There a bunch of people who post in this newsgroup
every day telling us how Lisp is inadequate for
their purposes. I don't think these people write
any programs at all, and that they are just trolls
who should be ignored. They are extraordinarily
boring. I suggest that instead of debating them,
if you feel the need to respond to them, just advise
them to write their program in whatever their favorite
language is that's so much better than Lisp,
and then come back and show us how it's done,
so that we may learn from them.
That's my answer from now on.
You know who you are.
On Fri, 07 Oct 2005 18:29:08 GMT, <······@news.dtpq.com> wrote:
>
> There a bunch of people who post in this newsgroup
Actually only one, or maybe two. The sentences all have similar
syntactic structures in "its" posts, and until recently, it was
usually a gmane email. It is easy to have multiple posting
"identities", but the "it" behind the mask remains the same. "Its"
behavior is predictable, as you note.
A killfile with expirations works nicely against "it".
--
In Common Lisp quite a few aspects of pathname semantics are left to
the implementation.
On Fri, 07 Oct 2005 18:29:08 GMT, ······@news.dtpq.com (Christopher
C. Stacy) wrote:
>There a bunch of people who post in this newsgroup
>every day telling us how Lisp is inadequate for
>their purposes. I don't think these people write
>any programs at all, and that they are just trolls
>who should be ignored. They are extraordinarily
>boring. I suggest that instead of debating them,
>if you feel the need to respond to them, just advise
>them to write their program in whatever their favorite
>language is that's so much better than Lisp,
>and then come back and show us how it's done,
>so that we may learn from them.
>
One more troll?...
>That's my answer from now on.
>
>You know who you are.
This is me.
OK, take Paul Graham's book "Practical Common Lisp". Very good
book, by the way. See chapter 3: "Practical: A Simple Database".
Assume that I want to use this example to convince the IT director
that "Lisp is Better". He calls few other guys and says: You
implement this in Visual Basic, you implement this in Perl, you
implement this in Java and we will see". Do such mental experiment.
Tell me why "Lisp is better" and how to convince the guy.
A.L.
P.S. I started programming in Lisp when Lisp was not Lisp, but LISP
and programs were written on paper tape. I still like Lisp, but
guys, don't be afraid to confront the reality: Lisp is very nice
language, but is dead! DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, as dead as Latin and
Esperanto. What dosn't mean that you can have fun playing with it,
but don't try to convince anybody that this is The Savior and that
the world would look differently if everybody speaks Lisp. Maybe,
but the world has choosen other path. Stay in your little sandbox
and be happy.
>Do such mental experiment.
> Tell me why "Lisp is better" and how to convince the guy.
Just because The Man won't let Lisp be used doesn't mean we give up our
cause of helping our fellow programmers see the light :-D
Some agree with us, many don't. But the some are generally happy that
they learnt Lisp and are usually great programmers :-)
> Lisp is very nice language, but is dead! DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, as dead as Latin and
> Esperanto.
gosh :-O
such blasphemy!! Kill lisp? First they'll have to get past us!
> but don't try to convince anybody that this is The Savior and that
> the world would look differently if everybody speaks Lisp.
Hey, it probably took plenty years before the whole world agreed that
Earth was flat .... but eventually, everyone came around right? except
perhaps for the pockets of tribal people living deep inside the Amazon
or something
On Sat, 08 Oct 2005 08:25:03 -0500, A.L. <········@kapturek62.com> wrote:
> P.S. I started programming in Lisp when Lisp was not Lisp, but LISP
> and programs were written on paper tape. I still like Lisp, but
> guys, don't be afraid to confront the reality: Lisp is very nice
> language, but is dead! DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, as dead as Latin and
> Esperanto. What dosn't mean that you can have fun playing with it,
> but don't try to convince anybody that this is The Savior and that
> the world would look differently if everybody speaks Lisp. Maybe,
> but the world has choosen other path. Stay in your little sandbox
> and be happy.
