Just a post I saw that I thought was interesting:
http://blogs.msdn.com/sriram/archive/2006/01/15/lisp_is_sin.aspx
Thinking about my response to this essay (and many others I've seen in
the last year or so), I would put it this way: Lisp has convinced many
people of its beauty and power, but has convinced few of its
practicality as a primary development tool for the here and now. I
guess you could look at that glass as being half-full or half-empty.
Where I work, I think it is more likely that we will add Ruby to the
toolkit than Lisp, mostly because
1) it appears to be easier for average developers to get started in
Ruby
2) the price is right; as a non-profit institution, commercial Lisps
seem kind of expensive.
3) the general consensus is that the Ruby community is friendlier and
more likely to offer constructive help.
That makes me sad, since I like Lisp, but I have to admit that I agree
with all three points. Am I missing some compelling counter-argument?
All roads may lead to Lisp, but maybe not any existing Lisp.
--
adamnospamaustin.rr.com
s/nospam/c\./
Adam Connor wrote:
> Just a post I saw that I thought was interesting:
> http://blogs.msdn.com/sriram/archive/2006/01/15/lisp_is_sin.aspx
>
> Thinking about my response to this essay (and many others I've seen in
> the last year or so), I would put it this way: Lisp has convinced many
> people of its beauty and power, but has convinced few of its
> practicality as a primary development tool for the here and now. I
> guess you could look at that glass as being half-full or half-empty.
>
> Where I work, I think it is more likely that we will add Ruby to the
> toolkit than Lisp, mostly because
> 1) it appears to be easier for average developers to get started in
> Ruby
> 2) the price is right; as a non-profit institution, commercial Lisps
> seem kind of expensive.
> 3) the general consensus is that the Ruby community is friendlier and
> more likely to offer constructive help.
>
> That makes me sad, since I like Lisp, but I have to admit that I agree
> with all three points. Am I missing some compelling counter-argument?
Don't forget that Lisp is so unpopular that ....
No, wait. Lisp is twice as popular as Ruby (according to Tiobe), so
that can't be it....
Ummm, Oh, I know. There are so few Lisp implementations that if one
goes away it could.... no, wait, that can't be it......
Commercial Ruby implementations are so much cheaper than ... no...
Damn if I can figure it out.
Adam Connor wrote:
> Just a post I saw that I thought was interesting:
...elided...
>
> Thinking about my response to this essay (and many others I've seen in
> the last year or so), I would put it this way: Lisp has convinced many
> people of its beauty and power, but has convinced few of its
> practicality as a primary development tool for the here and now.
I thought that was a pretty poor blog-rant. He is looking at the problem
from the mass-market tool vendor's point of view: Some coders live on
the far left side of the bell curve, and he doesn't want to alienate
them. Further, he'd like to convince his (management) customers that
he's got a tool that can move those left-siders over towards the median.
Whereas from the software shop's point of view, if some of your
programmers are dim bulbs, you find them another position or you
terminate them.
> 1) it appears to be easier for average developers to get started in
> Ruby
Is initial productivity more important than long term productivity?
Would it be overly cruel if I suggested that this switch to a new
language could be used as an opportunity to weed out subpar performers,
creating room for better new hires and increasing average productivity?
> 2) the price is right; as a non-profit institution, commercial Lisps
> seem kind of expensive.
You're looking at it wrong. Your unit of production is programmer+tools,
and the goal is high productivity at low cost. If you're saving 1% of
the total (per year) with inferior tools but your programmers are 3%
less productive, what's the bottom line? Not spending money to improve
labour efficiency only makes sense when the labour is very cheap
relative to the technology.
Going further, I'd question why a non-profit institution needs
programmers, anyway. It likely has a formal or informal policy of not
being able to pay premium (or perhaps even median) salaries "because
we're a non-profit" and so, while it thinks it may have a stable of
average programmers, its median programmer may well be below average[1].
Are you creating programs which are a competitive advantage (e.g. for
fundraising)? If not, perhaps there's a bit of corporate narcissism of
small differences causing management to believe that the organization's
needs are unique enough that off-the-shelf solutions aren't available
for most of their generic computing needs.
> 3) the general consensus is that the Ruby community is friendlier and
> more likely to offer constructive help.
Might be true -- who am I, a mere corporal, to argue with General
Consensus? Balanced against that I'd say the Lisp community is wiser and
has a better bookshelf and archives. When a language is the 'new thing',
most of its proponents are friendly, helpful, proselytizing early
adopters. They've only just finished drinking the Kool-Aid themselves,
and are eager to see others validating their choice.
Why not just write it all in Awk? I ask not in seriousness, but to point
out that, at one time, Awk may well have been the language of choice for
your software (whatever it is). Then came Perl, Python and Ruby, each
with multiple incompatible releases and rapidly evolving libraries. If
you choose a new, evolving language, you'll find yourself porting old
code to incompatible new releases every year or so[2], or running three
releases concurrently to keep the old code happy. Then after a few years
Intercal becomes the hot new thing, Ruby books go out of print, and the
available young programming talent will desire a Ruby job about as much
as they currently desire Awk jobs.
[1] Similarly, commercial enterprises' HR departments have management
convinced that can hire above average programmers for "competitive"
(i.e. average) salaries. What do they get? Average programmers.
