health is worth from yourself and leave it to some
public servant you never met. As you also make health care less
efficient, people will have to deal with horrible shortages in some
cases and overall pay much to much money on the average.
Are the rich better off in a free market system? Sure. That's why we
call them rich. Being poor sucks. However, by making the health care
system more expensive and less efficient, you are not helping the
poor, either. The rich and powerful will still find ways to get
better health care by paying lots of extra money. Or by taking a
plane to the US, as, for instance, Brezhnev did, several times.
If you really want to help the poor, find a way to make them less
poor. Then they will be able to afford their own health care, and
decide for themselves how much money they want to spend for their own
health. (But remember that, perhaps paradoxically, raising minimum
wages is /not/ a way to make people less poor, but will only make them
poorer ;-)
> This follows a perennial American pattern; we tend to establish a
> lower average than most nations, but those who excel, excel at a
> higher level. We've done this in education, health care, and
> several other fields of public endeavor.
According to the PISA study, your average education is still much
better than ours (Germany). This is funny because most people here
love telling each other anecdotes about how stupid the average
American is ("Did you know that x percent of Americans do not know
that..."). It has always been my impression that these people are
even more stupid than the ones they're making fun of, and now this is
a scientifically proven fact :-)
Regards,
--
Nils G�sche
"Don't ask for whom the <CTRL-G> tolls."
PGP key ID #xEEFBA4AF
···@cartan.de (Nils G�sche) writes:
> ... This is funny because most people here love telling each other
> anecdotes about how stupid the average American is ("Did you know that x
> percent of Americans do not know that..."). It has always been my
> impression that these people are even more stupid than the ones they're
> making fun of, and now this is a scientifically proven fact :-)
You probably should change the people you keep company with... I read such
stuff only from time to time in the newspaper (+). _MY_ acquaintances do
not talk about it.
Happy new year,
Nicolas.
(+) Maybe concerning Americans more often than other nations, but the
origin is probably the US itself, and since the US is the most productive
nation in the world, it is not very astonishing that it produces also the
major part of the noise.
Nicolas Neuss <·······@iwr.uni-heidelberg.de> writes:
> ···@cartan.de (Nils G�sche) writes:
>
> > ... This is funny because most people here love telling each other
> > anecdotes about how stupid the average American is ("Did you know
> > that x percent of Americans do not know that..."). It has always
> > been my impression that these people are even more stupid than the
> > ones they're making fun of, and now this is a scientifically
> > proven fact :-)
>
> You probably should change the people you keep company with...
Heh. Ah well, maybe I'm too forgiving :-)
> I read such stuff only from time to time in the newspaper (+). _MY_
> acquaintances do not talk about it.
I guess Heidelberg is different :-)
> Happy new year
Same to you, and everybody else!
> (+) Maybe concerning Americans more often than other nations, but
> the origin is probably the US itself, and since the US is the most
> productive nation in the world, it is not very astonishing that it
> produces also the major part of the noise.
Yeah, that's probably true. Most of the anti-American propaganda we
hear seems to be directly copied from sources in the US.
Incidentally, the first two books on the Spiegel's bestseller list for
non-fiction books, and rank 11, too, are written by Michael Moore
(52/2003) ;-\
OTOH, I guess even I would prefer Moore to our own political books.
You know, stuff like Heiner Gei�ler's new book "Was w�rde Jesus heute
sagen?" ("What would Jesus say today?"), or Johannes Rau's "Dialog
der Kulturen -- Kultur des Dialogs" ("Dialog of Cultures -- Culture of
Dialog"). *shudder*
Regards,
--
Nils G�sche
"Don't ask for whom the <CTRL-G> tolls."
PGP key ID #xEEFBA4AF
Nils G�sche wrote:
> OTOH, I guess even I would prefer Moore to our own political books.
> You know, stuff like Heiner Gei�ler's new book "Was w�rde Jesus heute
> sagen?" ("What would Jesus say today?"), or Johannes Rau's "Dialog
> der Kulturen -- Kultur des Dialogs" ("Dialog of Cultures -- Culture of
> Dialog"). *shudder*
Is it supposed to be obvious from the titles that these are
terrible books? 'Cos it isn't obvious to me.
--
Gareth McCaughan
.sig under construc
"Kenneth P. Turvey" <··@squeakydolphin.com> wrote in message
······················@premium.geo.yahoo.akadns.net...
> On 26 Dec 2003 13:04:28 +0100,
> Bj�rn Lindberg <·······@nada.kth.se> wrote:
> > I wrote:
> >
> >> Some facts support your argument and infant mortality is one of them,
> >> but it isn't the best measure of the success of a medical system. The
> >> fact is that most new technologies and drugs come from the United
> >> States.
> >
> > Do you have any evidence for this?
>
> It is a widely accepted fact that the health care system in the United
> States is the best in the world. I have anecdotal evidence to
> support my statement, but nothing concrete. I will look into this
> further for my own benefit.
Here's one data point for your investigation: I do not accept that "fact" at
all.
> >> I want to I would much rather be sick in the United
> >> States than in Canada. I think this is probably true for most
> >> Canadians as well.
> >
> > Independent of financial situation? (Honest question; I know very
> > little about either the Usonian or Canadian helthcare systems.)
>
> Actually if the ailment is life threatening, or of an otherwise
> serious nature, I would prefer to be in the United States. The only
I have not applied a very critical ear to such stories, so maybe I've been
duped, but haven't people died after being turned away from hospitals in the
states because of no coverage? I know I have heard such news reports a few
times. Do you contend this is not true?
--
Coby Beck
(remove #\Space "coby 101 @ big pond . com")
"Coby Beck" <·····@mercury.bc.ca> writes:
> I have not applied a very critical ear to such stories, so maybe
> I've been duped, but haven't people died after being turned away
> from hospitals in the states because of no coverage? I know I have
> heard such news reports a few times. Do you contend this is not
> true?
The rule is, if it's an emergency (you're having a heart attack or
have a gunshot wound) you're supposed to get treatment regardless of
your ability to pay.
However, if it's not an emergency (you have chronic high blood
pressure and you really ought to see a doctor about getting a
prescription for suitable drugs), you need some way to get it paid
for. That means uninsured people often let inexpensively treatable
conditions linger untreated until they turn into expensive
emergencies, and then hospital emergency rooms become their primary
healthcare provider.
With emergency treatment, they send you a bill for the services
afterwards, but they often can't collect, and then it becomes a public
expense, even in a perfect, merciless libertarian paradise (yech).
Simple example of why it's a public expense: you're brought into the
hospital unconscious and must get emergency open heart surgery which
has a 75% recovery rate. Sadly, you're one of the unlucky 25% and you
die in the intensive care unit after the surgery. Since you're dead,
they can't make you work off the debt. The surgery cost $60,000. Who
are they supposed collect it from?
There are some forms of government-provided coverage like Medicaid
that can cover non-emergency treatment, but not everyone is eligible
for it.
"Coby Beck" <·····@mercury.bc.ca>
wrote in message news:<·············@otis.netspace.net.au>...
> I have not applied a very critical ear to such stories, so maybe I've been
> duped, but haven't people died after being turned away from hospitals in the
> states because of no coverage? I know I have heard such news reports a few
> times. Do you contend this is not true?
People have died because they were turned away from hospitals because
they were unable to treat them for various reasons. Nobody gets
turned away because they can't pay when they have a life threatening
problem. Even for problems that are not life threatening hospitals
worry about getting the payment after providing the service. You
might have a problem if you show up with a cold and you have an
outstanding balance with them of $1000.
I'm not saying it has never happened. We live in a country of 300
million people. Almost any situation you can think of has happened.
I have never heard of a case in the last 30 years where a person died
after an emergency room refused to treat them.
"Kenneth P. Turvey" <··@squeakydolphin.com> writes:
> On 26 Dec 2003 13:04:28 +0100,
> Bj�rn Lindberg <·······@nada.kth.se> wrote:
> > I wrote:
> >
> >> Some facts support your argument and infant mortality is one of them,
> >> but it isn't the best measure of the success of a medical system. The
> >> fact is that most new technologies and drugs come from the United
> >> States.
> >
> > Do you have any evidence for this?
>
> It is a widely accepted fact that the health care system in the United
> States is the best in the world.
Acute care in the USA is pretty good. Care of cronic illness, on the
other hand, is pretty poor. I have personally experienced both
capitalistic and socialistic medical care in USA and Sweden. If I
have a heart attack and am rushed to an emergency room, I expect
decent care in both USA and Sweden. For a minor, non-life threatening
but annoying injury, I can expect prompt care in the USA, but wait a
long time in Sweden. However, if I have a stroke and am physically
and mentally incapacitated such that I am unable to care for myself
ever again, I want to be in Sweden.
One reason that people come to the USA for medical care (and
university education) is that other nations are not in the business of
selling theirs.
> I have anecdotal evidence to
> support my statement, but nothing concrete. I will look into this
> further for my own benefit. I'll forward any results I come up with
> to you since you seem interested in the topic.
The bottom line is that quality health care is expensive. Different
countries ration it by different means. In the USA, you need
insurance and cash. In western europe, you need to wait for some
time. Most of the middle class in the USA seems to be on the closest
thing to the beauracracy of government health care without actually
being the government called HMO.
One can also point out that a market for medical care is a bit
lopsided. When you aren't sick, what do you care what some pill
costs. When your quality of life depends upon it, where else do you
have to go? Add to the mix that hospitals regularly soak it to the
cash payer by charging a lot more than what they would charge to a
person with insurance.
> >> I want to I would much rather be sick in the United
> >> States than in Canada. I think this is probably true for most
> >> Canadians as well.
> >
> > Independent of financial situation? (Honest question; I know very
> > little about either the Usonian or Canadian helthcare systems.)
>
> Actually if the ailment is life threatening, or of an otherwise
> serious nature, I would prefer to be in the United States. The only
> case where I would not make this choice would be a problem that
> required regular expensive treatments, was not life threatening, where
> my income was too high to qualify for government assistance or
> assistance from the hospital (they do that), and too low to afford my
> own health insurance.
>
> Basically without any details I would choose the U.S. over Canada
> the vast majority of the time.
>
> --
> Kenneth P. Turvey <··@squeakydolphin.com>
>
> Artificial Intelligence Algorithms Wiki
> http://ai.squeakydolphin.com
--
Johan KULLSTAM
"Kenneth P. Turvey" <··@squeakydolphin.com> writes:
> On 26 Dec 2003 13:04:28 +0100,
> Bj�rn Lindberg <·······@nada.kth.se> wrote:
> > I wrote:
> >
> >> Some facts support your argument and infant mortality is one of them,
> >> but it isn't the best measure of the success of a medical system. The
> >> fact is that most new technologies and drugs come from the United
> >> States.
> >
> > Do you have any evidence for this?
>
> It is a widely accepted fact that the health care system in the United
> States is the best in the world.
Maybe that is what they tell you in the USA, but I have certainly
never heard of such a claim.
> I have anecdotal evidence to
> support my statement, but nothing concrete.
So you basically have *no* support for your very bold claim then. Then
why bring it up at all?
> I will look into this
> further for my own benefit. I'll forward any results I come up with
> to you since you seem interested in the topic.
Thanks, I'm looking forward to it. I am curious too.
Oh, and I'm still interested wether there is any truth to your
original claim, that "most new technologies and drugs come from the
United States".
Bj�rn
On Thu, 25 Dec 2003 16:41:49 -0800, Frank A Adrian wrote:
> I think the standard anti-gov take on this is that we try to keep all
> babies alive rather than trying to convince high-risk moms to get
> abortions or most of the dead babies come from bad choices made by
> moms-to-be because the government held a gun with the horrid welfare
> system or because they didn't choose to buy healtcare or some such crap
> like that.
You ought to read _Making Economic Sense_, by Murray Rothbard, which
you can get in PDF form at www.mises.org (along with lots of other
great stuff). �15 and �20 are particularly relevant to this thread,
but don't stop there.
--
You have been evaluated. You have a negative reference count. Prepare
to be garbage collected. Persistence is futile. -- Erik Naggum
(setq reply-to
(concatenate 'string "Paul Foley " "<mycroft" '(··@) "actrix.gen.nz>"))
In article <·················@premium.geo.yahoo.akadns.net>,
"Kenneth P. Turvey" <··@squeakydolphin.com> wrote:
>In the United States there
> certainly are a number of people that don't have health insurance, but
> most of them are young, able bodied people who choose to go without it
> in order to save money.
Since you're just speaking anecdotally (only Thomas has cited
numbers), I'll just say that the people I know without health
insurance do not fit your profile. They're working families,
often single parent. Their kids get their medical services
primarily at the ER and their grandparents lose limbs to
treatable diseases like diabetes. Part of this is perhaps
ignorance, but the bulk of it is just the plight of the
working poor -- shit retail jobs that won't offer enough
hours to be full-time, and when they do, the available
insurance options are too expensive.
On Wed, 24 Dec 2003 13:19:55 -0600,
Sashank Varma <····@vanderbilt.edu> wrote:
>
> Since you're just speaking anecdotally (only Thomas has cited
> numbers), I'll just say that the people I know without health
> insurance do not fit your profile.
Actually I did site some numbers in a previous post.
--
Kenneth P. Turvey <··@squeakydolphin.com>
Artificial Intelligence Algorithms Wiki
http://ai.squeakydolphin.com
Marco Antoniotti <·······@cs.nyu.edu> writes:
> Nils G�sche wrote:
> > Marco Antoniotti <·······@cs.nyu.edu> writes:
> >
> >>Given that this morning the radio (NPR) reported that the number
> >>of people in the US that became uninsured since 2001 rose by more
> >>than a million (what is the total now? About 15% of the US
> >>citizens?), I'd say that something is not working here.
> > That number alone doesn't justify any conclusions. Does Bill
> > Gates have health insurance?
>
> I assume he does.
>
> > Does anybody care?
>
> Some of us do.
Huh? Why would anybody? He's got enough money to pay for any kind of
treatment he needs.
> > Many people prefer to live without health insurance because that
> > way they're likely to actually save money.
>
> You are talking about 15% of the population in the US. More than 40
> millions people. I wonder how many of these people would like to
> have insurance but cannot.
Yes, how many. That's the question I was asking, and without
answering it, any such number doesn't say much. Moreover, health
insurance isn't /that/ expensive. Only a few people will be /so/ poor
that they wouldn't be able to pay for it if they really had to. And
they chose /not/ to pay for it, for whatever reason. What would you
do? Force them to pay for it? Why would that be better?
> > Nevertheless, I am forced by the German government to pay an
> > /awful/ amount of money every month for a health insurance I don't
> > use, for potential medical treatment the quality of which
> > (determined in detail by the government) gets worse and worse
> > every year.
>
> Today I made an appointment for a routine physical check up. I got
> my appointment in February. It is not that bad, but it is worse
> than what I was used to in Italy.
Is it so urgent? And that could happen here, too. It's getting
longer and longer until you get an appointment. In England, it is
already normal that you have to wait for months until you get an
appointment even for necessary operations.
> This is not cheap either, and at the same time, there are people who
> cannot get a check-up because they cannot afford it.
Well, that's too bad, although I doubt that anybody really cannot
afford it. If anybody can't, the problem is obviously something else:
Why are they /so/ poor that they cannot afford even that? Here lies
the problem, and /this/ has to be solved.
> As per "being forced by the government to pay etc etc", it is called
> "spreding the risk", i.e. it is exactly what you do with an
> insurance.
No. An insurance is something I pay for when I want the risk
protection it offers. When the government forces me to pay, it just
becomes taxes by another name.
> The difference is that the majority of the people in a given country
> have decided to spread it to you, who cannot know that the German
> system ios getting worse year by year, since, by your own admission,
> you have not dealt with it since the Military visit.
Uhm, I do not live in a vacuum and know lots of people who visit
doctors regularly, and I can read newspapers and statistics. Are you
telling me you derive your views on medical policy solely from your
experiences from your own visits to doctors?
> > The money accumulated there already would be enough to pay for so
> > many operations that I'd look like Michael Jackson if I used that
> > all up. If you want to arrive at any interesting statements at
> > all, you'd have to compare the quality of medical treatment people
> > actually get in the US, insured or not, to what we get in Germany,
> > England, or France. Such comparisons have been done many times,
> > and the US system wins easily. It is really funny to see how
> > eager certain Americans are to repeat our mistakes ;-)
>
> It is obvious that you do not have any first hand understanding of
> the US health Care system. As an example, you have never had to
> deal with you prescription insurance interacting with your pharmacy
> (wait, you just changed job, health insurance and now you also have
> to change pharmacy.)
So? Sorry, but I've really seen worse things in life.
> Apart from that, given that who cannot pay is left out of the system
> (which is what is happening here) it is not surprising that if you
> are in you get decent care.
So, in the US, lots of people are dying every day because they cannot
afford an appendicitis operation? People with heart attacks are left
dying in the street because they don't have enough cash in their
pockets to pay for the ambulance? You know damn well that this
doesn't happen, so why are you pretending it is?
> Morevoer - as the leaders of the Libertarian Party - you are not
> reading the reports of the World Health Organization (they are
> online.) In the 2000 edition - if I remember correctly - the US
> system got ranked 37th or so: right next to Cuba. France got the
> top score to the dismay of the WSJ.
By what measure? This is ridiculous. Are you really saying you
didn't care if you were sent with a heart attack to a Cuban hospital
or a New Yorker? France's medical system couldn't even prevent
thousands of people from dying this year just because of a little hot
temperature (it wasn't hotter than in the US, BTW; nobody died there
because of the weather).
> Moreover, Health Costs in Europe are lower than in the US.
Again, this is ridiculous. How was this measured? Any sane
comparison shows that the percentage people pay of their income for
medical insurance and treatment is much lower in the US. Sure,
certain governments, like ours, try to conceal the numbers a bit. For
instance, officially, I pay EUR 265.66 every month for medical
insurance (including the idiotic "Pflegeversicherung"); however, in
Germany, there is this insane law saying that my employer has to pay
the same amount to my insurance company. Obviously, as he's paying
this because he hired me and only for me, it is in fact myself who is
paying that, too: So, I am really paying EUR 531.32 every month, which
is about US$ 659. And prices and salaries are lower over here in
Europe, so add something to that, if you want to compare it to the US.
And we haven't even come to comparing the /quality/ of treatment, yet.
It is going down every year. The whole system is becoming so
expensive that it is pulling the whole economy down (and contributing
to our enormous unemployment (about 20% in this state (Berlin)) by
raising the cost of labor. As in every socialist system, nobody
knows how much to charge for what -- it is the government who decides
how much doctors may charge for what, and what kind of treatment
people get (less and less every year). Of course, these prices are
made up of thin air and do in no way reflect the real costs of things.
And nobody whatsoever in this whole system has any incentive
whatsoever to keep prices down. That's why it gets more and more
expensive, while the quality keeps dropping. You think you're going
to help the poor by socializing medicine? No Sir, things will only
get worse, and it is precisely the poor who will suffer from it,
first. The rich over here have additional insurances ("Private
Zusatzversicherung") and doctors that will accept only them as
patients.
Health care does cost lots of money. This money is coming from
somewhere, somebody is paying for it, no matter in what system. Yes,
Keynesians think they can pay for things by simply printing money, but
the rest of us know better.
> > I think it was Milton Friedman, of all people, who had the idea of
> > a negative income tax, so it is not quite clear which people
> > you're talking about here.