Sure. So, what's the reason you're wasting your precious time in a
newsgroup for a dead language (and for quite some time)? Are you a
necrophiliac?
--
Lisp is not dead, it just smells funny.
Real email: (replace (subseq ·········@agharta.de" 5) "edi")
On Sat, 08 Oct 2005 15:54:17 +0200, Edi Weitz <········@agharta.de>
wrote:
>On Sat, 08 Oct 2005 08:25:03 -0500, A.L. <········@kapturek62.com> wrote:
>
>> P.S. I started programming in Lisp when Lisp was not Lisp, but LISP
>> and programs were written on paper tape. I still like Lisp, but
>> guys, don't be afraid to confront the reality: Lisp is very nice
>> language, but is dead! DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, as dead as Latin and
>> Esperanto. What dosn't mean that you can have fun playing with it,
>> but don't try to convince anybody that this is The Savior and that
>> the world would look differently if everybody speaks Lisp. Maybe,
>> but the world has choosen other path. Stay in your little sandbox
>> and be happy.
>
>Sure. So, what's the reason you're wasting your precious time in a
>newsgroup for a dead language (and for quite some time)? Are you a
>necrophiliac?
Because I like Lisp even if it is dead. But I don't LOVE it like
you. Niether I have fixation.
A.L.
P.S. And for one more reason: entertainment. This group is better
than porn. Porn is boring; anyway you can make THIS only in 8
essential ways. But here I can find 1001 argumenst "why Lisp is
better".
A.L. <········@kapturek62.com> writes:
> P.S. And for one more reason: entertainment. This group is better
> than porn. Porn is boring; anyway you can make THIS only in 8
And Lisp porn is even better than Lisp and porn:
http://lemonodor.com/archives/000028.html
Paolo
--
Why Lisp? http://wiki.alu.org/RtL%20Highlight%20Film
Recommended Common Lisp libraries/tools:
- ASDF/ASDF-INSTALL: system building/installation
- CL-PPCRE: regular expressions
- CFFI: Foreign Function Interface
Edi Weitz wrote:
>
> I don't love Lisp, I love my wife and my kid. I just earn my money
> with Lisp, and I don't care if it is dead as long as it pays my rent.
That's what I don't like about Lisp, Scheme, and the other HLLs. At
least in Seattle, it's difficult to get paid using them. Admittedly I
think Seattle is a Microsoft ghetto and I would have fared better in
Silicon Valley, had I moved there once upon a time. But I've got
people that I love up here, and I won't be giving that up for a
language. I hope that SeaFunc someday turns the tide of what languages
are used for paying work in this region. Admittedly there are some
jobs at Microsoft Research if you've got a PhD and whatnot, but I'm
talking about HLLs for garden variety industrial tasks, not R&D.
Cheers,
Brandon J. Van Every
(cruise (director (of SeaFunc)
'(Seattle Functional Programmers)))
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SeaFunc
On 12 Oct 2005 01:59:54 -0700, "Cruise Director" <···········@gmail.com> wrote:
> That's what I don't like about Lisp, Scheme, and the other HLLs. At
> least in Seattle, it's difficult to get paid using them.
It's certainly a lot harder if you're looking for a position as an
employee. I work free-lance. There are a lot of customers out there
who don't care about the programming language you use as long as you
get the job done.
Cheers,
Edi.
--
Lisp is not dead, it just smells funny.
Real email: (replace (subseq ·········@agharta.de" 5) "edi")
Edi Weitz wrote:
> On 12 Oct 2005 01:59:54 -0700, "Cruise Director" <···········@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > That's what I don't like about Lisp, Scheme, and the other HLLs. At
> > least in Seattle, it's difficult to get paid using them.
>
> It's certainly a lot harder if you're looking for a position as an
> employee. I work free-lance. There are a lot of customers out there
> who don't care about the programming language you use as long as you
> get the job done.