[2] Some companies write software which evolves or is replaced so
quickly that platform obsolescence isn't a concern.
On Mon, 16 Jan 2006 13:56:17 -0500, Cameron MacKinnon
<··········@clearspot.net> wrote:
>Adam Connor wrote:
>> 1) it appears to be easier for average developers to get started in
>> Ruby
>
>Is initial productivity more important than long term productivity?
>Would it be overly cruel if I suggested that this switch to a new
>language could be used as an opportunity to weed out subpar performers,
>creating room for better new hires and increasing average productivity?
Often, yes, it is more important. Moreover, the reality is that it
won't be used in that way, and if it was, the business knowledge lost
would probably outweigh the improvement in programming talent.
I won't even go into the politics.
>> 2) the price is right; as a non-profit institution, commercial Lisps
>> seem kind of expensive.
>
>You're looking at it wrong. Your unit of production is programmer+tools,
>and the goal is high productivity at low cost. If you're saving 1% of
>the total (per year) with inferior tools but your programmers are 3%
>less productive, what's the bottom line? Not spending money to improve
>labour efficiency only makes sense when the labour is very cheap
>relative to the technology.
I understand your argument, but I think you are neglecting many
real-world factors... to start with, salaries are budgeted differently
than tools, and it is a lot harder to get money for tools.
But even if that were not a factor, your argument requires getting the
decision-makers to believe in your numbers. Bearing in mind that they
aren't Lisp programmers, and that "Ruby on Rails" has a better "silver
bullet" story, I think that is a very hard argument to win.
In any case, the numbers are made up, so we don't even really know
what the tradeoffs are for Lisp versus, say, Ruby.
--
adamnospamaustin.rr.com
s/nospam/c\./
Adam Connor <···@nospam.com> writes:
> with all three points. Am I missing some compelling counter-argument?
I don't think you are "missing" any of the numerous (and imo
compelling) counter-arguments and more importantly counter evidence.
After all, you've been here saying the exact same thing for some time
now - despite being presented with the counter-evidence/arguments.
So, I believe it is more a case of you actively not hearing or paying
any attention to them. Sort of like you desparately want to believe
it is all just a load of rubbish and you will be just fine not needing
to pay any attention.
Shrug. You'll probably be just fine even if you continue to succeed
at blocking any and all contrary evidence.
/Jon
--
'j' - a n t h o n y at romeo/charley/november com
Adam Connor wrote:
> Just a post I saw that I thought was interesting:
> http://blogs.msdn.com/sriram/archive/2006/01/15/lisp_is_sin.aspx
>
> Thinking about my response to this essay (and many others I've seen in
> the last year or so), I would put it this way: Lisp has convinced many
> people of its beauty and power, but has convinced few of its
> practicality as a primary development tool for the here and now. I
> guess you could look at that glass as being half-full or half-empty.
http://wiki.alu.org:80/Industry_Application and
http://wiki.alu.org:80/Success_Stories
> Where I work, I think it is more likely that we will add Ruby to the
> toolkit than Lisp, mostly because
> 1) it appears to be easier for average developers to get started in
> Ruby
http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html
> 2) the price is right; as a non-profit institution, commercial Lisps
> seem kind of expensive.
See open source implementations at http://wiki.alu.org/Implementation
> 3) the general consensus is that the Ruby community is friendlier and
> more likely to offer constructive help.
I don't know how friendly the Ruby community is, but my impression is
not that the Lisp community is unfriendly.
> That makes me sad, since I like Lisp, but I have to admit that I agree
> with all three points. Am I missing some compelling counter-argument?
Yes.
Pascal
--
My website: http://p-cos.net
Closer to MOP & ContextL:
http://common-lisp.net/project/closer/
"Pascal Costanza" <··@p-cos.net> wrote in message
····················@individual.net...
> Adam Connor wrote:
>> 3) the general consensus is that the Ruby community is friendlier and
>> more likely to offer constructive help.
>
> I don't know how friendly the Ruby community is, but my impression is not
> that the Lisp community is unfriendly.
I think this is destined to be as persistent as the "lisp is slow"
complaint. True once apon a time but unshaken no matter how outdated a
complaint it may be...
--
Coby Beck
(remove #\Space "coby 101 @ bigpond . com")
Coby Beck wrote:
> "Pascal Costanza" <··@p-cos.net> wrote in message
> ····················@individual.net...
> > Adam Connor wrote:
> >> 3) the general consensus is that the Ruby community is friendlier and
> >> more likely to offer constructive help.
> >
> > I don't know how friendly the Ruby community is, but my impression is not
> > that the Lisp community is unfriendly.
>
> I think this is destined to be as persistent as the "lisp is slow"
> complaint. True once apon a time but unshaken no matter how outdated a
> complaint it may be...
I think this impression is a false one because people confuse the
difference between the Lisp and X programming language 'communities' to
some extent with the difference between forums for 'experts' and forums
filled with 'novices/intermediates.'
Any group of experts will become annoyed when their forum is polluted
with people who fail to do the most basic homework and preparation,
shout out noise and misinformation, or respond to contrary (but
accurate) information with knee-jerk hostility.
Many newly invented languages have communities who are following the
latest roadshow, full of the excitement that follows something fresh
and undiscovered, or are part of the community for its own sake.