>
> Come on. You know very well who I am talking about here. Let's try
> to have a bill in Congress rainsing the federally mandated minimum
> wage and let's see what happens.
Oh yeah, minimum wages. When I was a university student, I had very
little money. Usually, I didn't have enough to buy food at the end of
the month, so I'd go look for a job. We had this job agency, where
you could get a job for a few days, say, at an assembly line, and earn
some money that would get you through the rest of the month. It was
really nice; you'd go there, and after an hour or so, you'd have your
job. Then came some smug leftist who's probably never been poor in
his life and raised "minimum wages" because he stupidly believed this
was the way to raise people's pay checks. Overnight, the jobs were
gone. Now, there were always about 300 people waiting in the office,
and every two hours, about five job offers came in. Thank you,
bleeding-heart liberal, whoever you are; if I ever find out whose idea
that was I'll kick him in the spheres for every day I couldn't buy
anything to eat because of his fucking minimum wages. /Every/
economist knows that minimum wages kill jobs. People who go into
politics to command people what to do ought to know at least that.
The same kind of asshole invented rent controls. Suffice it to say
that a few years after some bleeding-hearts introduced them in Germany
in the 80s, the best way to find an apartment, any apartment at all,
was to read death notices in newspapers. That way, you could use the
phone book to find out where the dead lived, knock at their neighbors'
door and ask who the landlord is. That way, you'd at least have a
small chance of getting a shitty little hole to live in. I am not
making this up. Of course, none of the smug leftists who invented
this scheme knew anything about that. Those ex-hippies all lived in
state-subsidized big, cheap apartments and spent their time reading
their books on Tarot cards and magical stones, patting each other on
their backs for how much they've helped the poor again.
(Rent controls were eventually scrapped, despite the horrible clamor
of our bleeding-hearts; rents skyrocketed for about two years, but
that didn't matter at all because it wasn't possible to find
apartments before that, either. Then rents went down. Now, without
rent control, finding an affordable apartment is a breeze, again. You
can even choose one you like. What luxury!)
> It's your vote against mine. But I bet that I have better arguments
> to convince a majority of the people. I just don't have the TVs and
> the newspapers :)
I fear you may be right there. All through the 20th century,
politicians have been saying things like : "Look! Poor people have to
pay rents! Let's make a law so rents become cheaper. Wouldn't that
be nice? Oh, what a great guy I am, having so much compassion for the
poor! Don't you just have to love me, at least as much as I love
myself?" And it worked: People did vote for them, after all.
Merry Christmas,
--
Nils G�sche
"Don't ask for whom the <CTRL-G> tolls."
PGP key ID #xEEFBA4AF
···@cartan.de (Nils G�sche) wrote in message news:<··············@darkstar.cartan.de>...
> Is it so urgent? And that could happen here, too. It's getting
> longer and longer until you get an appointment. In England, it is
> already normal that you have to wait for months until you get an
> appointment even for necessary operations.
>
You're being deliberately misleading here. The question was about a
`routine physical checkup'. I live in the UK (mostly in Scotland not
England but I doubt it's different), and I can tell you from
first-hand experience that the waiting list for something like that is
generally under a week. There is actually a lot of weird and
misleading publicity about our health service: yes there are long
waiting lists, but they are enerally for non-urgent things as far as I
can tell. I've had a couple of experiences of things which could have
been symptoms of something life-threatening and urgent (but weren't
fortunately), and in both cases the result was essentially instant.
For instance, I have tinnitus in one ear, and this *can* be a symptom
of bad things happening inside your head such as cancer. They find
this by doing some kind of scan, and I got one *really* quickly - I
think I was asked if I'd like to go the same afternoon.
Despite the propaganda, the UK's NHS works really quite well. Much
better, say, than the kind of insanity that the private sector has
visited upon itself by virtue of `IT outsourcing', even though that
sort of thing is being pressed upon it (with similarly terrible
results). This isn't to say I dont think it could do better, but the
situation is way more complex than you probably think.
--tim
>>>>> "NG" == Nils G�sche <···@cartan.de> writes:
[...]
NG> Yes, how many. That's the question I was asking, and without
NG> answering it, any such number doesn't say much. Moreover,
NG> health insurance isn't /that/ expensive. [...]
No, it is _that_ expensive. It has been about two years since I priced
it in the US, but I was paying something like $240/mo as a single guy
(Blue Cross/Blue Shield + something). This covered an awful lot with
low deductibles. There are supposed to be cheaper kinds but you'll have
a lot of trouble finding someone who sells them. For a family of 4 with
two kids, I imagine the rate would be $600+/mo. That is a lot of money
in the US where minimum wage is about $6/hr gross.
The issue that I could see is that the general population is clueless
as to what alternative approaches there might be. My touble in
finding a good cheap plan was partly caused by nobody in the company I
was working for wanting anything less than low-deductible fullish
coverage. There is this scheme, called medical savings accounts, that
enables you to save money without the gov't taxing it along with a
high-deductible insurance so after a few healthy years you basically
save enough money in interest-bearing accounts earmarked for health
expenses and simultaneously have a low-premium high-deductible
insurance of catastrophic problems. But the climate is such that the
population does not want it or understand it, the broker sharks panic
when you ask them about it (one guy even said "I would like to know
the name of my employee who told you about this"!) and you basically
cannot get it. Instead you get this super-insurance where you pay
through the nose every month so you never ever pay more than $20 at
the pharmacy.
NG> [...] An insurance is something I pay for when I want the risk
NG> protection it offers. When the government forces me to pay,
NG> it just becomes taxes by another name.
The language for health insurance had been so corrupted in the US that
people make sure 'insurance' exists for expenses they _plan_ to incur
like pregnancy. The issue is not simply that some comparison of the DoD
budget to some social program for the health of the poor doesn't make
sense, the issue is that the working middle class who will get screwed
under almost any system is now lacking even the terminology and the
mindset to articulate _how_ they are getting screwed under the present
scheme. All in my very humble foreign opinion (but I did pay a small
fortune for this 'insurance' thing that got shoved down my throat for most
of the 15 years I spent in the US).
NG> [...] however, in Germany, there is this
NG> insane law saying that my employer has to pay the same amount
NG> to my insurance company. [...]
This insanity is repeated in most countries. In the US it is not the
health insurance costs but social security taxes (and maybe disability
insurance I am not sure). They call it the 'employer share' and you
don't even see it as a tax you paid in your paystub. Here in Turkey
the same deal for 'social insurance' (which does cover health care at
government hospitals) except the 'employer share' is even higher than
the employee share. I don't know if people really believe these don't
come out of the employee's pocket, but maybe they do. I do know an
awful lot of folks here work for minimum wage on paper and get the
remainder of their salary in cash so they get full health coverage and
points for retirement for cheap. This evasion is seen as something
_employers_ do when in fact it is the _employee_ who's cheating not
just for the social insurance tax but also for the income tax. So
maybe the naming scheme does work and people really do believe the
employers are the ones who are actually paying the 'employer shares'.
Anyway, now back on topic: merry Christmas!
BM
Ok. I'll answer this.....
Nils G�sche wrote:
> Marco Antoniotti <·······@cs.nyu.edu> writes:
>
>
>>>Many people prefer to live without health insurance because that
>>>way they're likely to actually save money.
>>
>>You are talking about 15% of the population in the US. More than 40
>>millions people. I wonder how many of these people would like to
>>have insurance but cannot.
>
>
> Yes, how many. That's the question I was asking, and without
> answering it, any such number doesn't say much.
The number is pretty much correct. Half of Germany without Health
Insurance. Reading "Nickel and Dimed" by Barbara Ehrenreich will give
you an idea of the "Bill Gates" who cannot afford Health Insurance.
> Moreover, health
> insurance isn't /that/ expensive. Only a few people will be /so/ poor
> that they wouldn't be able to pay for it if they really had to. And
> they chose /not/ to pay for it, for whatever reason. What would you
> do? Force them to pay for it? Why would that be better?
It is a decision that society as a whole must make. I am not for making
the "poor" pay for health insurance. I want to make sure that they get
medical help when needed. In any case, it is obvious that it is not by
huge deficit-causing tax cuts for the rich that you achieve that goal.
>>>Nevertheless, I am forced by the German government to pay an
>>>/awful/ amount of money every month for a health insurance I don't
>>>use, for potential medical treatment the quality of which
>>>(determined in detail by the government) gets worse and worse
>>>every year.
>>
>>Today I made an appointment for a routine physical check up. I got
>>my appointment in February. It is not that bad, but it is worse
>>than what I was used to in Italy.
>
>
> Is it so urgent? And that could happen here, too. It's getting
> longer and longer until you get an appointment. In England, it is
> already normal that you have to wait for months until you get an
> appointment even for necessary operations.
Yes. But in Europe and Canada, my appointment has to "compete" with a
potential 15% more people, since they are not left out of the system.
>>This is not cheap either, and at the same time, there are people who
>>cannot get a check-up because they cannot afford it.
>
>
> Well, that's too bad, although I doubt that anybody really cannot
> afford it. If anybody can't, the problem is obviously something else:
> Why are they /so/ poor that they cannot afford even that? Here lies
> the problem, and /this/ has to be solved.
They are so poor because in the past years the divide between rich and
poors has been increasing in the Western World. And in the past three
years of almost fully Republican administration the gap has been
widening, with the "middle class" being squished. Sorry to say so, but
is is a fact. And again, a reading of "Nickeld and Dimed" will shed
some light on who really cannot afford health insurance.
>>As per "being forced by the government to pay etc etc", it is called
>>"spreding the risk", i.e. it is exactly what you do with an
>>insurance.
>
>
> No. An insurance is something I pay for when I want the risk
> protection it offers. When the government forces me to pay, it just
> becomes taxes by another name.
The goverment is *you* (unless you live in a less than fully democratic
society where the Prime Minister controls 90% of the TVs and about 70%
of the advertisment market :) ) The system of rpotections and safety
nets that have been put in place have been voted in by majorities of the
people. You can argue what you want, but in a fully democratic society
(one were channels like Fox 5 ar fully counterbalanced by the free
press) the money that you give the government is money that, one way or
the other gets back to you. As protection by the Military, as a more
just society where you know anybody can get the care s/he deserves when
ill, and where losing a job does not result in loosing your health care.
>>The difference is that the majority of the people in a given country
>>have decided to spread it to you, who cannot know that the German
>>system ios getting worse year by year, since, by your own admission,
>>you have not dealt with it since the Military visit.
>
>
> Uhm, I do not live in a vacuum and know lots of people who visit
> doctors regularly, and I can read newspapers and statistics. Are you
> telling me you derive your views on medical policy solely from your
> experiences from your own visits to doctors?
My visit to doctors here is very pleasant. I will not complain about
it. But I know the here and the there. And I know what is wrong here
and what is wrong there. Here needs serious fixing. Much more than the
there.
>>>The money accumulated there already would be enough to pay for so
>>>many operations that I'd look like Michael Jackson if I used that
>>>all up. If you want to arrive at any interesting statements at
>>>all, you'd have to compare the quality of medical treatment people
>>>actually get in the US, insured or not, to what we get in Germany,
>>>England, or France. Such comparisons have been done many times,
>>>and the US system wins easily. It is really funny to see how
>>>eager certain Americans are to repeat our mistakes ;-)
>>
>>It is obvious that you do not have any first hand understanding of
>>the US health Care system. As an example, you have never had to
>>deal with you prescription insurance interacting with your pharmacy
>>(wait, you just changed job, health insurance and now you also have
>>to change pharmacy.)
>
>
> So? Sorry, but I've really seen worse things in life.
So did I. It is out of respect for friends that I do not talk about it.
>>Apart from that, given that who cannot pay is left out of the system
>>(which is what is happening here) it is not surprising that if you
>>are in you get decent care.
>
>
> So, in the US, lots of people are dying every day because they cannot
> afford an appendicitis operation? People with heart attacks are left
> dying in the street because they don't have enough cash in their
> pockets to pay for the ambulance? You know damn well that this
> doesn't happen, so why are you pretending it is?
I am not pretending this is the case. What is the case, is people
"going broke" because they did undergo surgery without having health
insurance, and people going broke because of cronic or long decourse
illnesses. We are also getting in the era of genetic testing where an
insurance company could refuse to take you in, or ask for an exhorbitant
premium based on the results of such test. GATTACA is not so far. How
do you justify an Insurance Company charging an extra premium to single
self-employed males in their twenties and thirties just because they
lived at an address too close to Cristopher Street in NY or in the
Castro District of San Francisco?
>>Morevoer - as the leaders of the Libertarian Party - you are not
>>reading the reports of the World Health Organization (they are
>>online.) In the 2000 edition - if I remember correctly - the US
>>system got ranked 37th or so: right next to Cuba. France got the
>>top score to the dismay of the WSJ.
>
>
> By what measure?
Read the report. It is online. The number of uninsured people in the
US di have a weight.
> This is ridiculous. Are you really saying you
> didn't care if you were sent with a heart attack to a Cuban hospital
> or a New Yorker?
I do not know how health care is in Cuba :) I just found the results
amusing. :)
France's medical system couldn't even prevent
> thousands of people from dying this year just because of a little hot
> temperature (it wasn't hotter than in the US, BTW; nobody died there
> because of the weather).
Not really. This was - at least in NY - a relatively mild summer.
Anyway, in Europe the Kyoto agreements were signed and there *much* less
air conditioning. Maybe it is that the "cause" of the deaths?
>>Moreover, Health Costs in Europe are lower than in the US.
>
>
> Again, this is ridiculous. How was this measured?
Per capita expenditures over GDP or something like that. If memory does
not fail me, these are numbers published yearly by the OECD.
> Any sane
> comparison shows that the percentage people pay of their income for
> medical insurance and treatment is much lower in the US.
Of course. You have more than 40 million people who pay *no* insurance.
It's a bit about the two chickens-two people statistics, isn't it? :)
Apart from that, i would like some sources that I can check about this.
I am willing to review my positions. Of course I will be deeply
suspicious of sources like some of the notorious beltway "Think Tanks". :)
> Sure,
> certain governments, like ours, try to conceal the numbers a bit. For
> instance, officially, I pay EUR 265.66 every month for medical
> insurance (including the idiotic "Pflegeversicherung"); however, in
> Germany, there is this insane law saying that my employer has to pay
> the same amount to my insurance company. Obviously, as he's paying
> this because he hired me and only for me, it is in fact myself who is
> paying that, too: So, I am really paying EUR 531.32 every month, which
> is about US$ 659. And prices and salaries are lower over here in
> Europe, so add something to that, if you want to compare it to the US.
> And we haven't even come to comparing the /quality/ of treatment, yet.
> It is going down every year. The whole system is becoming so
> expensive that it is pulling the whole economy down (and contributing
> to our enormous unemployment (about 20% in this state (Berlin)) by
> raising the cost of labor. As in every socialist system, nobody
> knows how much to charge for what -- it is the government who decides
> how much doctors may charge for what, and what kind of treatment
> people get (less and less every year). Of course, these prices are
> made up of thin air and do in no way reflect the real costs of things.
> And nobody whatsoever in this whole system has any incentive
> whatsoever to keep prices down. That's why it gets more and more
> expensive, while the quality keeps dropping. You think you're going
> to help the poor by socializing medicine? No Sir, things will only
> get worse, and it is precisely the poor who will suffer from it,
> first. The rich over here have additional insurances ("Private
> Zusatzversicherung") and doctors that will accept only them as
> patients.
Thanks for the information. I will not comment on things I do not know.
I am sure some other German guy thinks otherwise. Looks to me that
even some members of the CDU/CSU think otherwise: they had all the time
to change things until the late 90's. Apart from that, how is it then
that "health care costs" are rising here in the US as well (as reported
by the NYT every other day)? If things here are working so well, why is
there any problem?
Finally, I am not surprised that the rich have other insurances in
Germany. What I object to is that "they" (in an inapproriate
generalization) are not willing to share the burden and do anything they
can to get ideologically driven tax cuts that will eventually hamper the
well-being of millions.
>
> Health care does cost lots of money. This money is coming from
> somewhere, somebody is paying for it, no matter in what system. Yes,
> Keynesians think they can pay for things by simply printing money, but
> the rest of us know better.
Seems to me that you are not up-to-date with Keynes. I do not recall
anyhting so specific being advocated. What is apparent to me is that
you want one thing: universal health care. The rest is figuring out how
to pay for it. However, since when you are ill you want to get well
(especially when you have a very threatening condition) it seems to me
that you will always find yourself in a weak position as an agent in the
market. How do you guarantee that no one is in such a weak position?
As I said elsewhere, I am not against a system of privatized healt care
based on insurance. But I do not see at all how you get there without
massive goverment regulation and intervention. Sorry. This is one of
the things "the market" cannot provide for.
>>>I think it was Milton Friedman, of all people, who had the idea of
>>>a negative income tax, so it is not quite clear which people
>>>you're talking about here.
>>
>>Come on. You know very well who I am talking about here. Let's try
>>to have a bill in Congress rainsing the federally mandated minimum
>>wage and let's see what happens.
>
>
> Oh yeah, minimum wages. When I was a university student, I had very
> little money. Usually, I didn't have enough to buy food at the end of
> the month, so I'd go look for a job. We had this job agency, where
> you could get a job for a few days, say, at an assembly line, and earn
> some money that would get you through the rest of the month. It was
> really nice; you'd go there, and after an hour or so, you'd have your
> job. Then came some smug leftist who's probably never been poor in
> his life and raised "minimum wages" because he stupidly believed this
> was the way to raise people's pay checks. Overnight, the jobs were
> gone. Now, there were always about 300 people waiting in the office,
> and every two hours, about five job offers came in. Thank you,
> bleeding-heart liberal, whoever you are; if I ever find out whose idea
> that was I'll kick him in the spheres for every day I couldn't buy
> anything to eat because of his fucking minimum wages. /Every/
> economist knows that minimum wages kill jobs. People who go into
> politics to command people what to do ought to know at least that.
Yes. And every person who works in a less than minimum wage (illegal)
job knows that s/he has to work at least two or three of them to eat and
pay rent (while at the same time being unable to pay for healt insurance
- which the German Goverment, possibly in the CDU/CSU Kohl era, provided
you). Sorry again, but the "every economist" you refer to is a very
restricted category of people here and does not seem to include all
economists.
> The same kind of asshole invented rent controls. Suffice it to say
> that a few years after some bleeding-hearts introduced them in Germany
> in the 80s, the best way to find an apartment, any apartment at all,
> was to read death notices in newspapers. That way, you could use the
> phone book to find out where the dead lived, knock at their neighbors'
> door and ask who the landlord is. That way, you'd at least have a
> small chance of getting a shitty little hole to live in. I am not
> making this up. Of course, none of the smug leftists who invented
> this scheme knew anything about that. Those ex-hippies all lived in
> state-subsidized big, cheap apartments and spent their time reading
> their books on Tarot cards and magical stones, patting each other on
> their backs for how much they've helped the poor again.
>
> (Rent controls were eventually scrapped, despite the horrible clamor
> of our bleeding-hearts; rents skyrocketed for about two years, but
> that didn't matter at all because it wasn't possible to find
> apartments before that, either. Then rents went down. Now, without
> rent control, finding an affordable apartment is a breeze, again. You
> can even choose one you like. What luxury!)