I suppose the art of "yeah I can build whatever the hell you want" is
not something I've seriously addressed yet. Somehow, when I declared
myself a "Consultant" 7 years ago, I managed to only do R&D. But hey,
back then "Consultant" simply meant "now you will pay me more money."
:-)
Cheers,
Brandon J. Van Every
(cruise (director (of SeaFunc)
'(Seattle Functional Programmers)))
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SeaFunc
>>>>> "CD" == Cruise Director <···········@gmail.com> writes:
CD> Edi Weitz wrote:
>> It's certainly a lot harder if you're looking for a position as
>> an employee. I work free-lance. There are a lot of customers
>> out there who don't care about the programming language you use
>> as long as you get the job done.
CD> I suppose the art of "yeah I can build whatever the hell you
CD> want" is not something I've seriously addressed yet. [...]
That's only part of what Edi said. There's also the "oh shit, how do
I do what I promised I would" part. Lisp tends help with that bit.
cheers,
BM
THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT BRANDON J. VAN EVERY BEFORE REPLYING TO
ONE OF HIS POSTS
1. He has never designed any game, nor contributed to the design of
any game, which has ever seen the light of day, despite referring
to himself as a "game designer." (In rebuttal, he pointed out his
"one complete game" from "1983" on the "Atari 800" which he showed
to his "8th grade math teacher.")
2. He has never been employed in the game industry, in any way,
shape, manner or form. Despite this, for some reason he managed
to get named as an Independent Games Festival judge; a curious
turn of events, since their stated intent is to appoint
"professionals in the game industry" (their quote, not his).
3. In fact, the only programming job he had listed on his resume was
for only "2 years" ending in "1998," working in C and assembly on
a graphics driver, as a "Sr. Software Engineer" -- a curious
title, since this was his first (and only) job in the software
industry. There is no evidence he has used C++, nor any other
language, professionally. (And the company in question is
defunct, anyway, so there is no way to verify his claim.)
4. The other jobs he has mentioned having after this one and only
items on his resume are: "yard maintenance work," "painting
apartments," "scrubbing floors," "sub minimum wage signature
gathering," and working for "$5/hour at a Vietnamese restaurant."
5. The only personal project he actually wrote code for and made
available in some manner was Free3d, a software 3D rendering
engine. Stating that its goals were to be "100% efficient, 100%
portable" and to release it in a "one year time frame," which he
started in "1993" and abandoned in "1996," admitting that it
"barely drew even a single polygon" and "did hardly anything in
the 3D department."
6. Almost every Internet community (Usenet newsgroup, mailing list,
etc.) he has ever introduced himself to has resulted in him
repeating the same pattern: asking leading questions, demanding
people do things his way, becoming hostile, annoying the other
participants, alienating them, and finally leaving in disgust.
7. Of the projects (open source and otherwise) whose communities he
has (briefly) joined, he has never contributed anything tangible
in terms of code or documentation.
8. The project he has intermittently claimed to be working on, Ocean
Mars, is vaporware -- and is one of his admitted "failures." He
allegedly sunk "nine months of full time 60 hours/week" and about
"$80K" into it (at least; he "stopped counting") with only a
"spherical hexified icosahedron" display to show for it (only
allegedly, since it has never been shown or demonstrated
publicly).
9. Since his embarassing frustration with his Ocean Mars project, he
has decided that C and C++ aren't "worth anything as a resume
skill anymore," and embarked on a quest in 2003 to find a
high-level language that will suit his needs. After more than a
year, at least ten languages, and not having even "written a line
of code" in any of them, he still has yet to find a language that
will suit him.
10. Finally, despite vehemently insisting that he is not a troll, many
people quite understandingly have great difficulty distinguishing
his public behavior from that of a troll.
Edi Weitz wrote:
> On 12 Oct 2005 01:59:54 -0700, "Cruise Director" <···········@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> That's what I don't like about Lisp, Scheme, and the other HLLs. At
>> least in Seattle, it's difficult to get paid using them.