Anything goes, because hey, we're all still learning here (except for
the few people who invented the language and stop by regularly, of
course.)
Lisp programmers have (typically) found their way to Lisp as part of
their maturing craftsmanship, and (hopefully) are conscious of forming
part of a community of craftspersons, with a long history of experience
and excellence in what they do.
Consider the different crowds and etiquette that follow a rock band,
attend a jazz club, go to a symphony concert, or participate in a
master class. One should, to be polite, try to conform one's own
behavior to be acceptable to the group, not expect the group to accept
whatever behavior you choose to adopt.
··············@hotmail.com wrote:
> Lisp programmers have (typically) found their way to Lisp as part of
> their maturing craftsmanship, and (hopefully) are conscious of forming
> part of a community of craftspersons, with a long history of experience
> and excellence in what they do.
>
> Consider the different crowds and etiquette that follow a rock band,
> attend a jazz club, go to a symphony concert, or participate in a
> master class. One should, to be polite, try to conform one's own
> behavior to be acceptable to the group, not expect the group to accept
> whatever behavior you choose to adopt.
Welcome to the LISP guild. :)
"Coby Beck" <·····@mercury.bc.ca> writes:
> "Pascal Costanza" <··@p-cos.net> wrote in message
> ····················@individual.net...
>> Adam Connor wrote:
>>> 3) the general consensus is that the Ruby community is friendlier and
>>> more likely to offer constructive help.
>>
>> I don't know how friendly the Ruby community is, but my impression is not
>> that the Lisp community is unfriendly.
>
> I think this is destined to be as persistent as the "lisp is slow"
> complaint. True once apon a time but unshaken no matter how outdated a
> complaint it may be...
I suspect it's that the "constructive help" available is very often a
pointer to something someone can download which will just work.
That's easier to do with a single implementation (ignoring versions of
the same implementation---and mostly there's only a couple of common
ones at any time).
Lisp help tends to come with "some self-assembly required" type
instructions, and sometimes the self-assembly can seem enough that it
doesn't seem worth the effort, when someone's already done it for the
one implementation of Python, Perl, Ruby, or whatever.
Adam Connor wrote:
> Just a post I saw that I thought was interesting:
> http://blogs.msdn.com/sriram/archive/2006/01/15/lisp_is_sin.aspx
>
> Thinking about my response to this essay (and many others I've seen in
> the last year or so), I would put it this way: Lisp has convinced many
> people of its beauty and power, but has convinced few of its
> practicality as a primary development tool for the here and now. I
> guess you could look at that glass as being half-full or half-empty.
>
> Where I work, I think it is more likely that we will add Ruby to the
> toolkit than Lisp, mostly because
> 1) it appears to be easier for average developers to get started in
> Ruby
> 2) the price is right; as a non-profit institution, commercial Lisps
> seem kind of expensive.
> 3) the general consensus is that the Ruby community is friendlier and
> more likely to offer constructive help.
>
> That makes me sad, since I like Lisp, but I have to admit that I agree
> with all three points. Am I missing some compelling counter-argument?
>
The compelling counter-argument is not an argument at all. Simply
develop something in Lisp, completely in Lisp, not a toy, complete
functionality. This is not hard though one has to do some learning
along the way. Putting the energy into learning Lisp is well
worth it. If one finds that learning Lisp (as programming language)
is hard, then take this a good sign, you are actually learning
something. Learning is hard, its bloody work, and there is no
other way to do things. Its part of the human condition that
people at some point stay away from mental work. The brain
hardens up (for some very good reasons) and the process of changing
it can be disconcerting.
Perhaps you can explain what you mean by average programmer??
Wade
On Mon, 16 Jan 2006 18:55:45 GMT, Wade Humeniuk
<··················@telus.net> wrote:
>The compelling counter-argument is not an argument at all. Simply
>develop something in Lisp, completely in Lisp, not a toy, complete
>functionality. This is not hard though one has to do some learning
>along the way. Putting the energy into learning Lisp is well
>worth it. If one finds that learning Lisp (as programming language)
>is hard, then take this a good sign, you are actually learning
>something. Learning is hard, its bloody work, and there is no
>other way to do things. Its part of the human condition that
>people at some point stay away from mental work. The brain
>hardens up (for some very good reasons) and the process of changing
>it can be disconcerting.
I don't see this as an argument. I agree that learning Lisp (or any
new and interesting language) is good for you. But... You can develop
useful software in most languages, even bad ones. When my coworker
develops something useful in PHP, that doesn't make me want to use
PHP.
>Perhaps you can explain what you mean by average programmer??
Really, just the average business applications developer, mostly
building CRUD applications.
--
adamnospamaustin.rr.com
s/nospam/c\./
Adam Connor wrote:
> On Mon, 16 Jan 2006 18:55:45 GMT, Wade Humeniuk
> <··················@telus.net> wrote:
>
>> The compelling counter-argument is not an argument at all. Simply
>> develop something in Lisp, completely in Lisp, not a toy, complete
>> functionality. This is not hard though one has to do some learning
>> along the way. Putting the energy into learning Lisp is well
>> worth it. If one finds that learning Lisp (as programming language)
>> is hard, then take this a good sign, you are actually learning
>> something. Learning is hard, its bloody work, and there is no
>> other way to do things. Its part of the human condition that
>> people at some point stay away from mental work. The brain
>> hardens up (for some very good reasons) and the process of changing
>> it can be disconcerting.