Well. I am against rent controls myself because I know they do not work
well, although i would really like a three bedroom apartment in the
Village for less than 1000 a month :). What made you think I am in
favour of them? I am in favour of letting me know how much the previous
three tenants paid in the last 5 years, but that is another story: I do
want capitalism to work.
Instead. Why did you cut the other nice example I mentioned: federally
mandated paid maternity and paternity leave? That is a nice
discriminatory point. (Incidentally, in the pre-Arnold era, the Popular
Republic of California passed, first among the US States, if I am not
mistaken, a law guaranteeing five weeks of paid maternity leave. I bet
Arnold will not repeal the law.)
>>It's your vote against mine. But I bet that I have better arguments
>>to convince a majority of the people. I just don't have the TVs and
>>the newspapers :)
>
>
> I fear you may be right there. All through the 20th century,
> politicians have been saying things like : "Look! Poor people have to
> pay rents! Let's make a law so rents become cheaper. Wouldn't that
> be nice? Oh, what a great guy I am, having so much compassion for the
> poor! Don't you just have to love me, at least as much as I love
> myself?" And it worked: People did vote for them, after all
Not only they voted for them. It also worked. We luckily did not
become Sovietized and the societies we lived in worked better.
But things are changing. It is *your* message that is constantly
repeated now by a vast majority of journalists and TV stations. Mine is
releagated into these off-topic rants on a newsgroup. Face it. *You*
have the upper hand now. The guy working two minimum wage jobs does
not, and your message is that s/he should not even have that guarantee.
>
> Merry Christmas,
Same to you. And a Happy New Year. Sometimes Scrooge does get the
message :)
Cheers
--
marco
From: Joe Marshall
Subject: Re: [OT] Re: Linux & BSD history
Date:
Message-ID: <n09bmit3.fsf@ccs.neu.edu>
Marco Antoniotti <·······@cs.nyu.edu> writes:
> The goverment is *you* (unless you live in a less than fully
> democratic society where the Prime Minister controls 90% of the TVs
> and about 70% of the advertisment market :) )
Woohoo! That's a howler!
> You can argue what you want, but in a fully democratic society (one
> were channels like Fox 5 ar fully counterbalanced by the free press)
> the money that you give the government is money that, one way or the
> other gets back to you.
You have *got* to be kidding!
First, I don't `give' the government *any* money --- they take it.
Second, I see precious little of that money `given back'.
On Mon, 29 Dec 2003 14:14:35 -0500,
Marco Antoniotti <·······@cs.nyu.edu> wrote:
[Snip]
>
> The goverment is *you*
[Snip]
This is implied only if the decision is unanimous.
[Snip]
> We are also getting in the era of genetic testing where an
> insurance company could refuse to take you in, or ask for an exhorbitant
> premium based on the results of such test.
[Snip]
This is an issue that needs to be dealt with but does not require
socialization of the entire system.
[Snip]
> What is apparent to me is that
> you want one thing: universal health care. The rest is figuring out how
> to pay for it.
[Snip]
OK, I think this is where we have a problem. We don't really want
universal health coverage unless it is the best way to achieve our
real goal. Our real goal is to minimize suffering and needless death
over the long term, not only our generation but our children's and
their children's generation. I don't believe that socialization is
the best way to achieve this goal. There may be things we could do to
improve the situation we currently have, but socialization has too
high a cost for the long term health of our society and the world.
--
Kenneth P. Turvey <··@squeakydolphin.com>
Artificial Intelligence Algorithms Wiki
http://ai.squeakydolphin.com
"Kenneth P. Turvey" <··@squeakydolphin.com> wrote in message
······················@premium.geo.yahoo.akadns.net...
> real goal. Our real goal is to minimize suffering and needless death
> over the long term, not only our generation but our children's and
> their children's generation. I don't believe that socialization is
Well, this is a much more reasonable goal than "more MRI machines" and
though I'm sure I disagree with your views on how to achieve it, I share
that goal and it seems well stated. Of course, that's the easy bit... ;)
--
Coby Beck
(remove #\Space "coby 101 @ big pond . com")
Marco Antoniotti <·······@cs.nyu.edu> writes:
>
> It is a decision that society as a whole must make. I am not for
> making the "poor" pay for health insurance. I want to make sure that
> they get medical help when needed. In any case, it is obvious that it
> is not by huge deficit-causing tax cuts for the rich that you achieve
> that goal.
Well the decision *has been made*, in the USA we do it this way.
Poor people do not pay taxes so how do you cut their taxes?
> They are so poor because in the past years the divide between rich and
> poors has been increasing in the Western World. And in the past three
> years of almost fully Republican administration the gap has been
> widening, with the "middle class" being squished. Sorry to say so,
> but is is a fact. And again, a reading of "Nickeld and Dimed" will
> shed some light on who really cannot afford health insurance.
You are implying that in the US we let people die who do not have
insurance. Doctors and Dentists even help their patients out. I
know mine did when I did not have insurance and was dead broke.
> The goverment is *you* (unless you live in a less than fully
> democratic society where the Prime Minister controls 90% of the TVs
If you are in the US you live in a republic not a democracy
> and about 70% of the advertisment market :) ) The system of
> rpotections and safety nets that have been put in place have been
> voted in by majorities of the people. You can argue what you want,
> but in a fully democratic society (one were channels like Fox 5 ar
> fully counterbalanced by the free press) the money that you give the
fox is new, CNN has been a leftist rag since the 80's. Journelism
in the US is a liberal stronghold.
> government is money that, one way or the other gets back to you. As
> protection by the Military, as a more just society where you know
your argument is that it is just to take my stuff because someone
else "needs" it, is this limited to money or can they take my shoes
or my books also? Also the military is constatitunaly mandated to be
the feds problem, it has no choice in the mater. Now the medical issus
is specificaly not the feds problem.
> anybody can get the care s/he deserves when ill, and where losing a
> job does not result in loosing your health care.
That was another federal fuckup, you see back in the day medical
insurance was an after tax expence, like food or rent. And people
paid for the care they wanted. Then it turned into a ball and chain
when the fed helped out by makeing it not taxible if the employer
paid for it, so the policy became theirs not yours.
>
> I am not pretending this is the case. What is the case, is people
> "going broke" because they did undergo surgery without having health
> insurance, and people going broke because of cronic or long decourse
So people go broke all the time, I have been their. And you are implying
that people would not willingly give up all their stuff to not be dead.
In most cases I do not beleave this is true.
> illnesses. We are also getting in the era of genetic testing where
> an insurance company could refuse to take you in, or ask for an
> exhorbitant premium based on the results of such test. GATTACA is not
> so far. How do you justify an Insurance Company charging an extra
> premium to single self-employed males in their twenties and thirties
> just because they lived at an address too close to Cristopher Street
> in NY or in the Castro District of San Francisco?
Because people who live in those addresses and are single males have
a much higher risk of getting an expensive illness and costing the
insurance company lots of money. Insurance is being a legal bookie
and bookies want to cover the spread and take a few points off of the
top to go home with.
>
> France's medical system couldn't even prevent
> > thousands of people from dying this year just because of a little hot
> > temperature (it wasn't hotter than in the US, BTW; nobody died there
> > because of the weather).
>
> Not really. This was - at least in NY - a relatively mild
> summer. Anyway, in Europe the Kyoto agreements were signed and there
> *much* less air conditioning. Maybe it is that the "cause" of the
> deaths?
Europe has a long history of not honoring treaties, look at frances
illegal debt. And befor Kyoto they still did not have airconditioning.
And lets look at frances state run healthcare system, huge numbers
people were dieing and the medical people did not come back from
vacation. If doctors and nurses did that here they would consider
themselves lucky if they just lost their license's.
>
> >>Moreover, Health Costs in Europe are lower than in the US.
> > Again, this is ridiculous. How was this measured?
>
> Per capita expenditures over GDP or something like that. If memory
> does not fail me, these are numbers published yearly by the OECD.
One of the reasons for that it that socailized systems have laws saying
what they will pay for a dose of a drug, paying generic prices for non
generic drugs. This leaves the US to eat the cost of developing the
drugs. The same thing goes for medical equiptment, they will get 3-5
year old technoligy(mri for example) where the US hosptial has bought
the current model, this forces the US to eat most/all of the cost of
having better tools and europe freeloads off of our R&D money.
>
> > Any sane
> > comparison shows that the percentage people pay of their income for
> > medical insurance and treatment is much lower in the US.
>
> Of course. You have more than 40 million people who pay *no*
> insurance. It's a bit about the two chickens-two people statistics,
> isn't it? :) Apart from that, i would like some sources that I can
> check about this. I am willing to review my positions. Of course I
> will be deeply suspicious of sources like some of the notorious
> beltway "Think Tanks". :)
But what you are not acknoledging is that most/all of the cost of
these uninsured people is factored in to the cost of healtcare,
including insurance preimums.
>
> Finally, I am not surprised that the rich have other insurances in
> Germany. What I object to is that "they" (in an inapproriate
> generalization) are not willing to share the burden and do anything
> they can to get ideologically driven tax cuts that will eventually
> hamper the well-being of millions.
I would say that the simple fact that the "rich" feel the need to fund
such a system out of pocket says the general system is not so good.
>
> > Health care does cost lots of money. This money is coming from
> > somewhere, somebody is paying for it, no matter in what system. Yes,
> > Keynesians think they can pay for things by simply printing money, but
> > the rest of us know better.
>
> Seems to me that you are not up-to-date with Keynes. I do not recall
> anyhting so specific being advocated. What is apparent to me is that
> you want one thing: universal health care. The rest is figuring out
> how to pay for it. However, since when you are ill you want to get
Honestly if you can not pay for it, how can you have it? You can
steal it I guess.
> Instead. Why did you cut the other nice example I mentioned:
> federally mandated paid maternity and paternity leave? That is a nice
> discriminatory point. (Incidentally, in the pre-Arnold era, the
> Popular Republic of California passed, first among the US States, if I
> am not mistaken, a law guaranteeing five weeks of paid maternity
> leave. I bet Arnold will not repeal the law.)
I am all for mothers spending time with their babies, but why should
they get 5 extra weeks of *paid* time off per kid?
>
>
> >>It's your vote against mine. But I bet that I have better arguments
> >>to convince a majority of the people. I just don't have the TVs and
> >>the newspapers :)
> > I fear you may be right there. All through the 20th century,
> > politicians have been saying things like : "Look! Poor people have to
> > pay rents! Let's make a law so rents become cheaper. Wouldn't that
> > be nice? Oh, what a great guy I am, having so much compassion for the
> > poor! Don't you just have to love me, at least as much as I love
> > myself?" And it worked: People did vote for them, after all
>
> Not only they voted for them. It also worked. We luckily did not
> become Sovietized and the societies we lived in worked better.
> But things are changing. It is *your* message that is constantly
> repeated now by a vast majority of journalists and TV stations. Mine
> is releagated into these off-topic rants on a newsgroup. Face it.
> *You* have the upper hand now. The guy working two minimum wage jobs
> does not, and your message is that s/he should not even have that
> guarantee.
If you go back 10-15 years I was that guy and you know something
if you work hard you can fix it. I had some sleep optional years,
so why won't others do the same to improve their lot in life?
marc
>
> > Merry Christmas,
>
> Same to you. And a Happy New Year. Sometimes Scrooge does get the
> message :)
>
> Cheers
>
> --
> marco
"Marc Spitzer" <········@optonline.net> wrote in message
···················@bogomips.optonline.net...
>
> Poor people do not pay taxes so how do you cut their taxes?
This is such a ridiculous statement, how can anyone take any of the rest of
your post seriously?
Maybe you are defining "poor" as homeless and jobless rather than just low
income? Well even then, once you've collected enough quarters, your
purchase of booze is full of taxes isn't it?
Take a moment to come up with a useful definition of "poor" and "taxes" and
then tell me you were serious.
--
Coby Beck
(remove #\Space "coby 101 @ big pond . com")
From: Joe Marshall
Subject: Re: [OT] Re: Linux & BSD history
Date:
Message-ID: <zndarzwe.fsf@ccs.neu.edu>
"Coby Beck" <·····@mercury.bc.ca> writes:
> "Marc Spitzer" <········@optonline.net> wrote in message
> ···················@bogomips.optonline.net...
>>
>> Poor people do not pay taxes so how do you cut their taxes?
>
> This is such a ridiculous statement, how can anyone take any of the rest of
> your post seriously?
In the United States, the bottom 50% of the people that paid income
tax contributed 4% to the total federal tax revenues in 2001.
(Source: IRS)
>>>>> "JM" == Joe Marshall <···@ccs.neu.edu> writes:
[...]
JM> In the United States, the bottom 50% of the people that paid
JM> income tax contributed 4% to the total federal tax revenues in
JM> 2001. (Source: IRS)
Total Fedaral Income tax or total Federal Tax revenue? I would imagine
the latter would include taxes paid by corporations and capital gains
also.
cheers,
BM
From: Joe Marshall
Subject: Re: [OT] Re: Linux & BSD history
Date:
Message-ID: <hdzirokb.fsf@ccs.neu.edu>
Bulent Murtezaoglu <··@acm.org> writes:
>>>>>> "JM" == Joe Marshall <···@ccs.neu.edu> writes:
> [...]
> JM> In the United States, the bottom 50% of the people that paid
> JM> income tax contributed 4% to the total federal tax revenues in
> JM> 2001. (Source: IRS)
>
> Total Fedaral Income tax or total Federal Tax revenue? I would imagine
> the latter would include taxes paid by corporations and capital gains
> also.
Personal income tax only.
It turns out that about 50% of the government tax revenue comes from
personal income tax. The rest are
payroll taxes: about 32%
corporate income taxes: about 12%
excise, customs duties, and other: about 8%
This is really disgusting reading material, though.
The whole issue of taxation and the economy gets very complicated very
quickly. It is trivial to find statistics that support nearly any
point of view. A lot of the policy seems to be founded on the
principle that it is better to do something with no measurable effect
than to do nothing at all.
Joe Marshall <···@ccs.neu.edu> writes:
> It turns out that about 50% of the government tax revenue comes from
> personal income tax. The rest are
>
> payroll taxes: about 32%
> corporate income taxes: about 12%
> excise, customs duties, and other: about 8%
That's federal government tax revenue. A lot of government services
are provided by states and cities and the burden of those taxes is
often disproportionate on lower income people. Note also that
whatever the sources of federal revenue are, the largest single source
of federal expense is interest payments on federal debt because of
deficit spending. That is a pure transfer of wealth from the
taxpayers to the debt holders.
From: Joe Marshall
Subject: Re: [OT] Re: Linux & BSD history
Date:
Message-ID: <ekuk6461.fsf@comcast.net>
Paul Rubin <·············@NOSPAM.invalid> writes:
> Joe Marshall <···@ccs.neu.edu> writes:
>> It turns out that about 50% of the government tax revenue comes from
>> personal income tax. The rest are
>>
>> payroll taxes: about 32%
>> corporate income taxes: about 12%
>> excise, customs duties, and other: about 8%
>
> That's federal government tax revenue.
Yep. I thought I'd keep it simple.
> A lot of government services are provided by states and cities and
> the burden of those taxes is often disproportionate on lower income
> people.
Yes. Of course, those vary from state to state, so it is much harder
to draw conclusions about `The United States' without specifying
*which* state. And because the federal government gives money to
states, you end up with poor people in Wyoming paying for health care
in Florida (and vice versa).
> Note also that whatever the sources of federal revenue are, the
> largest single source of federal expense is interest payments on
> federal debt because of deficit spending. That is a pure transfer
> of wealth from the taxpayers to the debt holders.
Yes, and it can be hard to characterize the debt holders. For
instance, many pension portfolios contain treasury bonds.
As I said earlier, this gets *really* complicated quickly.
--
~jrm
On Tue, 30 Dec 2003 16:19:32 -0500, Joe Marshall wrote:
> The whole issue of taxation and the economy gets very complicated very
> quickly. It is trivial to find statistics that support nearly any
> point of view.
Which is why it is so easy to find people willing to ignore facts and,
instead, switch to simplistic ideology for their decisions. You see, once
you decide to impose *any* tax, one must enter the debate of how much is
enough, bringing these ugly, disputable facts into play. Contrawise, if
you take the stance that any tax is illegitimate, you have an easily
understood, but ultimately unworkable position. So Libertarians get to
propose fantasies as potential realities while ignoring all taxation
facts, merely bleating "Lower, lower, lower". Way to do the heavy lifting
Libs... the heavy lifting of telling what to cut, explaining to a mother
why her daughter is going to die because they don't have the money for a
liver transplant, et. al. situations of the messy world in which we live.
On Tue, 30 Dec 2003 14:00:17 -0800,
Frank A. Adrian <·······@ancar.org> wrote:
[Snip]
>
> Contrawise, if
> you take the stance that any tax is illegitimate, you have an easily
> understood, but ultimately unworkable position. So Libertarians get to
> propose fantasies as potential realities while ignoring all taxation
> facts, merely bleating "Lower, lower, lower".
[Snip]
Some Libertarians would simply say that by looking at the stats one
can see that the tax burden is too high. Whether it is too high by
20% or 50% is really irrelevant. Government control of spending
results in less freedom in pretty much every way. It isn't difficult
to decide that we have crossed over the line.
--
Kenneth P. Turvey <··@squeakydolphin.com>
Artificial Intelligence Algorithms Wiki
http://ai.squeakydolphin.com
"Kenneth P. Turvey" <··@squeakydolphin.com> writes:
> Some Libertarians would simply say that by looking at the stats one
> can see that the tax burden is too high. Whether it is too high by
> 20% or 50% is really irrelevant. Government control of spending
> results in less freedom in pretty much every way. It isn't difficult
> to decide that we have crossed over the line.
That's possible, however, because of poor deals the Government has
gotten us into in the past, certain kinds of spending can't be
eliminated. For example, debt incurred by past deficit spending.
Where is the money for that supposed to come from? When a politician
tells me "I'm going to cut your taxes", I'm afraid I hear it as "I'm
going to take out a $1000 cash advance on YOUR credit card, send you
$300 of it so you can feel like I did something for you, and send the
rest to my friends in the insurance industry. Of course you will not
only have to pay back the whole $1000 later on, but you'll also have
to pay lots of nice fat finance charges on it to my friends at the
credit card company who really love it when I run up public debt for
them". Unless I see spending cuts to go with the tax cuts, the tax
cuts are going to cost me money, not save me money. I want every cent
of the already-existing credit card balance paid off and ONLY THEN do
I want a tax cut.
From: Rahul Jain
Subject: Re: [OT] Re: Linux & BSD history
Date:
Message-ID: <87ad595ujw.fsf@nyct.net>
Paul Rubin <·············@NOSPAM.invalid> writes:
> For example, debt incurred by past deficit spending.
Do you realize that US Treasuries are what give the dollar its strength?
It's not a coincidence that the dollar is at multi-decade lows at the
same time that interest rates are at multi-decade lows. There's also the
issue of the need to flood the market with bonds to keep away deflation,
which would cause a rather serious collapse of the extremely leveraged
private finances.
--
Rahul Jain
·····@nyct.net
Professional Software Developer, Amateur Quantum Mechanicist
Rahul Jain <·····@nyct.net> writes:
> > For example, debt incurred by past deficit spending.
>
> Do you realize that US Treasuries are what give the dollar its strength?
> It's not a coincidence that the dollar is at multi-decade lows at the
> same time that interest rates are at multi-decade lows.