>
> It's certainly a lot harder if you're looking for a position as an
> employee. I work free-lance. There are a lot of customers out there
> who don't care about the programming language you use as long as you
> get the job done.
How does that work? Do you just happen to know the right people who
aren't antipathic against Lisp and other technologies (i.e. does this
just work for you), or do you think it's actually viable to do this in
general, not on a huge scale like Java, but as an actual company in the
industry?
It'd be interesting to know how to lift Lisp into the marketplace for
general consulting and application development, not just on a one-person
scale.
--
State, the new religion from the friendly guys who brought you fascism.
On Wed, 12 Oct 2005 13:14:59 +0200, Ulrich Hobelmann <···········@web.de> wrote:
> How does that work? Do you just happen to know the right people who
> aren't antipathic against Lisp and other technologies (i.e. does
> this just work for you), or do you think it's actually viable to do
> this in general, not on a huge scale like Java, but as an actual
> company in the industry?
For some of my customers I've worked for years - they basically trust
me that I do the right thing for them. They get Win32 apps or web
apps - why should they care which language they're written in?
I also have one customer who wanted to have a pretty detailed plan
about the technical implementation before I started and who was
initially very much opposed to Lisp for all the well-known reasons. I
somehow managed to convince him. (And not by lowering my rates, in
case you're wondering. I just told him that if he wanted it in Java
he'd have to ask someone else. Maybe he did and he didn't like what
he saw...)
I think this is viable in general as long as your customers aren't
already caught in a mess of legacy IT "infrastructure" or have a lot
of naysayers working for them. And of course you can do this in an
"actual company" (whatever that is) - I guess it depends on who is in
there and how flexible they are.
> It'd be interesting to know how to lift Lisp into the marketplace
> for general consulting and application development, not just on a
> one-person scale.
I don't really care as long as there's enough business for the Lisp
vendors to survive and for a healthy environment as we seem to have
now. One thing's for sure, though: Lifting Lisp to whatever position
won't happen on Usenet...
> State, the new religion from the friendly guys who brought you
> fascism.
Maybe you should take some history classes.
Cheers,
Edi.
--
Lisp is not dead, it just smells funny.
Real email: (replace (subseq ·········@agharta.de" 5) "edi")
Edi Weitz wrote:
> For some of my customers I've worked for years - they basically trust
> me that I do the right thing for them. They get Win32 apps or web
> apps - why should they care which language they're written in?
Exactly, if it works and the price is right.
> I also have one customer who wanted to have a pretty detailed plan
> about the technical implementation before I started and who was
> initially very much opposed to Lisp for all the well-known reasons. I
> somehow managed to convince him. (And not by lowering my rates, in
> case you're wondering. I just told him that if he wanted it in Java
> he'd have to ask someone else. Maybe he did and he didn't like what
> he saw...)
:)
> I think this is viable in general as long as your customers aren't
> already caught in a mess of legacy IT "infrastructure" or have a lot
> of naysayers working for them. And of course you can do this in an
> "actual company" (whatever that is) - I guess it depends on who is in
> there and how flexible they are.
I meant, on a larger scale than a single-person effort. I think a group
of Lisp programmers (like a group of tax advisors or lawyers) could be
quite efficient, and also tackle larger projects than one person alone
(though that's a good thing to begin with).
>> It'd be interesting to know how to lift Lisp into the marketplace
>> for general consulting and application development, not just on a
>> one-person scale.
>
> I don't really care as long as there's enough business for the Lisp
> vendors to survive and for a healthy environment as we seem to have
> now. One thing's for sure, though: Lifting Lisp to whatever position
> won't happen on Usenet...
Too true.
>> State, the new religion from the friendly guys who brought you
>> fascism.
>
> Maybe you should take some history classes.