>
> I don't see this as an argument. I agree that learning Lisp (or any
> new and interesting language) is good for you. But... You can develop
> useful software in most languages, even bad ones. When my coworker
> develops something useful in PHP, that doesn't make me want to use
> PHP.
>
Perhaps I can simplify my point:
Just Do It.
Don't be a girlie programmer.
You are over-thinking the problem.
Don't be a victim of PR.
One of man's biggest advantages is their big brain, it's also their
greatest weakness.
The blog entry you posted was just rhetorical crap. Get out of
your defensive position and stop trying to put everyone else there
with you.
Wade
>> Perhaps you can explain what you mean by average programmer??
> Really, just the average business applications developer, mostly
> building CRUD applications.
Adam Connor <···@nospam.com> writes:
> Just a post I saw that I thought was interesting:
> http://blogs.msdn.com/sriram/archive/2006/01/15/lisp_is_sin.aspx
That blog was the final straw that persuaded me to order a
copy of Norvigs Paradigms of AI programming: Case studies in
Common Lisp.
I had been hoping to find a second hand copy cheap. I found
Artificial Intelligence, A modern approach for twelve pounds
in a second hand book shop. However, I decided that PAIP is
one of those books that people hold onto, so I might as well
buy a new copy.
Alan Crowe
Edinburgh
Scotland
Adam Connor <···@nospam.com> writes:
> the last year or so), I would put it this way: Lisp has convinced many
> people of its beauty and power, but has convinced few of its
> practicality as a primary development tool for the here and now. I
> guess you could look at that glass as being half-full or half-empty.
I don't just stare at the glass, I try to fill it. And I am by no
means the only one. A group of Lispers are working for improving
things:
CL Gardeners - Tending the Common Lisp garden
http://www.lispniks.com/cl-gardeners/
> Where I work, I think it is more likely that we will add Ruby to the
> toolkit than Lisp, mostly because
> 1) it appears to be easier for average developers to get started in
> Ruby
Any specific problems with the existing Common Lisp learning resources
such as books, tutorials, software, etc.
> 2) the price is right; as a non-profit institution, commercial Lisps
> seem kind of expensive.
Any specific needs that the existing open-source Common Lisp
implementations do not adequately address for your intended uses?
http://www.cl-user.net/asp/tags/implementations
> 3) the general consensus is that the Ruby community is friendlier and
> more likely to offer constructive help.
Work is under way to offer constructive help to new--and current--Lisp
users. Here is the start of a FAQ that is intended to become a
primary, extensive and up to date resource:
Common Lisp FAQ
http://www.lispniks.com/faq/faq.html
And here is a rapidly growing directory of Lisp software and
resources:
The Common Lisp Directory
http://www.cl-user.net
> That makes me sad, since I like Lisp, but I have to admit that I agree
> with all three points. Am I missing some compelling counter-argument?
If you do not want to miss an important occasion for changing the real
or perceived situation of Lisp, here is how you can help:
Gardeners Projects
http://wiki.alu.org/Gardeners_Projects
Paolo
--
Why Lisp? http://wiki.alu.org/RtL%20Highlight%20Film
The Common Lisp Directory: http://www.cl-user.net
Paolo Amoroso wrote:
> I don't just stare at the glass, I try to fill it.
This one made it into my list of memorable quotes. ;)
Thanks,
Pascal
--
My website: http://p-cos.net
Closer to MOP & ContextL:
http://common-lisp.net/project/closer/
In article <··································@4ax.com>, ···@nospam.com
says...
>
> That makes me sad, since I like Lisp, but I have to admit that I agree
> with all three points. Am I missing some compelling counter-argument?
I think that Lisp has same problems like communism, christianity or
sport; they were built around good idea, but with time it turned that
people around these ideas prefer power over solidarity, salvation over
love, glory over healthy mind in the healthy body.
Thats same with Lisp. Ideas like AI, code=data, everything as 1st order
value and simple, uniform syntax are good ideas. However, it turned up
that Lisp users actually do not want such things; instead, they gone for
more "earthly" features like objects and macros. CLOS did relatively
little harm, it only overcomplicated implementation and sucked up lot of
community energy, but macro's were big miss. They not only absorbed lot
of energy, but they also polluted whole Lisp and compromised the main
code as data idea. The result is that Lisp does not progress any more. C
gone from #include to STL in last 25 years. Lisp? It goes nowhere.
Lisps ideas are good, and they will be integrated in the most popular
languages of the future. But not in the Common Lisp or Common Lisp form
that will be compatible with Common Lisp - or even Scheme.
>
> All roads may lead to Lisp, but maybe not any existing Lisp.
Lisp will not be an and. In my opinion, code=data is the most important
idea of Lisp, and data structure of the code is not necessarily list,
especially not Lisp list. It can be hash table as well; or some even
more general data structure.
Majorinc, Kazimir <·····@email.com> writes:
> CLOS did relatively little harm, it only overcomplicated
> implementation and sucked up lot of community energy, but macro's
> were big miss. They not only absorbed lot of energy, but they also
> polluted whole Lisp and compromised the main code as data idea.