It's only short term rates that are at multi-decade lows. Long term
rates are higher because buyers have lost confidence in the dollar.
The low short term rates are subsidized by high rate long term
borrowing, making the problem even worse.
> There's also the issue of the need to flood the market with bonds to
> keep away deflation, which would cause a rather serious collapse of
> the extremely leveraged private finances.
The threat of deflation comes from the economic downturn caused by
people reacting to the irresponsible deficit spending.
From: Rahul Jain
Subject: Re: [OT] Re: Linux & BSD history
Date:
Message-ID: <87u13gpmkd.fsf@nyct.net>
Paul Rubin <·············@NOSPAM.invalid> writes:
> Rahul Jain <·····@nyct.net> writes:
>> Do you realize that US Treasuries are what give the dollar its strength?
>> It's not a coincidence that the dollar is at multi-decade lows at the
>> same time that interest rates are at multi-decade lows.
>
> It's only short term rates that are at multi-decade lows. Long term
> rates are higher because buyers have lost confidence in the dollar.
> The low short term rates are subsidized by high rate long term
> borrowing, making the problem even worse.
Well, there's more to it than that. Long-term rates are exceptionally
low as well. The low _long-term_ rates are actally being subsidized by
the low short-term rates, allowing banks to short short-term bonds and
buy long-term bonds.
>> There's also the issue of the need to flood the market with bonds to
>> keep away deflation, which would cause a rather serious collapse of
>> the extremely leveraged private finances.
>
> The threat of deflation comes from the economic downturn caused by
> people reacting to the irresponsible deficit spending.
Actually, deficit spending would cause more inflation, as it would force
the government to print money. The reason deflation has been such a
threat recently is that the bubble caused some rather significant
inflation, and deflation would actually be just a return to normal
conditions. However, in the meantime, private debt grew significantly
due to the attractively low interest rates and difficult economic times.
It's quite a complex mess Greenspan is in, and it's partly his own
fault. I would not want to be his successor, even with appropriate
economic training.
--
Rahul Jain
·····@nyct.net
Professional Software Developer, Amateur Quantum Mechanicist
On 30 Dec 2003 19:24:42 -0800, Paul Rubin <> wrote:
>
> That's possible, however, because of poor deals the Government has
> gotten us into in the past, certain kinds of spending can't be
> eliminated. For example, debt incurred by past deficit spending.
> Where is the money for that supposed to come from?
I have to agree that the important number is the amount the government
spent, not how much it took in. There is no excuse for spending 500
billion more than we took in over the last year and then turning
around and then trying to pass another $7,000 in spending per capita
over the next decade (farm subsidies, Medicare drug benefit, money for
Iraq, energy bill).
Bush is most certainly not for limited government.
> I want every cent
> of the already-existing credit card balance paid off and ONLY THEN do
> I want a tax cut.
That might be too much to ask for, but I agree with the priorities you
establish. The problem is that it might be more difficult to reign in
spending if we are running large surpluses. Political necessity isn't
always logical.
--
Kenneth P. Turvey <··@squeakydolphin.com>
Artificial Intelligence Algorithms Wiki
http://ai.squeakydolphin.com
Here's an interesting take on libertarianism. Just so any reader will
know what he's getting into, here's a quotation:
It was a recent letter from a nice fellow responding to one of my
articles that prompted this essay. He asked, as we have all been
asked a million times, who is going to take care of the poor in a
libertarian society? I responded, in substance, you are under
the false impression that the current system is designed to help
the little guy when in fact, its designed to screw the little
guy. That's why there are so many of them (us).
Here's the link:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/ostrowski/ostrowski51.html
--
Fred Gilham ······@csl.sri.com
The density of a textbook must be inversely proportional to the
density of the students using it. --- Dave Stringer-Calvert
"Frank A. Adrian" <·······@ancar.org> writes:
> On Tue, 30 Dec 2003 16:19:32 -0500, Joe Marshall wrote:
>
> > The whole issue of taxation and the economy gets very complicated very
> > quickly. It is trivial to find statistics that support nearly any
> > point of view.
>
> Which is why it is so easy to find people willing to ignore facts and,
> instead, switch to simplistic ideology for their decisions. You see, once
> you decide to impose *any* tax, one must enter the debate of how much is
> enough, bringing these ugly, disputable facts into play. Contrawise, if
> you take the stance that any tax is illegitimate, you have an easily
> understood, but ultimately unworkable position. So Libertarians get to
> propose fantasies as potential realities while ignoring all taxation
> facts, merely bleating "Lower, lower, lower". Way to do the heavy lifting
> Libs... the heavy lifting of telling what to cut, explaining to a mother
> why her daughter is going to die because they don't have the money for a
> liver transplant, et. al. situations of the messy world in which we live.
The hardest part about getting a liver transplant in the US is the liver.
in cases of real need doctors and hospitals wave all/part of their fee and
this is the kind of local or sometimes national intrest that news and talk
shows love. Opera(is it still on) would do a show on this in a second
complete with a foundation/website/toll free number set up to help this
little girl. Corporations also sponser things like this here.
marc
>>>>> "JM" == Joe Marshall <···@ccs.neu.edu> writes:
[...]
JM> It turns out that about 50% of the government tax revenue
JM> comes from personal income tax. The rest are
JM> payroll taxes: about 32% [...]
Something doesn't add up here. Even if the IRS was honest enough to
classify both parts of SS witholdings as payroll taxes, it still seems
high. I don't mean to badger you about the figures but is it possible
that the statistics you are quoting apply to the income tax people end
up owing/paying after income tax witholdings are taken into account?
Then it would make more sense and push up the figure for the
proportion of income tax revenue supplied by the lower 50%.
happy new year,
BM
From: Joe Marshall
Subject: Re: [OT] Re: Linux & BSD history
Date:
Message-ID: <ad5863jk.fsf@comcast.net>
Bulent Murtezaoglu <··@acm.org> writes:
>>>>>> "JM" == Joe Marshall <···@ccs.neu.edu> writes:
> [...]
> JM> It turns out that about 50% of the government tax revenue
> JM> comes from personal income tax. The rest are
>
> JM> payroll taxes: about 32% [...]
>
> Something doesn't add up here. Even if the IRS was honest enough to
> classify both parts of SS witholdings as payroll taxes, it still seems
> high. I don't mean to badger you about the figures but is it possible
> that the statistics you are quoting apply to the income tax people end
> up owing/paying after income tax witholdings are taken into account?
The figures seem to be the amount of federal revenue broken down by
source rather than the amount of individual contribution.
But one should notice that while the lowest earning workers (people
earning less than $20,000 a year) pay no income tax, they still pay
social security, medicare, and unemployment insurance taxes.
--
~jrm
From: Rahul Jain
Subject: Re: [OT] Re: Linux & BSD history
Date:
Message-ID: <87pte4plun.fsf@nyct.net>
Joe Marshall <·············@comcast.net> writes:
> But one should notice that while the lowest earning workers (people
> earning less than $20,000 a year) pay no income tax, they still pay
> social security, medicare, and unemployment insurance taxes.
They're also the ones who are most likely to be in need of those
services at some time in the future.
--
Rahul Jain
·····@nyct.net
Professional Software Developer, Amateur Quantum Mechanicist
Rahul Jain <·····@nyct.net> writes:
> > But one should notice that while the lowest earning workers (people
> > earning less than $20,000 a year) pay no income tax, they still pay
> > social security, medicare, and unemployment insurance taxes.
>
> They're also the ones who are most likely to be in need of those
> services at some time in the future.
Hate to say it, but FICA withholding is the biggest component of those
taxes, and it goes straight into the government trough, where it's
spent on boondoggles for Halliburton. The recipients are people like
Dick Cheney, not low income workers.
From: Rahul Jain
Subject: Re: [OT] Re: Linux & BSD history
Date:
Message-ID: <87oetnrt4n.fsf@nyct.net>
Paul Rubin <·············@NOSPAM.invalid> writes:
> Hate to say it, but FICA withholding is the biggest component of those
> taxes, and it goes straight into the government trough, where it's
> spent on boondoggles for Halliburton. The recipients are people like
> Dick Cheney, not low income workers.
Oh boy. now that's a SERIOUSLY ignorant statement. Dick Cheney gets and
loses nothing from the fact that the US government is giving 60 million
dollars extra to Halliburton but leaving them with a 6 BILLION dollar
liability.
--
Rahul Jain
·····@nyct.net
Professional Software Developer, Amateur Quantum Mechanicist
Bulent Murtezaoglu wrote:
>>>>>>"JM" == Joe Marshall <···@ccs.neu.edu> writes:
>
> [...]
> JM> In the United States, the bottom 50% of the people that paid
> JM> income tax contributed 4% to the total federal tax revenues in
> JM> 2001. (Source: IRS)
>
> Total Fedaral Income tax or total Federal Tax revenue? I would imagine
> the latter would include taxes paid by corporations and capital gains
> also.
Personal Federal income tax.
--Larry
Joe Marshall <···@ccs.neu.edu> writes:
> "Coby Beck" <·····@mercury.bc.ca> writes:
>
> > "Marc Spitzer" <········@optonline.net> wrote in message
> > ···················@bogomips.optonline.net...
> >>
> >> Poor people do not pay taxes so how do you cut their taxes?
> >
> > This is such a ridiculous statement, how can anyone take any of the rest of
> > your post seriously?
>
> In the United States, the bottom 50% of the people that paid income
> tax contributed 4% to the total federal tax revenues in 2001.
> (Source: IRS)
Depending on how you figure what federal taxes are. Me, I include the
FICA which is 16% on all income up to something like $85k and then the
marginal rate drops to 2% thereafter. This tax is
1) amount based on percentage of income
2) is collected by IRS on the 1040 form
thus it looks, feels and quacks just like a duck.
--
Johan KULLSTAM
"Joe Marshall" <···@ccs.neu.edu> wrote in message
·················@ccs.neu.edu...
>
> In the United States, the bottom 50% of the people that paid income
> tax contributed 4% to the total federal tax revenues in 2001.
Bottom in terms of gross income, taxable income or in terms of tax paid? It
is not unheard of to have a very high income and pay little or no tax. As
you noted later, it is hard to extract real meaning from all these stats.
Besides, this is a usenet political discussion on a computer language
newsgroup, what the hell are you doing researching from reliable sources?
--
Coby Beck
(remove #\Space "coby 101 @ big pond . com")
From: Joe Marshall
Subject: Re: [OT] Re: Linux & BSD history
Date:
Message-ID: <65fw63eo.fsf@comcast.net>
"Coby Beck" <·····@mercury.bc.ca> writes:
> "Joe Marshall" <···@ccs.neu.edu> wrote in message
> ·················@ccs.neu.edu...
>>
>> In the United States, the bottom 50% of the people that paid income
>> tax contributed 4% to the total federal tax revenues in 2001.
>
> Bottom in terms of gross income, taxable income or in terms of tax paid?
It was *implied* that this was gross income, but who knows?
> Besides, this is a usenet political discussion on a computer language
> newsgroup, what the hell are you doing researching from reliable sources?
I wanted to join in, so I figured a few statistics would throw some
oil on the fire.
--
~jrm
Marco Antoniotti <·······@cs.nyu.edu> writes:
> Ok. I'll answer this.....
Other people have answered most of your points already, so I'll add
only a few comments.
> Nils G�sche wrote:
> > Yes, how many. That's the question I was asking, and without
> > answering it, any such number doesn't say much.
>
> The number is pretty much correct.
That doesn't mean it contains useful information.
> Half of Germany without Health Insurance. Reading "Nickel and
> Dimed" by Barbara Ehrenreich will give you an idea of the "Bill
> Gates" who cannot afford Health Insurance.
I do not have to read any books to know that being poor sucks. But
this doesn't help us determining how efficient different health care
systems are.
> > Moreover, health insurance isn't /that/ expensive. Only a few
> > people will be /so/ poor that they wouldn't be able to pay for it
> > if they really had to. And they chose /not/ to pay for it, for
> > whatever reason. What would you do? Force them to pay for it?
> > Why would that be better?
>
> It is a decision that society as a whole must make.
Some government official has to decide for me how much my health is
worth? Sorry, I disagree.
> I am not for making the "poor" pay for health insurance. I want to
> make sure that they get medical help when needed. In any case, it
> is obvious that it is not by huge deficit-causing tax cuts for the
> rich that you achieve that goal.
"deficit-causing" tax cuts? It's not tax cuts that cause deficits,
it's government spending. Moreover, tax revenue is not linearly
dependent on tax rates.
> > Why are they /so/ poor that they cannot afford even that? Here
> > lies the problem, and /this/ has to be solved.
>
> They are so poor because in the past years the divide between rich
> and poors has been increasing in the Western World.
I don't know if it is sad or funny how many people are under this
silly misconception. Whether I am poor or not does in no way depend
on Bill Gates's bank account. If you double my bank account, I have
not become poorer, even if you triple Bill Gates's at the same time
(assuming no Keynesian politician has caused a horrible inflation
rate). What increases together with Bill Gates's bank account is not
other people's poverty, but only some leftists' feelings of envy.
> > No. An insurance is something I pay for when I want the risk
> > protection it offers. When the government forces me to pay, it
> > just becomes taxes by another name.
>
> The goverment is *you*
Oh. So, I am Gerhard Schr�der, you are George W. Bush, and my grandpa
was Adolf Hitler? That's an interesting case of personality disorder
you got there ;-)
> The system of rpotections and safety nets that have been put in
> place have been voted in by majorities of the people.
The same majority that voted my grandpa into office, I suppose. :-)
> You can argue what you want, but in a fully democratic society (one
> were channels like Fox 5 ar fully counterbalanced by the free press)
> the money that you give the government is money that, one way or the
> other gets back to you.
Then why not taking a shortcut and leave the money where it belongs in
the first place?
> As protection by the Military, as a more just society where you know
> anybody can get the care s/he deserves when ill, and where losing a
> job does not result in loosing your health care.
Trust me on this, you don't want to get me started on "social justice"
;-). Anyway, of course there might be things that are best provided
by the government. I just happen to think that health care is not one
of them, and whether you agree or disagree, we have to think about
this carefully instead of just acting as if this was some kind of
axiom.
> What is the case, is people "going broke" because they did undergo
> surgery without having health insurance, and people going broke
> because of cronic or long decourse illnesses.
There are also people going broke because they saved the money for
fire insurance. Doesn't mean I am very motivated to pay for other
people's fire insurance, though.
> We are also getting in the era of genetic testing where an insurance
> company could refuse to take you in, or ask for an exhorbitant
> premium based on the results of such test. GATTACA is not so far.
That is an entirely unrelated problem, and one that can easily be
solved with an appropriate law.
> How do you justify an Insurance Company charging an extra premium to
> single self-employed males in their twenties and thirties just
> because they lived at an address too close to Cristopher Street in
> NY or in the Castro District of San Francisco?
Sounds very reasonable to me. Aids wouldn't have spread the way it
did if it wasn't for certain people's life style choices. If they
choose to live risky, let them pay for it, not me.
> >>Morevoer - as the leaders of the Libertarian Party - you are not
> >>reading the reports of the World Health Organization (they are
> >>online.) In the 2000 edition - if I remember correctly - the US
> >>system got ranked 37th or so: right next to Cuba. France got the
> >>top score to the dismay of the WSJ.
> > By what measure?
>
> Read the report. It is online. The number of uninsured people in
> the US di have a weight.
Is this the same WHO that is continually providing incorrect numbers
and predictions on Aids victims in, say, Africa? I do not trust this
source.
> > France's medical system couldn't even prevent thousands of people
> > from dying this year just because of a little hot temperature (it
> > wasn't hotter than in the US, BTW; nobody died there because of
> > the weather).
>
> Not really. This was - at least in NY - a relatively mild
> summer. Anyway, in Europe the Kyoto agreements were signed and there
> *much* less air conditioning. Maybe it is that the "cause" of the
> deaths?
Yes, that's one cause. That, together with a failing medical system.
> >>Moreover, Health Costs in Europe are lower than in the US.
> > Again, this is ridiculous. How was this measured?
>
> Per capita expenditures over GDP or something like that. If memory
> does not fail me, these are numbers published yearly by the OECD.
This is a pretty good measure, but it has one flaw: It doesn't take
the quality of service into account. It might be that some people
want better health care than others. And does this include all the
money American girls spend on silicon implants, for instance?
> > Any sane comparison shows that the percentage people pay of their
> > income for medical insurance and treatment is much lower in the
> > US.
>
> Of course. You have more than 40 million people who pay *no*
> insurance. It's a bit about the two chickens-two people statistics,
> isn't it? :)
Heh. They do not pay for insurance, but they pay for health care when
they need it. Of course, /every/ dollar has to be taken into account
that one way or the other is spent on the health care system.
> Apart from that, i would like some sources that I can check about
> this. I am willing to review my positions. Of course I will be
> deeply suspicious of sources like some of the notorious beltway
> "Think Tanks". :)
Maybe you shouldn't :-)
> Thanks for the information. I will not comment on things I do not
> know. I am sure some other German guy thinks otherwise.
That's goes without saying. Doesn't mean they're right, though :-)
> Looks to me that even some members of the CDU/CSU think otherwise:
> they had all the time to change things until the late 90's.
True. That's why the Frankfurter Allgemeine was ranting against their
"Herz Jesu Sozialismus" all the time ;-) Even our socialist
government acknowledges now, though, that the system has failed and
has to be changed. It failed for the very reasons I am talking about
all the time.
> Apart from that, how is it then that "health care costs" are rising
> here in the US as well (as reported by the NYT every other day)? If
> things here are working so well, why is there any problem?
I don't know. I can think of all kinds of possible reasons, but I'd
rather not speculate. Whenever I looked into it when such a thing
happened, though, it was always the government that raised costs by
often stupid regulations.
> Finally, I am not surprised that the rich have other insurances in
> Germany. What I object to is that "they" (in an inapproriate
> generalization) are not willing to share the burden and do anything
> they can to get ideologically driven tax cuts that will eventually
> hamper the well-being of millions.
Uhm, more than half of every Euro made in this country is eaten up by
the government already. The well-being of millions has already been
"hampered", nevertheless. We tried socialism. It didn't work. We
also tried free capitalism, back in the 1950s and 1960s. Not many
people know this, but not the US, /this/ was the country of free
capitalism back then. That /did/ work. Both of our socialist
experiments, in East as well as West Germany, turned out not to.
> > Health care does cost lots of money. This money is coming from
> > somewhere, somebody is paying for it, no matter in what system.
> > Yes, Keynesians think they can pay for things by simply printing
> > money, but the rest of us know better.
>
> Seems to me that you are not up-to-date with Keynes. I do not
> recall anyhting so specific being advocated.
"pay for things by simply printing money" is what you do when you are
causing inflation. Causing inflation is precisely what Keynesians are
doing whenever they get into power. In Keynes' system, stagflation
simply cannot happen...
> What is apparent to me is that you want one thing: universal health
> care.
I am not sure if that's what I want. What precisely /is/ universal
health care?
> The rest is figuring out how to pay for it. However, since when you
> are ill you want to get well (especially when you have a very
> threatening condition) it seems to me that you will always find
> yourself in a weak position as an agent in the market.
I'd say that when I am ill I am in a weak position in any case :-)
> How do you guarantee that no one is in such a weak position?