Not in a historical sense, but the idea of a coercing state is the idea
of fascism, basically. The italian word "fascio" makes me think of an
armed street gang running after people who don't follow orders in their
area...
While in the past, both in the USA (before extensive federal
law-production) and under monarchies in Europe most people just "minded
their business", fascism changed that and introduced the concept of the
almighty state. Exactly who makes the law isn't very important in that
case, as you have to assume worst-case (and European history in the 20th
century up to current world affairs shows it).
--
A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always
depend on the support of Paul.
George Bernard Shaw
Tayssir John Gabbour wrote:
>
> You wouldn't catch a SERIOUS professional at SERIOUS companies like
> Microsoft, talking about how they love Lisp or Scheme. Or list lots of
> arguments why it's better.
> http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/05/10/EndBracket/default.aspx
> http://pluralsight.com/blogs/dbox/archive/2005/09/25/15013.aspx
Microsoft is also, frankly, not on the cutting edge of anything in
Seattle anymore. Except the Microsoft Research guys, whose ideas don't
tend to translate into products, but at least they do know their HLLs.
The brains are moving to places like Amazon, Google, and Sony, who have
realized that there are plenty of bored programmers to poach from
Microsoft. We have a strong Amazon contingent in SeaFunc, and IIRC
some of them are working on a Lisp pilot project? Don't quote me on
that, come to a meeting and ask them yourselves what's up. It's
definitely some HLL project, and Amazon as a company is otherwise
interested in the capabilities of advanced programming languages. It's
germane to their text processing problems.
Also, "non-serious" professionals at Microsoft sometimes find ways to
use languages that The Beast would rather they didn't. It has become a
large, lumbering company, and when departments are reshuffled,
sometimes managerial oversight goes lax. I had a friend who was
solving all of his problems with Python! He's soon to defect to
Google, and good riddance.
I think it's important to understand that Microsoft isn't interested in
improving anything, only in owning everything. They will stall and
wreck any technology owned by someone else, until such a time as they
can clone it, own it, and push it down everyone else's throats. Then
they will allow industrial progress to resume - except that having
established monopoly power, the progress is greatly retarded.
Case in point: the endgame to kill OpenGL.
http://www.opengl.org/discussion_boards/cgi_directory/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=12;t=000001
Cheers,
Brandon J. Van Every
(cruise (director (of SeaFunc)
'(Seattle Functional Programmers)))
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SeaFunc
Cruise Director wrote:
> Tayssir John Gabbour wrote:
> >
> > You wouldn't catch a SERIOUS professional at SERIOUS companies like
> > Microsoft, talking about how they love Lisp or Scheme. Or list lots of
> > arguments why it's better.
> > http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/05/10/EndBracket/default.aspx
> > http://pluralsight.com/blogs/dbox/archive/2005/09/25/15013.aspx
>
> Microsoft is also, frankly, not on the cutting edge of anything in
> Seattle anymore. Except the Microsoft Research guys, whose ideas don't
> tend to translate into products, but at least they do know their HLLs.
But those above items are from Don Box; not just anyone at Microsoft.
tichy wrote:
> A.L. is (imo) weirdo: professor who likes to waste his
> time on trolling.
Was it Daniel Friedman or Douglas Hofstadter who said it is people a
liitle bit *off* from the mainstream way of thinking who really take to
Lisp?
> I think people on this group should
> simply ignore some of his posts.
I think the people of this group shouldn't lose the all-important sense
of humour :-) :-) :-)
just take trolls/unbelievers/(infidels :-D) light heartedly and play
along :-)
Things are being taken way too seriously!!
We lispers are so sure of what we know, what's the hurry or necessity
in defending it so much?
> His short bio: http://4c.ucc.ie/~brahim/ercim05/bio1.txt
maybe this is getting a bit personal :-(
A.L. maybe needling people into flaming here, but he did reply
helpfully to my Java book thread :-)
A.L. wrote:
> OK, take Paul Graham's book "Practical Common Lisp". Very good
> book, by the way. See chapter 3: "Practical: A Simple Database".