Macros are functions that take code (as data) and return code (as
data). How much more code=data can you get?
Zach
> The result is that Lisp does not progress any more. C
> gone from #include to STL in last 25 years. Lisp? It goes nowhere.
Please don't feed the trolls. Their uninformed rants do not progress
anymore. They go nowhere.
In article <······················@comcast.com>, ··········@comcast.net
says...
> Please don't feed the trolls. Their uninformed rants do not progress
> anymore. They go nowhere.
Strange answer. But this one is also wrong.
Majorinc wrote:
> In article <······················@comcast.com>, ··········@comcast.net
> says...
>
>
>>Please don't feed the trolls. Their uninformed rants do not progress
>>anymore. They go nowhere.
>
>
> Strange answer. But this one is also wrong.
>
Correct. Lisp is so great that even trollbait turns into gold, as when
Lispniks respond not with vitriol but with temperate refutations packed
with solid information about Lisp.[1]
I suppose if what you said had any merit it would occasion hostility,
but as it is you are just feeding us fat pitches we love knocking into
the bay.[2]
kenny
[1] I think at least one troll must be a Lisp fan (or vendor)
periodically provoking the NG into marketing activity when it gets a
little quiet around here.
[2] San Francisco's new baseballpark is built on a bay. Long home runs
to right field land in a small bay where waiting kayakers fight for
them. The metaphor use to be "downtown". "Going yard" is also popular
now. With that etymology I cannot help.
k
In article <··················@news-wrt-01.rdc-nyc.rr.com>,
·············@nyc.rr.com says...
> Majorinc wrote:
> > In article <······················@comcast.com>, ··········@comcast.net
> > says...
> >
> >
> >>Please don't feed the trolls. Their uninformed rants do not progress
> >>anymore. They go nowhere.
> >
> >
> > Strange answer. But this one is also wrong.
> >
>
> Correct. Lisp is so great that even trollbait turns into gold, as when
> Lispniks respond not with vitriol but with temperate refutations packed
> with solid information about Lisp.[1]
>
> I suppose if what you said had any merit it would occasion hostility,
> but as it is you are just feeding us fat pitches we love knocking into
> the bay.[2]
What an asshole!
Majorinc wrote:
> What an asshole!
You repeat yourself...
--
The problems of the real world are primarily those you are left with
when you refuse to apply their effective solutions.
Edsger W. Dijkstra
Joel Moses of MIT wrote his PhD dissertation on
solving freshman calculus problems,
a Symbolic Integrator he called SIN. (c. 1967)
(It was an improvement, in some sense, of James
Slagle's approach to the same problem, a program
called Symbolic Automatic Integrator, or SAINT.)
SIN (and most of SAINT) were written in Lisp.
JM was particularly keen to have his presentations
titled "Moses speaks on Sin".
The SIN code was incorporated in the Macsyma project, and
can be seen in the open-source Maxima program on sourceforge.
It was modified in many ways to fit into the Macsyma
context. A mostly unmodified version was available for
many years in another project, Scratchpad, running on IBM 360
Lisp, at IBM Research. Scratchpad was said to contain
the "Original SIN".
Scratchpad evolved to Axiom, now also open-source.
RJF
Majorinc wrote:
> In article <··················@news-wrt-01.rdc-nyc.rr.com>,
> ·············@nyc.rr.com says...
>
>>Majorinc wrote:
>>
>>>In article <······················@comcast.com>, ··········@comcast.net
>>>says...
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>Please don't feed the trolls. Their uninformed rants do not progress
>>>>anymore. They go nowhere.
>>>
>>>
>>>Strange answer. But this one is also wrong.
>>>
>
>
>
>
>>Correct. Lisp is so great that even trollbait turns into gold, as when
>>Lispniks respond not with vitriol but with temperate refutations packed
>>with solid information about Lisp.[1]
>>
>>I suppose if what you said had any merit it would occasion hostility,
>>but as it is you are just feeding us fat pitches we love knocking into
>>the bay.[2]
>
>
> What an asshole!
What a mouth! There's a connection, you know. Now get your fat ass into
my killfile, you toad.
kenny
Majorinc wrote:
> In my opinion, code=data is the most important
> idea of Lisp, and data structure of the code is not necessarily list,
> especially not Lisp list. It can be hash table as well; or some even
> more general data structure.
Interesting idea. I'd like to hear about it as soon as you have come up
with something workable.
http://intentsoft.com/ had a similar idea. They have been working on it
since 15 years, if I remember correctly, and haven't come up with a
working product yet. 10 years of that it was worked on at Microsoft
Research, until Microsoft ditched them.
It's one thing to have a nice idea, it's another to build a stable piece
of software based on it. But go ahead, noone is stopping you from
anything...
Pascal
--
My website: http://p-cos.net
Closer to MOP & ContextL:
http://common-lisp.net/project/closer/
On Mon, 16 Jan 2006 22:33:27 +0100, Pascal Costanza <··@p-cos.net>
wrote:
>Majorinc wrote:
>
>> In my opinion, code=data is the most important
>> idea of Lisp, and data structure of the code is not necessarily list,
>> especially not Lisp list. It can be hash table as well; or some even
>> more general data structure.