I don't. Poor people find themselves in all kinds of bad situations
all the time. The way to fix this is to make people less poor. The
question is whether everybody gets treatment in emergency cases. If
this didn't happen in any given system already, I'd say it would have
to be changed. Now, whatever else people get in addition to that is
always a complicated trade-off. No matter what system we have, this
will never be "universal" in the sense that everybody gets the
theoretical optimum. When you change any system, you will always
replace one imperfect system with another. We can only look at how it
works in practice. And we will see ugly things. But when we change
it, we might see even more ugly things. Socialized medicine will not
create an ideal system where everybody gets the theoretical optimum
care. Once this is clear, we see that we have to search for a system
with a minimum of ugliness. And this system might very well be what's
already there in the US, or something close to it, you cannot simply
dismiss this as impossible.
> As I said elsewhere, I am not against a system of privatized healt
> care based on insurance. But I do not see at all how you get there
> without massive goverment regulation and intervention. Sorry. This
> is one of the things "the market" cannot provide for.
Isn't it doing this already? Sure, some people decide not to pay for
insurance. There might be all kinds of reasons for this. In some
cases, poverty will be the reason. However, this is really not a
trivial problem. What would government regulation look like? Force
everybody to be insured? What about those who could theoretically pay
for insurance, but personally decided they need the money so badly
that they'd rather use it for something else, say, X. Do we really
help them by forcing them to pay for insurance instead? They
themselves obviously disagree, or they would have paid for insurance
and not for X. How do we know this X really isn't more important? We
don't. And the problems only start here. You might want to fix this
by having the government provide a super-cheap insurance for them.
But this creates several other, very severe problems. This is the way
we went in Germany, and now our whole system broke and everybody is
crying, and it turns out to be very, very hard to fix. And as always,
the poor suffer the most.
> > /Every/ economist knows that minimum wages kill jobs. People who
> > go into politics to command people what to do ought to know at
> > least that.
>
> Yes. And every person who works in a less than minimum wage
> (illegal) job knows that s/he has to work at least two or three of
> them to eat and pay rent (while at the same time being unable to pay
> for healt insurance - which the German Goverment, possibly in the
> CDU/CSU Kohl era, provided you). Sorry again, but the "every
> economist" you refer to is a very restricted category of people here
> and does not seem to include all economists.
Yes, /all/ economists. When you raise minimum wages, jobs will go
away. This is so basic, everybody agrees on this. You raise the
price, demand goes down, that's it, even Marxists know that; hey, even
Keynesians do :-) When people work illegally for less than minimum
wages, this alone should show you that people really need these jobs.
You want to take them away from them? Don't you see how evil this is?
"Oh my God, look at all those poor people, having to work for that
little money. Let's kill all those low-paying jobs, so we don't have
to look at all this poverty, anymore!" When you do that, you can
proudly say that wages are really high in your country, but it doesn't
mean you have helped the poor by doing so. It means you have made
their miserable lifes even worse.
This is another common misconception: Employers do not pay wages on a
whim, because they want to be nice or something, or because they fear
public opinion. They pay wages because they need the labor it buys to
make more money. There is always demand for labor. Labor can be
bought on the labor market. In turn, there is always demand for jobs,
because people want the money they get by working for somebody else.
The wages are thus determined by the market. These wages are the
price of labor, and they are not arbitrary at all: They reflect
accurately (unless the government intervenes) what people need, and
how badly. Yes, /every/ economist knows this, again. Every one of
them also knows the evil effects manipulating these market prices will
have. Everybody claiming otherwise is either ignorant or lying.
> Well. I am against rent controls myself because I know they do not
> work well, although i would really like a three bedroom apartment in
> the Village for less than 1000 a month :). What made you think I am
> in favour of them?
Because it's exactly the same kind of thinking (or not-thinking) that
leads to rent controls, that also leads to minimum wages, and possibly
socialized health care, although I admit that this case isn't as
clear. If you understand that rent controls don't work and /why/,
there's still hope for you, though :-)
> Instead. Why did you cut the other nice example I mentioned:
> federally mandated paid maternity and paternity leave? That is a
> nice discriminatory point. (Incidentally, in the pre-Arnold era, the
> Popular Republic of California passed, first among the US States, if
> I am not mistaken, a law guaranteeing five weeks of paid maternity
> leave. I bet Arnold will not repeal the law.)
Because I do not care about this law at all. It raises the cost of
labor a bit, thus having some bad effects for everybody, especially
the poor again, but there are really worse problems at the moment.
> > All through the 20th century, politicians have been saying things
> > like : "Look! Poor people have to pay rents! Let's make a law so
> > rents become cheaper. Wouldn't that be nice? Oh, what a great
> > guy I am, having so much compassion for the poor! Don't you just
> > have to love me, at least as much as I love myself?" And it
> > worked: People did vote for them, after all
>
> Not only they voted for them. It also worked. We luckily did not
> become Sovietized and the societies we lived in worked better.
Did it work? Apparently not in East LA ;-) I'd like things to work
/better/.
> But things are changing. It is *your* message that is constantly
> repeated now by a vast majority of journalists and TV stations.
> Mine is releagated into these off-topic rants on a newsgroup.
Well, not quite, but you have a point here.
> Face it. *You* have the upper hand now.
Yes, the tide is turning, at least I think (and hope) so. Slowly, and
only in traces, but people appear to get the message. Yes, I am quite
happy about this :-)
> The guy working two minimum wage jobs does not, and your message is
> that s/he should not even have that guarantee.
If people had listened to "my" message earlier, maybe there wouldn't
be as many people having to work two minimum wage jobs. That's the
question, that's what this is all about. (Not mentioning that there
wouldn't be any minimum wages in the first place, so in fact there
would be zero people working any positive number of minimum wage jobs
;-)
> > Merry Christmas,
>
> Same to you. And a Happy New Year. Sometimes Scrooge does get the
> message :)
Who knows :-)
Regards,
--
Nils G�sche
"Don't ask for whom the <CTRL-G> tolls."
PGP key ID #xEEFBA4AF
I just read the following article which gives a useful view of the
welfare state --- its origins and its effects --- from an economic
perspective. The law of unintended consequences clearly looms large
here.
http://www.mises.org/fullstory.asp?control=1406
--
Fred Gilham ······@csl.sri.com
I think it's pretty obvious that the worship of that false idol known
as the State has, in the 20th Century, had some very bad effects. The
historians I'm familiar with have settled on the number of dead as 177
million, although I've seen estimates of up to 200 million.
-Bob Wallace
* Fred Gilham writes:
> I just read the following article which gives a useful view of the
> welfare state --- its origins and its effects --- from an economic
> perspective.
From a paleoconservative perspective.
One of these `perspectives' of the eighties.
> The law of unintended consequences clearly looms large here.
>
> http://www.mises.org/fullstory.asp?control=1406
--
"Hurry if you still want to see something. Everything is vanishing."
-- Paul C�zanne (1839-1906)
Hmm, still OT, but if you actually go to the http://www.mises.org/ site to
look up the atricle that Fred G. gave the link to and find it interesting,
here's a decent-looking survey on IP from the libertarian perspective from
the same site:
http://www.mises.org/journals/jls/15_2/15_2_1.pdf
cheers,
BM
On Mon, 22 Dec 2003 12:06:02 -0500,
Marco Antoniotti <·······@cs.nyu.edu> wrote:
>
> Yeah, the Libertarian Party is surely in line with the Heinlein quote.
> Unfortunately in their pamphlet I do not see provisions for people who
> cannot afford health insurance. Nor should I expect any, given the
> extremist ideology of the Libertarian Party. It is also obvious that the
> Libertarian party leaders do not read the WHO yearly reports. The 2000
> one (if memory does not fail me) being quite entertaining :)
They believe that there isn't a role for government in charity. They
believe that people will do a good job of taking care of their
neighbors without using the force of government to make sure that it
happens. They also believe that the people would be more efficient at
providing this care than the government could ever be.
--
Kenneth P. Turvey <··@squeakydolphin.com>
Artificial Intelligence Algorithms Wiki
http://ai.squeakydolphin.com
Kenneth P. Turvey wrote:
> On Mon, 22 Dec 2003 12:06:02 -0500,
> Marco Antoniotti <·······@cs.nyu.edu> wrote:
>
>>Yeah, the Libertarian Party is surely in line with the Heinlein quote.
>>Unfortunately in their pamphlet I do not see provisions for people who
>>cannot afford health insurance. Nor should I expect any, given the
>>extremist ideology of the Libertarian Party. It is also obvious that the
>>Libertarian party leaders do not read the WHO yearly reports. The 2000
>>one (if memory does not fail me) being quite entertaining :)
>
>
> They believe that there isn't a role for government in charity. They
> believe that people will do a good job of taking care of their
> neighbors without using the force of government to make sure that it
> happens. They also believe that the people would be more efficient at
> providing this care than the government could ever be.
Given the colossal inefficiencies in almost every government program
that's been around for very long, that really wouldn't be very hard to
do. Something like 70-75% of US welfare spending is eaten up by the
agencies themselves. The actual (but never admitted) primary purpose of
any bureaucracy is to maximize the number of bureaucrats. Government
bureaucracies tend to be a lot more effective at achieving that goal
than accomplishing their stated goals -- to which their response is
_always_, "We need more money and more people!" Private institutions
have the same instincts, but aren't so insulated from the effects of
their own mismanagement.
--Larry
Pascal Bourguignon wrote:
> If Linus had proceeded like the FSF and requested to obtains signed
> paper assigning the copyright to any line of code added to Linux to
> him or a Linux Foundation, we would not have problems like SCO right
> now.
And we also might not have Linux. Of course there would be an
operating system of that name, developed (in some sense) principally
by Linus Torvalds and basically Unix-like, but I suspect it
wouldn't have attracted the same volume of contributions as
the real Linux did. So perhaps FreeBSD would have become
dominant and SCO would be suing them instead :-),
--
Gareth McCaughan
.sig under construc
Gareth McCaughan wrote:
> So perhaps FreeBSD would have become dominant...
You mean it's not??!?!? :-)
> and SCO would be suing them instead :-),
But FreeBSD and its ilk have a get-out-of-jail-free card, signed by, I
believe, Unix System Laboratories.
--
Fred Gilham ······@csl.sri.com
I was storing data in every conceivable way, including keeping a chain
of sound waves running between the speaker and the microphone. There
was no more memory left to be had....
From: Ville Vainio
Subject: Re: Linux & BSD history [was: (CLtS question) Pathname hosts]
Date:
Message-ID: <du7k74nh4qt.fsf@lehtori.cc.tut.fi>
Fred Gilham <······@snapdragon.csl.sri.com> writes:
> But FreeBSD and its ilk have a get-out-of-jail-free card, signed by, I
> believe, Unix System Laboratories.
And that would stop SCO how?
SCO has explicitly stated that they will be going after BSD next. ATM
they are too busy w/ Linux.
--
Ville Vainio http://www.students.tut.fi/~vainio24
Ville Vainio <······················@spamtut.fi> writes:
> Fred Gilham <······@snapdragon.csl.sri.com> writes:
>
>
> > But FreeBSD and its ilk have a get-out-of-jail-free card, signed by, I
> > believe, Unix System Laboratories.
>
> And that would stop SCO how?
>
> SCO has explicitly stated that they will be going after BSD next. ATM
> they are too busy w/ Linux.
Well, not being a lawyer, I had, perhaps naively, assumed that the
fact that USL had agreed in writing that the BSD code was not covered
by the copyright that SCO now owns would be a good defense.
Unless they're talking about code that was added since.
But then again, suing is easy.
--
Fred Gilham ······@csl.sri.com
There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to
govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters.
--- Daniel Webster
SCO will be out of business before they can go after SCO.
A lesson to be learned from history is Don't Sue IBM. Theyre just getting
warmed up. SCO's claims are empty and the whole situation with them is
rather blatantly an attempt to wring some more money out of a dead hull
of a company, some of it by scamming naive investors after pumping the
price of their stock up with bogus promises of billion-dollar settlements
around the corner. They will lose. While the SCO executives have already been
unloading their stock at these inflated prices and will probably make a few
millions for themselves, the lawsuits will fail and they will bail out
before it's too late. Even some of the investors have gotten an eye-opener
or two and begun to withdraw their money. Micro$oft threw some cash in their
direction to fund their harassment of corporate linux users, which helps
with the FUD campaign against linux a lot.
my .02,
Isildur
who himself really doesn't like linux (use NetBSD! (www.netbsd.org))
On Tue, 23 Dec 2003, Ville Vainio wrote:
> Fred Gilham <······@snapdragon.csl.sri.com> writes:
>
>
> > But FreeBSD and its ilk have a get-out-of-jail-free card, signed by, I
> > believe, Unix System Laboratories.
>
> And that would stop SCO how?
>
> SCO has explicitly stated that they will be going after BSD next. ATM
> they are too busy w/ Linux.
>
> --
> Ville Vainio http://www.students.tut.fi/~vainio24
>
er, that was supposed to say 'SCO will be out of business before they can go
after BSD.'
typos, typos!
isildur
On Tue, 23 Dec 2003, Lord Isildur wrote:
>
> SCO will be out of business before they can go after SCO.
"Lord Isildur" wrote:
>> SCO will be out of business before they can go after SCO.
>
> er, that was supposed to say 'SCO will be out of business before they can go
> after BSD.'
Suing themselves would make about as much sense as everything
else they've been doing for the last while.
--
Gareth McCaughan
.sig under construc
Fred Gilham wrote:
[I said:]
>> So perhaps FreeBSD would have become dominant...
[Fred:]
> You mean it's not??!?!? :-)
Well, *I*'m running it. How much more dominant can you get
than that? :-)
>> and SCO would be suing them instead :-),
>
> But FreeBSD and its ilk have a get-out-of-jail-free card, signed by, I
> believe, Unix System Laboratories.
And SCO has, of course, amply demonstrated that they aren't
interested in pursuing lawsuits that don't rationally appear
to have any chance of success. Um.
--
Gareth McCaughan
.sig under construc
Rayiner Hashem <·······@mindspring.com> wrote:
+---------------
| Actually, the reason was that, at the time Torvalds started the
| project, there wasn't a good x86 version of BSD widely available.
| 386BSD wasn't released until nearly 1 year after the first release of
| Linux.
+---------------
Really?!? I was happily running 386bsd 0.1 for "real work" (albeit
only mail, news, etc.) in July 1992 (on a 33 MHz '486 with 16 MB RAM
and SCSI disk). When was Linux first used for production work by
random outsiders?
+---------------
| However, Linus has been quoted as saying it was because of the
| AT&T lawsuit that he continued Linux beyond the initial stages.
+---------------
Yeah, that pretty much confused the issue for everybody for a while.
-Rob
-----
Rob Warnock <····@rpw3.org>
627 26th Avenue <URL:http://rpw3.org/>
San Mateo, CA 94403 (650)572-2607
> Really?!? I was happily running 386bsd 0.1 for "real work" (albeit
> only mail, news, etc.) in July 1992 (on a 33 MHz '486 with 16 MB RAM
> and SCSI disk). When was Linux first used for production work by
> random outsiders?
386BSD 0.0 was released somewhere in early 1992. However, it was very
flaky, and 0.1 was released in July 1992. Linus started development of
Linux on April 1991, and made the first release in September of 1991.
So the statement that "there was no good 386 version of BSD" when
Linus started work on Linux is definately true. Also, at the
beginning, Linus got a lot of developers because it required less
powerful hardware. Alan Cox noted that the reason he got into Linux in
1992 instead of 386BSD was that 386BSD required an FPU and his 386 did
not have one. Machines with FPUs at that time were rather expensive
--- my FPU-less 486sx cost me a pretty $2500, and one with a regular
486 would have cost a lot more.
* Rob Warnock wrote:
> Well, let's see... He *might* have wanted to use BSD as a base,
> but wasn't that right around the time of the AT&T lawsuit against
> BSDI & UCB? Perhaps he got scared off.
The point I was trying to make is that it was obvious (to me at least
- perhaps I was wrong, but I never thought AT&T stood a serious
chance) in the ~1990 timeframe that there would soon be free BSD
codebase. Legacy applications which required Unix compatibility were
going to be able to run on that. The time was right to move forward:
write a new modern OS with new features. Tragically, that's not what
happened and we ended up with a (very good) Unix clone. I see this as
just a huge failure of imagination, which unfortunatly characterises
the free software movement which excels at producing very good copies
of already existing stuff, but with few exceptions (perl? arc) does
hardly anything new.
Similarly, before getting side tracked I was trying to argue that the
Unix filesystem is not (syntactically or semantically) the last word
in FS design, and it is a completely sensible thing to do for Lisp
systems to support multiple pathname syntaxes. I don't think the CL
pathname system is the last word *either* - in particular it's not
well enough specified, too restrictive, and has various other issues.
But it's a start, and saying that the Unix pathname syntax is all you
need is just stupid.
Here's an example where the Unix syntax is inadequate, and also,
incidentally, where the CL pathname system falls down. ClearCase
provides what is essentially a filesystem which supports serious
version control. ClearCase pathnames have a hairy version component
(so they are extensions of Unix pathnames) and a number of other
significant features which Unix pathnames don't support. The version
component is, in fact, more than the CL pathname system can deal with,
because it's generally a compound object specifying branch, tags &c
&c. Finally, you can specify a `view' to ClearCase which defines
which versions you get by default. I think the view would probably
equate to the pathname host, although that's not really correct.
--tim
Tim Bradshaw <···@cley.com> writes:
> Finally, you can specify a `view' to ClearCase which defines
> which versions you get by default. I think the view would probably
> equate to the pathname host, although that's not really correct.
Sounds to me like it's more related to *default-pathname-defaults*
having a version specified, although, of course, it can't be implemented
as such using the current pathnames specification.
--
Rahul Jain
·····@nyct.net
Professional Software Developer, Amateur Quantum Mechanicist
* Rahul Jain wrote:
> Sounds to me like it's more related to *default-pathname-defaults*
> having a version specified, although, of course, it can't be implemented
> as such using the current pathnames specification.
I thought of that, but I think that (probably) a pathname should carry
around its view and not depend on the ambient value of a special
variable (although kicking it off from such a value would be
sensible). Views can have quite hairy things in them, so when merging
a pathname against another the version selection might change.
But may be that could all be integrated with sufficiently elaborated
versions.
--tim
Tim Bradshaw <···@cley.com> writes:
> I thought of that, but I think that (probably) a pathname should carry
> around its view and not depend on the ambient value of a special
> variable (although kicking it off from such a value would be
> sensible). Views can have quite hairy things in them, so when merging
> a pathname against another the version selection might change.
Fair enough. I do not have the misfortune of ever having to use
ClearCase. :)
--
Rahul Jain
·····@nyct.net
Professional Software Developer, Amateur Quantum Mechanicist
Rahul Jain <·····@nyct.net> writes:
> Tim Bradshaw <···@cley.com> writes:
>
> > I thought of that, but I think that (probably) a pathname should carry
> > around its view and not depend on the ambient value of a special
> > variable (although kicking it off from such a value would be
> > sensible). Views can have quite hairy things in them, so when merging
> > a pathname against another the version selection might change.
>
> Fair enough. I do not have the misfortune of ever having to use
> ClearCase. :)
ClearCase is great until you have to actually do something with
it... ;)
Gregm
>>>>> "Tim" == Tim Bradshaw <···@cley.com> writes:
Tim> * Rahul Jain wrote:
>> Sounds to me like it's more related to *default-pathname-defaults*
>> having a version specified, although, of course, it can't be implemented
>> as such using the current pathnames specification.