> Assume that I want to use this example to convince the IT director
> that "Lisp is Better". He calls few other guys and says: You
> implement this in Visual Basic, you implement this in Perl, you
> implement this in Java and we will see". Do such mental experiment.
> Tell me why "Lisp is better" and how to convince the guy.
I'd start by listing all of the functionality provided by Lisp that is
missing from VB, Perl and Java. Then I'd list all of the things that aren't
missing but are much easier in Lisp. Then I'd list anything funky that
would be easier in Lisp, like converting database queries into s-exprs and
evaluating them to get good performance.
--
Dr Jon D Harrop, Flying Frog Consultancy
http://www.ffconsultancy.com
A.L. <········@kapturek62.com> writes:
> and programs were written on paper tape. I still like Lisp, but
> guys, don't be afraid to confront the reality: Lisp is very nice
> language, but is dead! DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, as dead as Latin and
> Esperanto. What dosn't mean that you can have fun playing with it,
You are dead wrong. Once a year, at Hallounwind, Lisp comes back to
life. That night, Lispers gather at pubs and furiously code before
Lisp goes back to its coffin. That's when all the Lisp code you see
now gets written.
Paolo
--
Why Lisp? http://wiki.alu.org/RtL%20Highlight%20Film
Recommended Common Lisp libraries/tools:
- ASDF/ASDF-INSTALL: system building/installation
- CL-PPCRE: regular expressions
- CFFI: Foreign Function Interface
Paolo Amoroso wrote:
> A.L. <········@kapturek62.com> writes:
>
>
>>and programs were written on paper tape. I still like Lisp, but
>>guys, don't be afraid to confront the reality: Lisp is very nice
>>language, but is dead! DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, as dead as Latin and
>>Esperanto. What dosn't mean that you can have fun playing with it,
>
>
> You are dead wrong. Once a year, at Hallounwind, Lisp comes back to
> life. That night, Lispers gather at pubs and furiously code before
> Lisp goes back to its coffin. That's when all the Lisp code you see
> now gets written.
>
And the sheer volume of code that gets written in that short time is
surely a testament to the enhanced productivity that Lisp offers ;)
drewc
> Paolo
--
Drew Crampsie
drewc at tech dot coop
"... the most advanced use of lisp in the field of bass lure sales"
-- Xach on #lisp
"A.L." <········@kapturek62.com> wrote in message
·······································@4ax.com...
[removed]
> P.S. I started programming in Lisp when Lisp was not Lisp, but LISP
> and programs were written on paper tape. I still like Lisp, but
> guys, don't be afraid to confront the reality: Lisp is very nice
> language, but is dead! DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, as dead as Latin and
> Esperanto. What dosn't mean that you can have fun playing with it,
> but don't try to convince anybody that this is The Savior and that
> the world would look differently if everybody speaks Lisp. Maybe,
> but the world has choosen other path. Stay in your little sandbox
> and be happy.
Well, Lysenko held sway for quite some time in the former USSR. That was
for political reasons, not because his views were somehow the Ultimate Truth
(which in fact they were not - Soviet grain cross-breeding failed miserably
because of his incorrect ideas).
Think more clearly - the more people who use CL (DEAD, DEAD, DEAD), the less
guys there will be trying to take away your job. Therefore I would
encourage you to evangelize Common Lisp to all and sundry. This will reduce
the number of your peers who are able to compete for contracts / permanent
roles.
Eventually, you may reach the point where you can pick and choose the work
you accept, as all employers are stuck with sandbox-bound CL programmers,
and are *desparate* for some Java "design patterns" and similar superior
concepts.
Oh yeah....
Latin: Become a doctor / lawyer / linguist. Refuse to learn Latin. Fail
miserably.
Esperanto: Learn Esperanto. Learn another language (French/Italian/blah).
Faster.
Jamie