>
>Interesting idea. I'd like to hear about it as soon as you have come up
>with something workable.
>
>http://intentsoft.com/ had a similar idea. They have been working on it
>since 15 years, if I remember correctly, and haven't come up with a
>working product yet. 10 years of that it was worked on at Microsoft
>Research, until Microsoft ditched them.
>
>It's one thing to have a nice idea, it's another to build a stable piece
>of software based on it. But go ahead, noone is stopping you from
>anything...
I haven't seen anything even close to Lisp for expressing code=data.
There are other languages that permit metaprogramming, but they lack
Lisp's generality.
--
adamnospamaustin.rr.com
s/nospam/c\./
Adam Connor <···@nospam.com> wrote:
> I haven't seen anything even close to Lisp for expressing code=data.
> There are other languages that permit metaprogramming, but they lack
> Lisp's generality.
Smalltalk?
--
Geoffrey S. Knauth | http://knauth.org/gsk
In article <··································@4ax.com>,
···@nospam.com says...
> I haven't seen anything even close to Lisp for expressing code=data.
> There are other languages that permit metaprogramming, but they lack
> Lisp's generality.
Some time ago, typical BASIC interpreter had ability to update
code it interpretes during runtime. With such BASIC
interpreter, code=data structure (roughly hash-table of
strings) is comparable to Lisp code=data structure (list or
tree or DAG), and it arguably even more expressive due to line
numbers, "goto x" and "renumber" statements, for example.
Lisps main advantage is its manipulation-friendly syntax.
Majorinc wrote:
> In article <··································@4ax.com>,
> ···@nospam.com says...
>
> > I haven't seen anything even close to Lisp for expressing code=data.
> > There are other languages that permit metaprogramming, but they lack
> > Lisp's generality.
>
> Some time ago, typical BASIC interpreter had ability to update
> code it interpretes during runtime. With such BASIC
> interpreter, code=data structure (roughly hash-table of
> strings) is comparable to Lisp code=data structure (list or
> tree or DAG), and it arguably even more expressive due to line
> numbers, "goto x" and "renumber" statements, for example.
>
> Lisps main advantage is its manipulation-friendly syntax.
That syntax is only the most hyped aspect. Take things like dynamic
scope, nothing to do with syntax and macros.
So dynamic scope and macros help you implement the Condition System.
Or take the ability to modify a function name's binding at runtime.
That and macros can give you simple memoization.
And so forth; the list goes on.
Now, if we admit the things which can conceivably be built by warping a
basic Lisp syntax, but have little to do with syntax themselves, we can
go further. Like CLOS. Loop.
Ok, add dynamic scope to CLOS. That helps build context-oriented
programming.
So we have things which multiply off each other. Not just addition.
Tayssir
Majorinc wrote:
> In article <··································@4ax.com>, ···@nospam.com
> says...
>
> >
> > That makes me sad, since I like Lisp, but I have to admit that I agree
> > with all three points. Am I missing some compelling counter-argument?
>
>
> Thats same with Lisp. Ideas like AI, code=data, everything as 1st order
> value and simple, uniform syntax are good ideas. However, it turned up
> that Lisp users actually do not want such things; instead, they gone for
> more "earthly" features like objects and macros. CLOS did relatively
> little harm, it only overcomplicated implementation and sucked up lot of
> community energy, but macro's were big miss. They not only absorbed lot
> of energy, but they also polluted whole Lisp and compromised the main
> code as data idea. The result is that Lisp does not progress any more. C
> gone from #include to STL in last 25 years. Lisp? It goes nowhere.
C++ had to go from #include to STL because 25 years ago "Greenspun's
Tenth Rule of Programming" was already (and still is) true :)
>
> Lisps ideas are good, and they will be integrated in the most popular
> languages of the future. But not in the Common Lisp or Common Lisp form
> that will be compatible with Common Lisp - or even Scheme.
Yes. Meanwhile all these other languages are sucking up and wasting
far greater resources in order to satisfy the Fundamental Theorem on
Programming Languages (expressed, of course, in quasi-LaTeX)
\lim_{t \rightarrow \mathrm{today} + \epsilon} PL(t)
= \mathsf{ANSI-CL}(1994) + \mathrm{type-inference}
where $t$ is time, $\epsilon$ is a positive constant and $PL(t)$ is any
programming language of your choice :)
Cheers
--
Marco
> * Majorinc, Kazimir <·····@rznvy.pbz> [2006-01-16 21:56:19 +0100]:
>
> I think that Lisp has same problems like communism, christianity or
> sport; they were built around good idea, but with time it turned that
> people around these ideas prefer power over solidarity, salvation over
> love, glory over healthy mind in the healthy body.
I think you know _nothing_ about communism.
I suggest that you start with http://www.podval.org/~sds/commies.html
--
Sam Steingold (http://www.podval.org/~sds) running w2k
http://www.camera.org http://www.iris.org.il http://www.palestinefacts.org
http://www.openvotingconsortium.org http://www.jihadwatch.org http://ffii.org
Professionalism is being dispassionate about your work.
In article <·············@gnu.org>, ···@gnu.org says...
> I think you know _nothing_ about communism.
I've spent first 30 years in one communist country so I know
some things even from personal experience. And of course, I've
read some texts on that subjects.