Tim> I thought of that, but I think that (probably) a pathname should carry
Tim> around its view and not depend on the ambient value of a special
Tim> variable (although kicking it off from such a value would be
Tim> sensible). Views can have quite hairy things in them, so when merging
Tim> a pathname against another the version selection might change.
I think a view-as-host makes some sense since you can refer to any view
(on Unix, anyway) like /view/<view-name>/.... So <view-name> could be
the host.
Ray
Also, if ReiserFS continues to move in the post-hierarchical
direction Hans Reiser outlined, then perhaps even many
Linux boxes will need much more than unix pathnames.
Yes, ReiserFS brings ACID transactions. But Reiser/namesys
also intend it to bring "paths" (selectors, anyway) like:
[subject/[illegal strike] to/elves from/santa document-type/RFC822
ultimatum]
>>>>> On Sat, 13 Dec 2003 13:18:25 +0000, Tim Bradshaw ("Tim") writes:
Tim> ClearCase pathnames have a hairy version component (so they are
Tim> extensions of Unix pathnames) and a number of other significant
Tim> features which Unix pathnames don't support. The version
Tim> component is, in fact, more than the CL pathname system can deal
Tim> with, because it's generally a compound object specifying
Tim> branch, tags &c&c
Tim> Finally, you can specify a `view' to ClearCase which defines
Tim> which versions you get by default. I think the view would probably
Tim> equate to the pathname host, although that's not really correct.
Just because ClearCase calls something a "version" does not mean
that it would necessarily map to a Lisp pathname version component.
That part of the interface might be accomplished by using some other
pathname component, such as the directory, like you suggested the
"view" would be.
There are ClearCase operations that are outside the scope of the ANSI
Common Lisp pathname system. Perhaps PATHNAME-VERSION would be used
to indicate only part of the "version" information; maybe a standard
monotonically increasing instance number that (along with the host
and directory) corresponds to some ClearCase branch or view selection
criteria that is represented in the pathname or elsewhere in the
Lisp implementation's ClearCase interface.
After all, all that ClearCase stuff is being represented in the Unix
or Windows operating system pathnames, using various similar tricks,
such as the pathname device representing the view.
Also, sometimes (at least) the "file system" can be provide more
information about the "files" that these pathnames correspond to.
That's what file properties are for. (Oh, right. ANSI took
those out, too, sigh.)
Maybe extending PATHNAME-VERSION to allow other objects besides
integers and symbols would be a good idea, but I am not sure that
we have enough collective experience to know what would be better.
Certainly we do not have a sense of how much code would break.
Such an extension was not proposed in the relevent X3J13 cleanup
issue, which was authored by a developer from Symbolics.
Symbolics Genera has its own version control system,
which operated on top of the versioned file system.
PATHNAME objects had VC-BRANCH and VC-VERSION,
I don't know if ANSI allows new components like that.
Their semantics would necessarily be implementation dependant, since
we're talking about wildly differing notions of how files are stored.
In any event, files are only a low-level storage concept,
and more complex notions of how data might be accessed are
built on top of them. That's why version control systems,
sophisticated content-management systems, databases, and
data query and retrieval systems are built on top of them.
Pathnames and files are none of those things.
* Christopher C Stacy wrote:
> There are ClearCase operations that are outside the scope of the ANSI
> Common Lisp pathname system. Perhaps PATHNAME-VERSION would be used
> to indicate only part of the "version" information; maybe a standard
> monotonically increasing instance number that (along with the host
> and directory) corresponds to some ClearCase branch or view selection
> criteria that is represented in the pathname or elsewhere in the
> Lisp implementation's ClearCase interface.
Oh, sorry, I've been confusing. I wasn't trying to suggest that the CC
pathname system could, or should, be wedged into the Lisp pathname
system. Rather, I was putting it forward as a system which was richer
than Unix pathname syntax really allows for, and which, incidentally,
is also richer than the current CL pathname system can easily and
naturally support, I think. It was meant as a counterexample to the
kind of `just represent everything as a Unix pathname' idiocy. There
are filesystems which have notions which are not easily supported by
the Unix filesystem, and I think the CC filesystem is one. It turns
out that the CL pathname system probably needs extending too (or
rather: being redesigned so it's user-extensible), which makes the
point even more strongly!
> After all, all that ClearCase stuff is being represented in the Unix
> or Windows operating system pathnames, using various similar tricks,
> such as the pathname device representing the view.
Yes, it is. but `being represented' at the Unix user-code level is
just `adding some special magic characters to the namestring which is
all the system lets you talk about', and then requiring a user-level
parser to extract some kind of structured object. I'm interested in
pathnames which are a bit richer than strings. (Presumably at the FS
implementation level in a typical Unix, there are more structured
objects, and I guess that the CC filesystem has its own classes of
objects at that level).
--tim
On 10 Dec 2003 05:14:04 +0100, Pascal Bourguignon wrote:
> To revert to the topic, you did not see my point:
> On a unix system, users want to use unix pathnames.
> The unix system therefore presents all file systems to the user with
> the unix path syntax.
Oh yes...and what happens if the foreign filename syntax allows
slashes in its filenames, or supports versioning, or something?
> On a MS-DOS system, users want to use MS-DOS pathnames.
> The MS-DOS system therefore presents all file systems to the user with
> the MS-DOS path syntax.
And what happens when the file name contains a backslash or some other
character that's illegal in Windows file names but perfectly OK on Unix?
> On a MacOSX system, users want to use MacOSX pathnames.
> The MacOSX system therefore presents all file systems to the user with
> the MacOSX path syntax.
And what happens when the file name contains a colon ... ?
> It is crazy to want a system where you dynamically change the path
> syntax depending on the place from where the files come. Ad
> absurdum, (in the case of relaying NFS/Samba/AppleShare/whatever
> this would lead you to write things like:
> HOST:dir>her>home/pascal/Macintosh\ HD:Personal\ Folder:E:\\MYFILE.DOC
No you wouldn't, because (a) NFD makes filenames look like Unix
filenames, so Lisp would necessarily use that syntax; and (b) even if
that weren't so, it doesn't make sense to switch hosts in the middle
of a pathname, so you wouldn't get pathnames with multiple syntaxes
like that. [Presumably you'd have just XHOST:E:\\MYFILE.DOC, or
XHOST:\\MYFILE.DOC or something]
> Ok, this is an ad-absurdum, but I'm saying that it's the same to be
> wanting to have in the same system paths that must be written as:
> HOST1:dir>ect>ory>file.lisp
> HOST2:dir/ect/ory/file.lisp
> HOST3:dir\\ect\\ory\\file.lisp
> HOST4:dir:ect:ory:file.lisp
> just because HOST1 happens to be a remote VMS, HOST2 a remote unix,
> HOST3 a remote MS-DOS and HOST4 a remote MacOS.
Why do you insist on conflating network hosts and pathname hosts? I
have three different filesystems on one Linux machine...yes, Linux can
mount DOS partitions, etc., into the Unix file system and make them
look sort of vaguely like Unix (modulo file permissions are screwed,
some characters are illegal, text files have CR characters at the end
of every line and sometimes have noise on the end of the file, etc.),
but if I wanted to access them from Lisp I'd much rather have Lisp
hosts handling them that understood their native syntaxes.
> And of course, the physical paths must containt the only syntax local
> to the OS where we're running, and there there's no notion of host.
??
> But as it has been remarked:
> 1- URL are not supported (just a fact),
> 2- URL have a unique UNIFORM syntax for all resources.
3- URLs didn't exist when CL was designed.
> So when you want to fetch files on remote hosts, you use in ALL cases:
(not (equal pathname-host network-host))
--
You don't have to agree with me; you can be wrong if you want.
(setq reply-to
(concatenate 'string "Paul Foley " "<mycroft" '(··@) "actrix.gen.nz>"))
Paul Foley <···@below.invalid> writes:
> On 10 Dec 2003 05:14:04 +0100, Pascal Bourguignon wrote:
>
> > To revert to the topic, you did not see my point:
>
> > On a unix system, users want to use unix pathnames.
> > The unix system therefore presents all file systems to the user with
> > the unix path syntax.
>
> Oh yes...and what happens if the foreign filename syntax allows
> slashes in its filenames, or supports versioning, or something?
There are rules, that are edicted by some normative organization, that
are applied. For example, in the case of MacOS, Apple did document and
specify guidelines about how to process Macintosh file and names. They
developed file formats for their forked files (AppleSingle,
AppleDouble, AppleTriple file formats) and naming conventions.
In the case of the slash, since it plays a role similar to the colon
in MacOS, they're swapped (but there are rules because the use of
colon in MacOS is not equivalent to that of the slash in unix).
So, a file named: "Macintosh HD:My Picts:Picture of 28/10/2003" on MacOS
could be named: "/mnt/mac/Macintosh HD/My Picts/Pictures of 28:10:2003"
on unix.
> > On a MS-DOS system, users want to use MS-DOS pathnames.
> > The MS-DOS system therefore presents all file systems to the user with
> > the MS-DOS path syntax.
>
> And what happens when the file name contains a backslash or some other
> character that's illegal in Windows file names but perfectly OK on Unix?
idem
Once upon a time, I've used NFS between MS-Windows-3.11 and SCO unix
without any problem.
> > On a MacOSX system, users want to use MacOSX pathnames.
> > The MacOSX system therefore presents all file systems to the user with
> > the MacOSX path syntax.
>
> And what happens when the file name contains a colon ... ?
See above.
> > It is crazy to want a system where you dynamically change the path
> > syntax depending on the place from where the files come. Ad
> > absurdum, (in the case of relaying NFS/Samba/AppleShare/whatever
> > this would lead you to write things like:
>
> > HOST:dir>her>home/pascal/Macintosh\ HD:Personal\ Folder:E:\\MYFILE.DOC
>
> No you wouldn't, because (a) NFD makes filenames look like Unix
> filenames, so Lisp would necessarily use that syntax; and (b) even if
> that weren't so, it doesn't make sense to switch hosts in the middle
> of a pathname, so you wouldn't get pathnames with multiple syntaxes
> like that. [Presumably you'd have just XHOST:E:\\MYFILE.DOC, or
> XHOST:\\MYFILE.DOC or something]
>
> > Ok, this is an ad-absurdum, but I'm saying that it's the same to be
> > wanting to have in the same system paths that must be written as:
>
> > HOST1:dir>ect>ory>file.lisp
> > HOST2:dir/ect/ory/file.lisp
> > HOST3:dir\\ect\\ory\\file.lisp
> > HOST4:dir:ect:ory:file.lisp
>
> > just because HOST1 happens to be a remote VMS, HOST2 a remote unix,
> > HOST3 a remote MS-DOS and HOST4 a remote MacOS.
>
> Why do you insist on conflating network hosts and pathname hosts?
I don't insists. I'm just showing the absurdity of it!
> I
> have three different filesystems on one Linux machine...yes, Linux can
> mount DOS partitions, etc., into the Unix file system and make them
> look sort of vaguely like Unix (modulo file permissions are screwed,
> some characters are illegal, text files have CR characters at the end
> of every line and sometimes have noise on the end of the file, etc.),
> but if I wanted to access them from Lisp I'd much rather have Lisp
> hosts handling them that understood their native syntaxes.
>
> > And of course, the physical paths must containt the only syntax local
> > to the OS where we're running, and there there's no notion of host.
>
> ??
>
> > But as it has been remarked:
>
> > 1- URL are not supported (just a fact),
>
> > 2- URL have a unique UNIFORM syntax for all resources.
>
> 3- URLs didn't exist when CL was designed.
>
> > So when you want to fetch files on remote hosts, you use in ALL cases:
>
> (not (equal pathname-host network-host))
Perhaps in VMS or some other old OS the notion of network host was
significant (and a path would NAME a remote host and browse their file
systems). But I'm not observing this. All I see is file sharing and
LOCAL paths and path syntax.
Indeed, it seems to me an important simplification and abstraction to
show the world seamlessly and uniformly thru the spectacles of local
conventions.
--
__Pascal_Bourguignon__ . * * . * .* .
http://www.informatimago.com/ . * . .*
There is no worse tyranny than to force * . . /\ () . *
a man to pay for what he does not . . / .\ . * .
want merely because you think it .*. / * \ . .
would be good for him. -- Robert Heinlein . /* o \ .
http://www.theadvocates.org/ * '''||''' .
SCO Spam-magnet: ··········@sco.com ******************
Pascal Bourguignon <····@thalassa.informatimago.com> writes:
> Indeed, it seems to me an important simplification and abstraction to
> show the world seamlessly and uniformly thru the spectacles of local
> conventions.
This was (apparently) the conclusion of the character set world,
and it seems a good one.
"Internationalization" is a process whereby programs are made able to
tolerate changes in locale. Programs are written by people who
understand a great deal more about the whole product development
and delivery process, including the idea of rehosting on different
platforms, varying user interfaces, etc.
Yet in the end, a product is "localized" by allowing a veneer on the
top that permits users in a given locale to use their own local customs
and conventions for interface reference. Internally? Often still quite
general purpose. But for the users, sometimes this limits the generality.
In Lisp, ever since forever, there has been a blurring of who the "user"
is. I can remember in 1978 when I first came to the MACSYMA group at
the MIT Lab for Computer Science (where I later wrote the Revised Maclisp
Manual), the terminology came up in our writing doc of things: who is
this person who we keep calling "the user". We often meant to say
"the programmer" but we didn't have a whole industry of people who'd gone
to school actually studying the art of documenting such things, so we had
to make up the distinction as we went along. C programmers know who they
are: they're the ones who can put the programs in. C application users
know who they are--they're the ones who are stuck using what came out and
have no ability to inject more program. But in Lisp, since EVAL and
COMPILE-FILE and LOAD and all that goodness are left around, the
distinctions are blurred, and we often find ourselves thinking that if we
are "forced to write" (open ":foo.lisp") that this is a "horrible travesty"
that no one would ever put up with. But we are programmers. People write
far more cumbersome things routinely in other languages. Here we're
fussing over a single character "out of place" that seems all too
cumbersome. That's nuts.
Nothing keeps you, the programmer, in a user interface from writing
(PARSE-NAMESTRING (READ-LINE) *MY-DEFAULT-HOST*)
so that the user never has to do this.
And in some cases, as was the case on the Lisp Machine, users _want_
the ability to name any host on the net. The Lisp Machine would have
been a sadly useless device if all it could talk to was its own (fun
but disconnected) file system. The cool thing about the Lisp Machine
was how much better it was at manipulating files remotely than many
native shells.... We often wished we could write our shells in Lisp on
a TOPS-20, but the Lisp Machine, effectively, let us do that.
So yes, let's keep the notion of programmer and user straight in this
discussion, and let's allow it to be a product choice to localize if
that's desirable. Or to expose the general purpose core, if that's
desirable. It should not be a choice forced by the language, which
doesn't know ..
I personally think the real problem is the lack of the operation
(STRING-FOR-HOST pathname host) => string
which should be the inverse of PARSE-NAMESTRING with a non-NIL
host argument. Absent this operation, everyone keeps trying to wish
that the other operations provided would somehow achieve this function.
And that's where the whole things starts to unravel. [I'm compelled
to note that the LispM had this operation, as a :STRING-FOR-HOST message
you could SEND using Zetalisp, and I think probably also
later in New Flavors as an FS:STRING-FOR-HOST generic function. Its
absence is not due to Zetalisp, it's due to the "subsetting" CL
committee folk insisted on doing, wishing NAMESTRING were enough, and
not seeing (exactly because most had only one file system) that
it wasn't.]
Kent M Pitman <······@nhplace.com> writes:
> I personally think the real problem is the lack of the operation
> (STRING-FOR-HOST pathname host) => string which should be the
> inverse of PARSE-NAMESTRING with a non-NIL host argument.
[...]
> Its absence is not due to Zetalisp, it's due to the "subsetting" CL
> committee folk insisted on doing, wishing NAMESTRING were enough,
> and not seeing (exactly because most had only one file system) that
> it wasn't.]
What's the best place to read about the Symbolics pathname API? I have
a 4th ed. Chinenual; is that sufficient? Or is there more good stuff
that came later?
-Peter
--
Peter Seibel ·····@javamonkey.com
Lisp is the red pill. -- John Fraser, comp.lang.lisp
Peter Seibel <·····@javamonkey.com> writes:
> Kent M Pitman <······@nhplace.com> writes:
>
> > I personally think the real problem is the lack of the operation
> > (STRING-FOR-HOST pathname host) => string which should be the
> > inverse of PARSE-NAMESTRING with a non-NIL host argument.
>
> [...]
>
> > Its absence is not due to Zetalisp, it's due to the "subsetting" CL
> > committee folk insisted on doing, wishing NAMESTRING were enough,
> > and not seeing (exactly because most had only one file system) that
> > it wasn't.]
>
> What's the best place to read about the Symbolics pathname API? I have
> a 4th ed. Chinenual; is that sufficient? Or is there more good stuff
> that came later?
The chineuals (pronounced "SHEEN-you-ull", and so-named, for those who
don't know, because it said
"Lisp Machine
Manual"
but the words were wrapped around from back to front, so that on the
cover you mostly saw just:
"Lisp Ma|chine <-- this
Man|ual" <-- and this
)
were written in the early days at MIT when things were
small. The chineual documented the whole operating system, language,
UI, and other stuff. The thickest of them was probably about 3 inches
thick.
Symbolics at its largest had about 1000 people working for it,
although it was then diversified working on a variety of products and
had a complex manufacturing and sales operation. There was a core of
about 20 or 30 people working full time throughout all that time on
the operating system itself, with maybe 5-10 documenters and as many
QA people and for a while as many teachers. The Symbolics doc set in
its final form formed a set of documents about 2 feet across, like an
Encyclopedia, only (I thought) prettier. You can, from time to time,
catch people selling them, sometimes even on this newsgroup.
The chineuals are fun to have for historical reasons, but they don't
scratch the surface of what the Lisp Machine came to be.
Also, in the early days (like when chinenuals were the thing), everything
was Zetalisp and there was no internal/external symbol distinction.
So API was a strange notion, since really everything was accessible and
everyone had sources. (Open source is notorious for tempting people
to use things you hadn't intended...)
It wasn't until the transition from Old Flavors in Zetalisp, using
the (send x :string-for-host) notation to the New Flavors
(fs:string-for-host x) notation that we started using packages based
on CLTL1 and having an internal/external distinction, where the first
hint of "intended API" started to become visible. Though even then I'm
not sure it was as crisp as what you're looking for.
Someone might could get you a list of the FS package external symbols, I
guess. That might be a good start. (I'm away from home as I write this,
so can't just ask my Macivory to type that out...)
Peter Seibel writes:
> What's the best place to read about the Symbolics pathname API? I have
In case you are interested in the TI Explorers pathname facilities, a
good set of manuals is available at the Minicomputer Orphanage. Check
the relevant chapter of the Programming Concepts manual.
Paolo
--
Why Lisp? http://alu.cliki.net/RtL%20Highlight%20Film
Tim Bradshaw <···@cley.com> writes:
> Of course, the Unix filesystem - along with the rest of Unix - is a
> truly amazing feat of engineering. To get something even reasonably
> competent, let alone with the simplicity and elegance of Unix and
> decent performance to boot, to work on a machine as small as a PDP-11
> is just a wonderful feat. We all have a lot to be grateful for:
> instead of those hugely expensive DEC 10s we used to have, we can
> almost buy *personal* PDP-11s nowadays, they're well under 100k for
> quite a decent configuration, after all.
Voltaire was correct: this truly *is* the best of all possible
worlds.
On Wed, 10 Dec 2003 09:41:17 -0500, Joe Marshall <···@ccs.neu.edu> wrote:
> Voltaire was correct: this truly *is* the best of all possible
> worlds.
<ot>
<nitpick>
That was Leibniz. Voltaire (in "Candide") made fun of him.
</nitpick>
</ot>
Edi Weitz <···@agharta.de> writes:
> On Wed, 10 Dec 2003 09:41:17 -0500, Joe Marshall <···@ccs.neu.edu> wrote:
>
> > Voltaire was correct: this truly *is* the best of all possible
> > worlds.
>
> <ot>
> <nitpick>
> That was Leibniz. Voltaire (in "Candide") made fun of him.
> </nitpick>
Yep, definitely sounds like you're 'niz-picking to me.
> </ot>
Edi Weitz <···@agharta.de> writes:
> On Wed, 10 Dec 2003 09:41:17 -0500, Joe Marshall <···@ccs.neu.edu> wrote:
>
>> Voltaire was correct: this truly *is* the best of all possible
>> worlds.
>
> <ot>
> <nitpick>
> That was Leibniz. Voltaire (in "Candide") made fun of him.
> </nitpick>
> </ot>
It was a conscious descision to quote Voltaire rather than Leibniz.
-------------
When they were not arguing, the boredom was so fierce that one day the
old woman ventured to say: ``I should like to know which is worse,
being raped a hundred times by pirates, having a buttock cut off,
running the gauntlet in the Bulgar army, being flogged and hanged in
an auto-da-f�, being dissected and rowing in the galleys ---
experiencing, in a word, all the miseries through which we have passed
--- or else just sitting here and doing nothing?''
``It's a hard question'', said Candide.
Tim Bradshaw <···@cley.com> wrote:
> The tragedy is, that, of course, there is actually life in the Unix
> filesystem. Solaris has real ACLs, and I think has or will soon have
> user-definable file metadata. The Linux slaves have probably already
> copied it, if they haven't already. Progress is being made, even in
> this dark age.
You are, of course, trolling, but for the benefit of those who don't
realize that you are: There is really a great deal of work being done
on Linux filesystems above and beyond POSIX ACLs. Try Googling for any
of the following terms:
SELinux MAC
Intermezzo
ReiserFS
--
Karl A. Krueger <········@example.edu>
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Email address is spamtrapped. s/example/whoi/
"Outlook not so good." -- Magic 8-Ball Software Reviews
* Karl A Krueger wrote:
> You are, of course, trolling, but for the benefit of those who don't
> realize that you are: There is really a great deal of work being done
> on Linux filesystems above and beyond POSIX ACLs. Try Googling for any
> of the following terms:
> SELinux MAC
> Intermezzo
> ReiserFS
So, let's see: SELinux MAC is mandatory access controls. Like those
offered by, say, trusted Solaris and many systems before it. Well,
good to have, but hardly a step in the dark. ReiserFS is a
journalling filesystem with atomic properties & clever space
allocation. Like, say, VxFS. Again, it's good to have, but it's
hardly new technology. Intermezzo is a distributed filesystem, which
may actually be interesting (I'm not really familiar with other
distributed filesystems so I can't comment).
With the possible exception of Intermezzo, this is canonical Linux
software: decent (often very good) knock-offs of things that already
exist commercially. And this is the wave of creativity which has
change software for ever? I think not.
--tim
From: james anderson
Subject: Re: (CLtS question) Pathname hosts
Date:
Message-ID: <3FD4F34E.EDD748C2@setf.de>
Pascal Bourguignon wrote:
>
> Marco Antoniotti <·······@cs.nyu.edu> writes:
> > Well, Mac OS X is pretty much a Unix now (isn't it? :) )
>
> And just to make things more interesting, on MacOSX, when accessing
> files on HFS, as on UFS or NFS, we use unix syntax, not MacOS syntax.
was that a royal we? or am i missing something?
...
james anderson <··············@setf.de> writes:
> Pascal Bourguignon wrote:
> >
> > Marco Antoniotti <·······@cs.nyu.edu> writes:
> > > Well, Mac OS X is pretty much a Unix now (isn't it? :) )
> >
> > And just to make things more interesting, on MacOSX, when accessing
> > files on HFS, as on UFS or NFS, we use unix syntax, not MacOS syntax.
>
> was that a royal we? or am i missing something?
No.
bash-2.05a$ uname
Darwin
bash-2.05a$ /bin/ls /Users/pascal/thalassa/src/lisp
doc fare norvig
emacs-tidbits libapache-mod-lisp-2.2 sursis
encours loaders
bash-2.05a$ df -T
Filesystem Type 1k-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/disk0s5 hfs 58599900 28213328 30130572 49% /
thalassa.informatimago.com:/data
nfs 29036564 26120152 2916412 90% /thalassa/data
/Users/pascal is on a HFS+ volume; /Users/pascal/thalassa is on a
reiserfs volume mounted via NFS.
If I've understood what was being said, we would have had to write:
naiad:Macintosh\ HD:bin:ls naiad:Macintosh\ HD:Users:pascal:thalassa/src/lisp
Or some silly thing like that.
Note that logical pathnames specify only ONE syntax, whatever the
logical host is. MacOSX is unix so we only use unix syntax to name
stuff whatever the host on which this stuff lies.
Another example would be ftp or scp.
--
__Pascal_Bourguignon__ . * * . * .* .
http://www.informatimago.com/ . * . .*
* . . /\ () . *
Living free in Alaska or in Siberia, a . . / .\ . * .
grizzli's life expectancy is 35 years, .*. / * \ . .
but no more than 8 years in captivity. . /* o \ .
http://www.theadvocates.org/ * '''||''' .
SCO Spam-magnet: ··········@sco.com ******************
From: james anderson
Subject: Re: (CLtS question) Pathname hosts
Date:
Message-ID: <3FD59DDF.8A0961CE@setf.de>
i had understood the discussion to pertain to pathname designators in lisp,
not in a unix shell.
Pascal Bourguignon wrote:
>
>
> If I've understood what was being said, we would have had to write:
>
> naiad:Macintosh\ HD:bin:ls naiad:Macintosh\ HD:Users:pascal:thalassa/src/lisp
>
> Or some silly thing like that.
>
you might want to take a look at mcl. people have been using it to do silly
things for about twenty years now.
...
james anderson <··············@setf.de> writes:
> i had understood the discussion to pertain to pathname designators in lisp,
> not in a unix shell.
Physical pathnames in lisp are the same as used in a unix shell, when
the lisp implementation is on unix. At least, it should.
> Pascal Bourguignon wrote:
> >
> >
> > If I've understood what was being said, we would have had to write:
> >
> > naiad:Macintosh\ HD:bin:ls naiad:Macintosh\ HD:Users:pascal:thalassa/src/lisp
> >
> > Or some silly thing like that.
> >
>
> you might want to take a look at mcl. people have been using it to do silly
> things for about twenty years now.
>
> ...
--
__Pascal_Bourguignon__ . * * . * .* .
http://www.informatimago.com/ . * . .*
* . . /\ () . *
Living free in Alaska or in Siberia, a . . / .\ . * .
grizzli's life expectancy is 35 years, .*. / * \ . .
but no more than 8 years in captivity. . /* o \ .
http://www.theadvocates.org/ * '''||''' .
SCO Spam-magnet: ··········@sco.com ******************
Pascal Bourguignon <····@thalassa.informatimago.com> writes:
> james anderson <··············@setf.de> writes:
>
>> i had understood the discussion to pertain to pathname designators in lisp,
>> not in a unix shell.
>
> Physical pathnames in lisp are the same as used in a unix shell, when
> the lisp implementation is on unix. At least, it should.
There is a very strong argument for Lisp implementations on Unix to
prepend a colon to the Unix pathname to generate the Lisp namestring.
At least, there would be if current Lisp implementations on Unix
actually did anything interesting at all with the host field.
On the other hand, since the Common Lisp pathname system goes out of
its way to prevent using Unix pathnames -- not to mention URIs -- as
pathnames, it's not clear what can be gained in discussing the
semantics of Lisp pathnames on Unix besides a rather stong headache.
Christophe
--
http://www-jcsu.jesus.cam.ac.uk/~csr21/ +44 1223 510 299/+44 7729 383 757
(set-pprint-dispatch 'number (lambda (s o) (declare (special b)) (format s b)))
(defvar b "~&Just another Lisp hacker~%") (pprint #36rJesusCollegeCambridge)
Christophe Rhodes wrote:
> Pascal Bourguignon <····@thalassa.informatimago.com> writes:
>
>
>>james anderson <··············@setf.de> writes:
>>
>>
>>>i had understood the discussion to pertain to pathname designators in lisp,
>>>not in a unix shell.
>>
>>Physical pathnames in lisp are the same as used in a unix shell, when
>>the lisp implementation is on unix. At least, it should.
>
>
> There is a very strong argument for Lisp implementations on Unix to
> prepend a colon to the Unix pathname to generate the Lisp namestring.
Why should it be like this?
> At least, there would be if current Lisp implementations on Unix
> actually did anything interesting at all with the host field.
This does not apply solely to UNIX. Since these days I am working
mostly on Windows, I'd say that the same argument applies to other OSes
as well. The truth is that a "new" spec should address essentially the
Windows and the UNIX filesystems (given that Mac OS 9 pathnames are
bound to disappear,) plus UR{NIL} (with the proviso that networking
issues have to be trated in a separate way.)
> On the other hand, since the Common Lisp pathname system goes out of
> its way to prevent using Unix pathnames -- not to mention URIs -- as
> pathnames, it's not clear what can be gained in discussing the
> semantics of Lisp pathnames on Unix besides a rather stong headache.
I agree with this. However, in all fairness, UR{NIL} stuff was not
known at the time of the writing of the ANSI spec.
Cheers
--
Marco
Marco Antoniotti <·······@cs.nyu.edu> writes:
> Christophe Rhodes wrote:
>
>> Pascal Bourguignon <····@thalassa.informatimago.com> writes:
>>
>>>Physical pathnames in lisp are the same as used in a unix shell, when
>>>the lisp implementation is on unix. At least, it should.
>> There is a very strong argument for Lisp implementations on Unix to
>> prepend a colon to the Unix pathname to generate the Lisp namestring.
>
> Why should it be like this?
Because that way the host component can be reliably parsed from Lisp
namestrings, rather than some weird DWIM heuristics applied.
Note that nowhere does it say that a Lisp namestring should correspond
exactly to an underlying OSlike pathname. It is simply a parseable
representation of something.
>> At least, there would be if current Lisp implementations on Unix
>> actually did anything interesting at all with the host field.
>
> This does not apply solely to UNIX. Since these days I am working
> mostly on Windows, I'd say that the same argument applies to other
> OSes as well. The truth is that a "new" spec should address
> essentially the Windows and the UNIX filesystems (given that Mac OS 9
> pathnames are bound to disappear,) plus UR{NIL} (with the proviso that
> networking issues have to be trated in a separate way.)
No, I don't think so. Just because all we have _today_ is effectively
(modulo the dying remnants of the SmugLispWeenies) Windows and Unixoid
wannabes doesn't mean that that's all we'll have ever.
Instead, the standard can be patched up fairly well by deleting the
unfeasible requirements in the specification of COMPILE-FILE-PATHNAME,
and fixing up the other inconsistencies that Paul Dietz is in the
process of discovering . Then, using the available latitude in
implementation details for pathnames, I'm fairly convinced that things
could actually work.
>> On the other hand, since the Common Lisp pathname system goes out of
>> its way to prevent using Unix pathnames -- not to mention URIs -- as
>> pathnames, it's not clear what can be gained in discussing the
>> semantics of Lisp pathnames on Unix besides a rather stong headache.
>
> I agree with this. However, in all fairness, UR{NIL} stuff was not
> known at the time of the writing of the ANSI spec.
No, but the Common Lisp pathname semantics were meant to be able to
express whatever pathname semantics were provided by the Operating
Environment.
Not that I blame the ANSI committee for running out of time, money and
patience.
Christophe
--
http://www-jcsu.jesus.cam.ac.uk/~csr21/ +44 1223 510 299/+44 7729 383 757
(set-pprint-dispatch 'number (lambda (s o) (declare (special b)) (format s b)))
(defvar b "~&Just another Lisp hacker~%") (pprint #36rJesusCollegeCambridge)
Christophe Rhodes <·····@cam.ac.uk> writes:
> Not that I blame the ANSI committee for running out of time, money and
> patience.
Note that the ANSI committee did not exactly run out of money, nor to
some degree out of patience. Harder to say about that last.
The committee per se did cost a little to run, but it was composed of
members and they ran out of money so they dropped out, in some sense
making the votes easier and easier ... (and probably worse and worse,
due to less good representation of the community, with mostly only the
vendors hanging in until the end). Part of the public review was run
while I was laid off, and I continued my work during that time.
old-Harlequin picked me up quickly, fortunately, and kept me funded to
continue that or it would have gotten harder. I bet it would have
continued to fund me, had we run for a bit longer, since it was not yet
in the financial difficulty that brought it down. And, for that
matter, I had some issues that I was wanting so badly (defsystem was
one) that when the committee insisted there was no time to do it,
I promised to cancel dates with my girlfriend just so that there was
budgeted "new time" to do it if they'd only let me. But no one trusted
that to happen. So the resource issue, and to some degree the patience
issue was not exhausted.
Patiences were running short, though, at the corporate level. Vendors
had been holding out for an ANSI standard. It divided the community,
and delayed our ability to claim certain moral high ground. And we had
feature-frozen in 1988, so by 1992 when we were doing nothing more than
desperately needed bug fixes (we added :external-format and a few
character-related issues at the request of our Japanese friends, we
added the LAMBDA macro and DEFINE-SYMBOL-MACRO in order to better support
ISLISP, etc.), people just wanted it over. It just needed to be done.
But I guess my point is that the "who" on behalf it needed to be done
was the community, not the committee.
As an incidental matter, had it not been done when it was, I doubt the
HyperSpec could have happened. And it's my impression that that seems
to have had an important cohesive force on the community in and of
itself, somewhat independent of the standard per se (although I can't
really quantify that and maybe I just like to delude myself into thinking
so because it was my baby).
But in any case, I think the production of CLHS, the creation of
various freeware versions of Lisp, the commitment of various vendors
to interoperation, etc. were all good effects that had been held
hostage, to some extent, to the big question of "when is the definitive
definition going to appear?" since people weren't going to invest in such
things absent a standard.
I've sometimes said that the importance of a standard is to allow
companies to go out of business gracefully. If you go into a store
and ask to buy "fred's proprietary language x", you're mostly not
going to find more than one vendor selling it. But if you make a
standard for language x, you may find multiple vendors. And this
contributes to stability of the language in important ways that
transcend individual vendors.
The standard had to come to an end in order for the community to move
ahead. And yet, the community moving ahead (including to embrace the
web, the rise of Linux, the fall of DEC Alpha, the conversion to DEC
Alpha, to name just a few platform issues), would necessarily make
some of the work we had frozen seem quaint. Things were always in flux
and it was always obvious that what we'd done to date could be repaired
with more time. It was just and always would be a race. I think in
appropriate historical context, we did ok.
But what I still find fascinating is that after so much change, there
are STILL people who are willing to talk as if there will be no change
in the future, and so they point to the operating systems of today
and say "couldn't we simplify the pathname system now that we have only
x and y and z feature" as if it was
(a) true that we'd beaten competition out of the market,
(b) good that we'd beaten competition out of the market,
(c) impossible for competition to ever need to return to the market, and
(d) impossible for competition to ever return to the market
whether we need it or not.
We learn from history that evolution favors momentary advantage over
long-term advantage. One well-placed survival trait can cause an
otherwise ill-prepared organism to survive and dominate. One
ill-omitted survival trait can cause an otherwise well-prepared
organism to die out in an untimely way. There are a great many useful
features lost in those operating systems and file systems the death of
which is implicitly celebrated by someone willing to say "couldn't we
now throw out a lot of this baggage and unify things". Common Lisp
was and is equipped to survive a great deal of back and forth while
such battles between file systems and operating systems are fought
out, and I would hope that at the first sign of calm in the
marketplace, we would not doff that protective shielding and say
"we'll never need this again", if for no other reason than that not
all of us who have used the "losers" in those battles think that the
winners are better than what went before. So some of us cling to the
hope that we might see better than Windows and/or Linux in the future.
(And no, I don't even just mean Lisp-based better things, though that
would be fun, too.)
Christophe Rhodes wrote:
> Marco Antoniotti <·······@cs.nyu.edu> writes:
>
>
>>Christophe Rhodes wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Pascal Bourguignon <····@thalassa.informatimago.com> writes:
>>>
>>>
>>>>Physical pathnames in lisp are the same as used in a unix shell, when
>>>>the lisp implementation is on unix. At least, it should.
>>>
>>>There is a very strong argument for Lisp implementations on Unix to
>>>prepend a colon to the Unix pathname to generate the Lisp namestring.
>>
>>Why should it be like this?
>
>
> Because that way the host component can be reliably parsed from Lisp
> namestrings, rather than some weird DWIM heuristics applied.
So, would you force people to write
(open ":foo/bar.lisp")
?
I don't think this will go down well. OTOH I am all for cleaning up all
the DWIM gotchas that you have in the pathname stuff.
(pathname-directory (parse-namestring "/tmp"))
on UNIX being one of them.
>
> Note that nowhere does it say that a Lisp namestring should correspond
> exactly to an underlying OSlike pathname. It is simply a parseable
> representation of something.
This is a very good argument. UR{NIL} could be a solution.
>
>
>>>At least, there would be if current Lisp implementations on Unix
>>>actually did anything interesting at all with the host field.
>>
>>This does not apply solely to UNIX. Since these days I am working
>>mostly on Windows, I'd say that the same argument applies to other
>>OSes as well. The truth is that a "new" spec should address
>>essentially the Windows and the UNIX filesystems (given that Mac OS 9
>>pathnames are bound to disappear,) plus UR{NIL} (with the proviso that
>>networking issues have to be trated in a separate way.)
>
>
> No, I don't think so. Just because all we have _today_ is effectively
> (modulo the dying remnants of the SmugLispWeenies) Windows and Unixoid
> wannabes doesn't mean that that's all we'll have ever.
Yes. In principle I agree, however, the masses must be accommodated :)
>
> Instead, the standard can be patched up fairly well by deleting the
> unfeasible requirements in the specification of COMPILE-FILE-PATHNAME,
> and fixing up the other inconsistencies that Paul Dietz is in the
> process of discovering . Then, using the available latitude in
> implementation details for pathnames, I'm fairly convinced that things
> could actually work.
I am all for that. But I still have the problem of
(pathname-device (parse-namestring "D:\\"))
in ACL and LW. Not to mention
(pathname-name (parse-namestring ".cshrc"))
on UNIX. I do not want *any* latitute in the implementation of these
matters. I just want *one* DWIM for these. I can even settle for
(pathname-directory (parse-namestring "UNIX:/tmp")) ==> (42)
as long as that is the one and only result I can expect; always (and
without looking at the file system :) )
Cheers
--
marco
Marco Antoniotti <·······@cs.nyu.edu> writes:
> Christophe Rhodes wrote:
> > Marco Antoniotti <·······@cs.nyu.edu> writes:
> >
> >>Christophe Rhodes wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>>Pascal Bourguignon <····@thalassa.informatimago.com> writes:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>>Physical pathnames in lisp are the same as used in a unix shell, when
> >>>>the lisp implementation is on unix. At least, it should.