> I suggest that you start with http://www.podval.org~sds/commies.html
Thank you. I could agree with some parts of your text, however
my impression is that overall, your view is not ballanced.
Sam Steingold <···@gnu.org> writes:
>> * Majorinc, Kazimir <·····@rznvy.pbz> [2006-01-16 21:56:19 +0100]:
>>
>> I think that Lisp has same problems like communism, christianity or
>> sport; they were built around good idea, but with time it turned that
>> people around these ideas prefer power over solidarity, salvation over
>> love, glory over healthy mind in the healthy body.
>
> I think you know _nothing_ about communism.
> I suggest that you start with http://www.podval.org/~sds/commies.html
Or perhaps it is you does not understand that there are people who
define 'communism' differently from the authoritarian and violent
agenda promulgated by Marx, Lenin, Stalin et al. According to your
view there could be no such thing as anarchistic communism, but there
is, which shows that your view is not entirely complete or balanced as
to what 'communism' is exactly.
If you define 'communism' as 'authoritarian communism', as brought to
you by the great "communists" of the past, then it is indeed an
abomination. Social structures built upon authoritarian principles,
coercion and oppression (such as our society, by the way) are
illegitimate. The only legitimate communism is free, anarchistic
communism in which people participate free of any coercion.
David
--
David Trudgett
http://www.zeta.org.au/~wpower/
"We are convinced that freedom without Socialism is privilege and
injustice, and that Socialism without freedom is slavery and
brutality."
-- The Political Philosophy of Bakunin, p. 269
In article <··············@rr.trudgett>,
David Trudgett <······@zeta.org.au.nospamplease> wrote:
> Or perhaps it is you does not understand that there are people who
> define 'communism' differently from the authoritarian and violent
> agenda promulgated by Marx, Lenin, Stalin et al.
I'm not sure that Marx and Lenin *intended* authoritarian and violent
results, although those were the natural consequences of their
philosophy.
> According to your view there could be no such thing as anarchistic
> communism, but there is, which shows that your view is not entirely
> complete or balanced as to what 'communism' is exactly.
There is? In theory or in practise?
> If you define 'communism' as 'authoritarian communism', as brought to
> you by the great "communists" of the past, then it is indeed an
> abomination. Social structures built upon authoritarian principles,
> coercion and oppression (such as our society, by the way) are
> illegitimate.
I'm with you there.
> The only legitimate communism is free, anarchistic
> communism in which people participate free of any coercion.
Does this exist anywhere in any group larger than a hippie commune?
All those I've seen (and there were three within about 10 km radius of
the farm I grew up on in the 60's and 70's and several of my teachers
and some of my school friends lived in them) had one strong and
charismatic leader. I don't think that scales becuase eventualyl the
leader needs several layers of deputies and soon enough the deputies
become thugs.
--
Bruce | 41.1670S | \ spoken | -+-
Hoult | 174.8263E | /\ here. | ----------O----------
Bruce Hoult wrote:
> In article <··············@rr.trudgett>,
> David Trudgett <······@zeta.org.au.nospamplease> wrote:
>
> > The only legitimate communism is free, anarchistic
> > communism in which people participate free of any coercion.
>
> Does this exist anywhere in any group larger than a hippie commune?
NOTE: I only intend this for purposes of information. Evaluate with
appropriate skepticism.
There are corporations (which are internally command economies anyway)
where people try to achieve democratic ideals while operating in some
kind of market. Semco is one example, explicitly influenced by Bakunin,
where the CEO is regularly invited to give talks at Harvard Business
School... South America is starting to have a lot of examples. You
might watch Argentina and Venezuela.
For a system worked out in surprising detail, there's Parecon. The gist
is of a decentralized, democratic economy, avoiding both the
monopolization of decisionmaking (problems of Marxist/Leninist
countries) and of scarce productive resources (contemporary societies).
http://www.zmag.org/parecon/indexnew.htm
Contrary to the TINA philosophy (There is No Alternative to two kinds
of economies), they enumerate about 36, which they distill into 4 broad
types.
> All those I've seen (and there were three within about 10 km radius of
> the farm I grew up on in the 60's and 70's and several of my teachers
> and some of my school friends lived in them) had one strong and
> charismatic leader. I don't think that scales becuase eventualyl the
> leader needs several layers of deputies and soon enough the deputies
> become thugs.
To be fair, the same is true for my own country's republic. We have
"leaders" selected not by issues but by "personal qualities," like does
the one guy sound like someone you'd have a beer with, or is the other
guy too snobbish. We have specially-crafted town meetings where the
leader explains the importance of following him, and of accepting his
deputies' actions. Some say the leaders' elections are run by the same
people who sell toothpaste on TV.
Last night, I was listening to a serious libertarian, a real
right-winger in charge of the Mises Institute, reaching out to the left
wing because in modern days the left is sounder than the right. (Lew
Rockwell.)
http://shout.lbo-talk.org/lbo/RadioArchive/2005/05_01_13.mp3
Tayssir
Tayssir John Gabbour wrote:
> NOTE: I only intend this for purposes of information. Evaluate with
> appropriate skepticism.
A strong and educated public goes a long way towards making a good
socioeconomic system work. If the people are weak, then how can anything
lasting be built on top?