> >>>
> >>>There is a very strong argument for Lisp implementations on Unix to
> >>>prepend a colon to the Unix pathname to generate the Lisp namestring.
> >>
> >>Why should it be like this?
> > Because that way the host component can be reliably parsed from Lisp
> > namestrings, rather than some weird DWIM heuristics applied.
>
> So, would you force people to write
>
> (open ":foo/bar.lisp")
>
> ?
I'd be happy to see #0p"..." parse relative to localhost as an extension
to the language.
But in practice on the Lisp Machine I don't recall ever writing ':'
initially. I just always knew that I could. Mostly I just set my
pathname defaults to be right so that ordinary namestrings would
parse right, since almost nothing has colons in it.
These days, I do a lot of work with a companion PC for my LispM and I
just set up file hosts 'C' and 'D' to open connections to the C or
D device of my local NT box, so
C:\foo.bar (or C:/foo.bar, since I accept both syntaxes)
really means file host 'C' which, coincidentally, is what LispWorks also
does.
> I don't think this will go down well. OTOH I am all for cleaning up
> all the DWIM gotchas that you have in the pathname stuff.
>
> (pathname-directory (parse-namestring "/tmp"))
>
> on UNIX being one of them.
Do you mean the lack of trailing slash?
I prefer that on file systems which have directories as files,
/foo would mean the file containing the dir info (which has peers
of /bar and /baz even if those aren't dirs) and /foo/ would mean
the directory one down from the root under the name 'foo' containing
files like /foo/x and /foo/x.lisp).
IMO there's only something wrong with pathname-directory if it's
intended to get (:ABSOLUTE "TMP") out of "/tmp". If, instead, it's
DIRECTORY that does this, that's another matter. I think DIRECTORY
should find exactly one file when you give it a non-wildcard file spec
and not a wild dir spec. That is, (directory #P"/tmp") should return
(#P"/tmp") where as (directory "#P/tmp/") or (directory "#P/tmp/*")
should return that directory's contents.
Doing otherwise gets into HUGE problems about merging rules.
> > Note that nowhere does it say that a Lisp namestring should
> > correspond
> > exactly to an underlying OSlike pathname. It is simply a parseable
> > representation of something.
>
> This is a very good argument. UR{NIL} could be a solution.
Heh. Never noticed that NIL there. Cute.
I don't think it's a solution, though. In general, never bind yourself
to a solution that is not committed to responding to your needs. I don't
think URN/URI/URL schemes are committed to naming files. Geez, they don't
even do a good job of naming files now in the few common operating systems.
> I am all for that. But I still have the problem of
>
> (pathname-device (parse-namestring "D:\\"))
>
> in ACL and LW.
This is an example of something that works badly in UR{NIL}.
> Not to mention
>
> (pathname-name (parse-namestring ".cshrc"))
>
> on UNIX. I do not want *any* latitute
[latitude]
> in the implementation of these
> matters.
But you can't control what different file systems do from within Lisp.
In some file systems, .lisp is an invalid filename. In others it's
an ordinary file with no extension. In others it's an invisible file.
If what you mean is no latitude in how this works on a per-file-system
basis, you can win. But if you mean across file systems, I don't think
so.
> I just want *one* DWIM for these. I can even settle for
>
> (pathname-directory (parse-namestring "UNIX:/tmp")) ==> (42)
>
> as long as that is the one and only result I can expect; always (and
> without looking at the file system :) )
You have to look at the file system if you ever want to write a program
that manipulates the file system on someone else's behalf.
There was a file system called Eunice that was layered on VAX VMS (I think),
which if I recall gave the illusion of mixed-case filenames, but by prefixing
each lowercase letter with a "$" in the filesystem, so that what seemed to
Lisp like "Foo" was really "F$O$O" or some such thing. We didn't at the
time we came out with Lisp know what people would use externally to support
the model you used from within Lisp--we left that to the vendor exactly
because it was too prone to variation.
It's ok to make a layered standard that someone can voluntarily adhere to,
and then to allow market pressure to select that. But it would be nice
if a later drift to another way of doing things voided only that layered
standard and not some corrected version of the central spec.
That means SOME people would have to look at the file system but perhaps
a lot of people wouldn't, if they stayed within the subset of file
systems that seem to use the contemporary common basis.
Kent M Pitman <······@nhplace.com> writes:
> But you can't control what different file systems do from within Lisp.
> In some file systems, .lisp is an invalid filename. In others it's
> an ordinary file with no extension. In others it's an invisible file.
>
> If what you mean is no latitude in how this works on a per-file-system
> basis, you can win. But if you mean across file systems, I don't think
> so.
We're meaning : no latitude inside a given platform.
There should be substandards for Common-Lisp on POSIX
Common-Lisp on unix
Common-Lisp on MS-Windows
Common-Lisp on MacOS
Common-Lisp on VMS
etc.
--
__Pascal_Bourguignon__ . * * . * .* .
http://www.informatimago.com/ . * . .*
There is no worse tyranny than to force * . . /\ () . *
a man to pay for what he does not . . / .\ . * .
want merely because you think it .*. / * \ . .
would be good for him. -- Robert Heinlein . /* o \ .
http://www.theadvocates.org/ * '''||''' .
SCO Spam-magnet: ··········@sco.com ******************
Pascal Bourguignon wrote:
> Kent M Pitman <······@nhplace.com> writes:
>
>>But you can't control what different file systems do from within Lisp.
>>In some file systems, .lisp is an invalid filename. In others it's
>>an ordinary file with no extension. In others it's an invisible file.
>>
>>If what you mean is no latitude in how this works on a per-file-system
>>basis, you can win. But if you mean across file systems, I don't think
>>so.
>
>
> We're meaning : no latitude inside a given platform.
>
> There should be substandards for Common-Lisp on POSIX
> Common-Lisp on unix
> Common-Lisp on MS-Windows
> Common-Lisp on MacOS
> Common-Lisp on VMS
> etc.
Thank you, thank you, merci, grazie, obrigado, gracias, euXaristw, arigato!
Cheers
--
Marco
+ Kent M Pitman <······@nhplace.com>:
| There was a file system called Eunice that was layered on VAX VMS
| (I think),
Eunice was more than a file system. It was a unix emulation
environment (on top of VMS as you said). It was good enough to let
you compile and run (reasonably generic) C programs written for unix,
among other things.
| which if I recall gave the illusion of mixed-case filenames,
It would have to, in order to pretend to be unix.
| but by prefixing each lowercase letter with a "$" in the filesystem,
| so that what seemed to Lisp like "Foo" was really "F$O$O" or some
| such thing.
Or maybe it was the other way around, i.e., "$FOO". I don't recall
exactly, but it would make more sense given the lower case conventions
of the unix world.
--
* Harald Hanche-Olsen <URL:http://www.math.ntnu.no/~hanche/>
- Debating gives most of us much more psychological satisfaction
than thinking does: but it deprives us of whatever chance there is
of getting closer to the truth. -- C.P. Snow
Marco Antoniotti wrote:
> I don't think this will go down well. OTOH I am all for cleaning up all
> the DWIM gotchas that you have in the pathname stuff.
> (pathname-directory (parse-namestring "/tmp"))
> on UNIX being one of them.
Many free lisps (CLISP, CMUCL, GCL, ECL, and maybe SBCL which I do not have in
my system) seem to agree on the fact that "/tmp" is parsed as a file name and
"/tmp/" as a directory name. I do not think any of them checks the filesystem
for that.
Juanjo
Juan Jose Garcia-Ripoll <····@arrakis.es> wrote:
> Many free lisps (CLISP, CMUCL, GCL, ECL, and maybe SBCL which I do not have in
> my system) seem to agree on the fact that "/tmp" is parsed as a file name and
> "/tmp/" as a directory name. I do not think any of them checks the filesystem
> for that.
No. But some lisps will implicitly convert #p"/tmp" (file) into
#p"/tmp/" (directory) in the middle of some operation -- TRUENAME
being the common case.
Cheers,
-- Nikodemus
Nikodemus Siivola wrote:
> Juan Jose Garcia-Ripoll <····@arrakis.es> wrote:
>
>> Many free lisps (CLISP, CMUCL, GCL, ECL, and maybe SBCL which I do not
>> have in my system) seem to agree on the fact that "/tmp" is parsed as a
>> file name and "/tmp/" as a directory name. I do not think any of them
>> checks the filesystem for that.
>
> No. But some lisps will implicitly convert #p"/tmp" (file) into
> #p"/tmp/" (directory) in the middle of some operation -- TRUENAME
> being the common case.
That is rather counterintuitive to me. I would rather get an error message,
or leave the pathname unchanged in systems that allow me to treat a directory
as a file. (Although even the latest option is questionable).
[ECL]> (truename "/tmp")
Filename "/tmp" actually points to a directory
Broken at TRUENAME.
[ECL]> (truename "/tmp/")
#P"/tmp/"
Top level.
[CLISP]> (truename "/tmp")
*** - TRUENAME: "/tmp" names a directory, not a file
[CLISP]> (truename "/tmp/")
#P"/tmp/"
[CMUCL]* (truename "/tmp")
#p"/tmp"
Juan Jose Garcia-Ripoll wrote:
> Nikodemus Siivola wrote:
>
>
>>Juan Jose Garcia-Ripoll <····@arrakis.es> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Many free lisps (CLISP, CMUCL, GCL, ECL, and maybe SBCL which I do not
>>>have in my system) seem to agree on the fact that "/tmp" is parsed as a
>>>file name and "/tmp/" as a directory name. I do not think any of them
>>>checks the filesystem for that.
>>
>>No. But some lisps will implicitly convert #p"/tmp" (file) into
>>#p"/tmp/" (directory) in the middle of some operation -- TRUENAME
>>being the common case.
>
>
> That is rather counterintuitive to me. I would rather get an error message,
> or leave the pathname unchanged in systems that allow me to treat a directory
> as a file. (Although even the latest option is questionable).
>
> [ECL]> (truename "/tmp")
> Filename "/tmp" actually points to a directory
> Broken at TRUENAME.
> [ECL]> (truename "/tmp/")
> #P"/tmp/"
> Top level.
>
> [CLISP]> (truename "/tmp")
> *** - TRUENAME: "/tmp" names a directory, not a file
> [CLISP]> (truename "/tmp/")
> #P"/tmp/"
>
> [CMUCL]* (truename "/tmp")
> #p"/tmp"
Exactly my point. Given a certain HOST the PARSE-NAMESTRING (and -
looks like) the TRUENAME rules should be portable.
Cheers
--
Marco
Christophe Rhodes <·····@cam.ac.uk> writes:
> Pascal Bourguignon <····@thalassa.informatimago.com> writes:
>
> > james anderson <··············@setf.de> writes:
> >
> >> i had understood the discussion to pertain to pathname designators in lisp,
> >> not in a unix shell.
> >
> > Physical pathnames in lisp are the same as used in a unix shell, when
> > the lisp implementation is on unix. At least, it should.
>
> There is a very strong argument for Lisp implementations on Unix to
> prepend a colon to the Unix pathname to generate the Lisp namestring.
> At least, there would be if current Lisp implementations on Unix
> actually did anything interesting at all with the host field.
>
> On the other hand, since the Common Lisp pathname system goes out of
> its way to prevent using Unix pathnames -- not to mention URIs -- as
> pathnames, it's not clear what can be gained in discussing the
> semantics of Lisp pathnames on Unix besides a rather stong headache.
Agreed. In my opinion, this area needs much work for a next release
of the standard.
--
__Pascal_Bourguignon__ . * * . * .* .
http://www.informatimago.com/ . * . .*
* . . /\ () . *
Living free in Alaska or in Siberia, a . . / .\ . * .
grizzli's life expectancy is 35 years, .*. / * \ . .
but no more than 8 years in captivity. . /* o \ .
http://www.theadvocates.org/ * '''||''' .
SCO Spam-magnet: ··········@sco.com ******************
From: james anderson
Subject: Re: (CLtS question) Pathname hosts
Date:
Message-ID: <3FD5B3E5.1880CABE@setf.de>
Pascal Bourguignon wrote:
>
> james anderson <··············@setf.de> writes:
>
> > i had understood the discussion to pertain to pathname designators in lisp,
> > not in a unix shell.
>
> Physical pathnames in lisp are the same as used in a unix shell, when
> the lisp implementation is on unix. At least, it should.
when i am concerned about portability, i try to remain aware that, with the
exception of logical pathname nemestrings, "[i]n general, the syntax of
namestrings involves the use of implementation-defined conventions, usually
those customary for the file system in which the named file resides."
according to which, "implementation dependent" is twice removed, that is, both
by custom and by uncertainty, from a necessary identity with any given file
system syntax. not to mention, that, where the underlying os goes to some
lengths to support universal resource locators as generic stream designators,
and provides means for them to subsume posix-syntax file designators, the
syntax which is customary in the underlying os, is not necessarily that which
is customary in the usual unix shells.
i suspect also that, given the compatibility issues, the mcl implementors made
the correct decision, to avail themselves of the latitude which that
specification permits, and to allow that, at least for an interim period, the
"implementation-defined" notation for physical pathnames remain close to that
which was customary under os9.
>
> > Pascal Bourguignon wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > > If I've understood what was being said, we would have had to write:
> > >
> > > naiad:Macintosh\ HD:bin:ls naiad:Macintosh\ HD:Users:pascal:thalassa/src/lisp
> > >
> > > Or some silly thing like that.
> > >
> >
> > you might want to take a look at mcl. people have been using it to do silly
> > things for about twenty years now.
> >
> > ...
...
Pascal Bourguignon <····@thalassa.informatimago.com> wrote in message news:<··············@thalassa.informatimago.com>...
> james anderson <··············@setf.de> writes:
>
> > i had understood the discussion to pertain to pathname designators in lisp,
> > not in a unix shell.
>
> Physical pathnames in lisp are the same as used in a unix shell, when
> the lisp implementation is on unix. At least, it should.
>
> > Pascal Bourguignon wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > > If I've understood what was being said, we would have had to write:
> > >
> > > naiad:Macintosh\ HD:bin:ls naiad:Macintosh\ HD:Users:pascal:thalassa/src/lisp
> > >
> > > Or some silly thing like that.
> > >
> >
> > you might want to take a look at mcl. people have been using it to do silly
> > things for about twenty years now.
I think there's a bit of talking at cross purposes here because Mac OS
X supports both the older, Mac OS Classic colon delimiter in Carbon
(MCL, a Carbon app, still uses the colon for pathnames), and the Unix
forward slash delimiter in the BSD subsystem (OpenMCL, which runs from
the unix command line and as a Cocoa app uses the forward slash for
pathnames). For example, the unix shell uses the forward slash, of
course, while AppleScript still uses the colon.
MCL
Welcome to Macintosh Common Lisp Version 5.0!
? (full-pathname (user-homedir-pathname))
#P"MacOSX:Applications:MCL 5.0:"
OpenMCL
Welcome to OpenMCL Version (Alpha: Darwin) 0.14-031018!
? (full-pathname (user-homedir-pathname))
#P"/Users/raffaelc/"
·······@mediaone.net (Raffael Cavallaro) writes:
> I think there's a bit of talking at cross purposes here because Mac OS
> X supports both the older, Mac OS Classic colon delimiter in Carbon
> (MCL, a Carbon app, still uses the colon for pathnames), and the Unix
> forward slash delimiter in the BSD subsystem (OpenMCL, which runs from
> the unix command line and as a Cocoa app uses the forward slash for
> pathnames). For example, the unix shell uses the forward slash, of
> course, while AppleScript still uses the colon.
Let's keep sane and just assume
that on MacOS all paths are written with colons
and on MacOSX all paths are written with slashes.
> MCL
>
> Welcome to Macintosh Common Lisp Version 5.0!
> ? (full-pathname (user-homedir-pathname))
> #P"MacOSX:Applications:MCL 5.0:"
>
>
> OpenMCL
>
> Welcome to OpenMCL Version (Alpha: Darwin) 0.14-031018!
> ? (full-pathname (user-homedir-pathname))
> #P"/Users/raffaelc/"
--
__Pascal_Bourguignon__ . * * . * .* .
http://www.informatimago.com/ . * . .*
There is no worse tyranny than to force * . . /\ () . *
a man to pay for what he does not . . / .\ . * .
want merely because you think it .*. / * \ . .
would be good for him. -- Robert Heinlein . /* o \ .
http://www.theadvocates.org/ * '''||''' .
SCO Spam-magnet: ··········@sco.com ******************
From: james anderson
Subject: Re: (CLtS question) Pathname hosts
Date:
Message-ID: <3FD99837.947B55B1@setf.de>
Pascal Bourguignon wrote:
>
> Let's keep sane and just assume
> that on MacOS all paths are written with colons
> and on MacOSX all paths are written with slashes.
>
> > MCL
> >
> > Welcome to Macintosh Common Lisp Version 5.0!
> > ? (full-pathname (user-homedir-pathname))
> > #P"MacOSX:Applications:MCL 5.0:"
-------^^^^^^
Pascal Bourguignon <····@thalassa.informatimago.com> wrote in message news:<··············@thalassa.informatimago.com>...
> Let's keep sane and just assume
> that on MacOS all paths are written with colons
> and on MacOSX all paths are written with slashes.
Just in case it wasn't completely clear from James Anderson's reply,
on Mac OS X *both* separators are used.
In AppleScript, on Mac OS *X*, all paths are written with colons.
In Terminal.app, on Mac OS *X* all paths are written with forward
slashes.
So, you actually have *both* path separators in use on the same OS,
depending on which convention the application supports. The OS
supports both. Carbon supports the colon, and the BSD subsystem
supports the forward slash, as do all unices.
And, lest one think that Carbon means Mac OS 8/9 apps only, realize
that the OS X native versions of Adobe Photoshop, AppleWorks, BBedit,
Internet Explorer, and MCL, are all Carbon applications.
In article <····························@posting.google.com>,
·······@mediaone.net (Raffael Cavallaro) wrote:
> Pascal Bourguignon <····@thalassa.informatimago.com> wrote in message news:<··············@thalassa.informatimago.com>...
> > Let's keep sane and just assume
> > that on MacOS all paths are written with colons
> > and on MacOSX all paths are written with slashes.
>
> Just in case it wasn't completely clear from James Anderson's reply,
> on Mac OS X *both* separators are used.
>
> In AppleScript, on Mac OS *X*, all paths are written with colons.
> In Terminal.app, on Mac OS *X* all paths are written with forward
> slashes.
Additionally the disk/directory hierarchy is different.
A mounted disk:
carbon #p"data:foo:bar.lisp"
cocoa #p"/Volumes/data/foo/bar.lisp"
>
> So, you actually have *both* path separators in use on the same OS,
> depending on which convention the application supports. The OS
> supports both. Carbon supports the colon, and the BSD subsystem
> supports the forward slash, as do all unices.
>
> And, lest one think that Carbon means Mac OS 8/9 apps only, realize
> that the OS X native versions of Adobe Photoshop, AppleWorks, BBedit,
> Internet Explorer, and MCL, are all Carbon applications.