BR wrote:
> Tayssir John Gabbour wrote:
>
>
>>NOTE: I only intend this for purposes of information. Evaluate with
>>appropriate skepticism.
>
>
> A strong and educated public goes a long way towards making a good
> socioeconomic system work. If the people are weak, then how can anything
> lasting be built on top?
A truly strong and educated public needs nothing built on top, they
build for themselves. However, most people tend to incorrectly define
"strong and educated".
Tayssir John Gabbour wrote:
> Bruce Hoult wrote:
>
>>In article <··············@rr.trudgett>,
>> David Trudgett <······@zeta.org.au.nospamplease> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>The only legitimate communism is free, anarchistic
>>>communism in which people participate free of any coercion.
>>
>>Does this exist anywhere in any group larger than a hippie commune?
>
>
> NOTE: I only intend this for purposes of information. Evaluate with
> appropriate skepticism.
>
> There are corporations (which are internally command economies anyway)
> where people try to achieve democratic ideals while operating in some
> kind of market. Semco is one example, explicitly influenced by Bakunin,
> where the CEO is regularly invited to give talks at Harvard Business
> School... South America is starting to have a lot of examples. You
> might watch Argentina and Venezuela.
>
I think we call those cooperatives.
http://www.mondragon.mcc.es/
That's the web address for a rather large and successful bunch of them.
Eli Gottlieb wrote:
> I think we call those cooperatives.
>
> http://www.mondragon.mcc.es/
>
> That's the web address for a rather large and successful bunch of them.
I don't see what cooperatives have to do with fighting capitalism or
establishing socialism. Cooperatives are a great tool available in any
free system, and the less regulations there are, the easier it's for
them to (co)operate.
Cooperation is both a human need, and it's what helps us to be stronger,
even against other powerful entities.
At least Germany has an explicit company form called Genossenschaft
(like "comradeship"), which is like a share-owned company, but all
members, regardless of how much capital they provide to the cooperative,
have the same voting rights (but they earn profit according to their
capital share, IIRC).
Many farmers are organized in these cooperatives AFAIK, and also some banks.
--
The problems of the real world are primarily those you are left with
when you refuse to apply their effective solutions.
Edsger W. Dijkstra
Ulrich Hobelmann wrote:
> Eli Gottlieb wrote:
>
>> I think we call those cooperatives.
>>
>> http://www.mondragon.mcc.es/
>>
>> That's the web address for a rather large and successful bunch of them.
>
>
> I don't see what cooperatives have to do with fighting capitalism or
> establishing socialism. Cooperatives are a great tool available in any
> free system, and the less regulations there are, the easier it's for
> them to (co)operate.
>
> Cooperation is both a human need, and it's what helps us to be stronger,
> even against other powerful entities.
>
> At least Germany has an explicit company form called Genossenschaft
> (like "comradeship"), which is like a share-owned company, but all
> members, regardless of how much capital they provide to the cooperative,
> have the same voting rights (but they earn profit according to their
> capital share, IIRC).
>
> Many farmers are organized in these cooperatives AFAIK, and also some
> banks.
>
That German form is what is now called a cooperative, the explicit form
of voting rights and profit sharing. They have nothing to do with
Communism or socialism because they are one of the few known and viable
Third Ways.
Eli Gottlieb wrote:
> That German form is what is now called a cooperative, the explicit form
> of voting rights and profit sharing. They have nothing to do with
> Communism or socialism because they are one of the few known and viable
> Third Ways.
It's not a third way. In a capitalist (i.e. mostly unregulated) world
it's merely one form for people to cooperate, there being many many
others. People can cooperate informally, by pooling capital into a
shareholders' company, or into a cooperative. All of these are just
options. The system is capitalism.
Restricted capitalism, like in Germany, still has these explicit forms
of cooperation (call them black and white), while others (the gray ones)
aren't really possible because of our rules (for instance, if I'd like
to pay someone for some sort of cooperation (say, because the other
person does more work on it than me), I legally can't, because I would
have to obey all kinds of regulations and pay taxes in addition to our
deal; of course most people still do it, which is good for both sides,
but it doesn't give the government money).
--
The problems of the real world are primarily those you are left with
when you refuse to apply their effective solutions.
Edsger W. Dijkstra
Ulrich Hobelmann wrote:
> Eli Gottlieb wrote:
>
>> That German form is what is now called a cooperative, the explicit
>> form of voting rights and profit sharing. They have nothing to do
>> with Communism or socialism because they are one of the few known and
>> viable Third Ways.
>
>
> It's not a third way. In a capitalist (i.e. mostly unregulated) world
> it's merely one form for people to cooperate, there being many many
> others. People can cooperate informally, by pooling capital into a
> shareholders' company, or into a cooperative. All of these are just
> options. The system is capitalism.
>
> Restricted capitalism, like in Germany, still has these explicit forms
> of cooperation (call them black and white), while others (the gray ones)
> aren't really possible because of our rules (for instance, if I'd like
> to pay someone for some sort of cooperation (say, because the other
> person does more work on it than me), I legally can't, because I would
> have to obey all kinds of regulations and pay taxes in addition to our
> deal; of course most people still do it, which is good for both sides,
> but it doesn't give the government money).
>
The emergent properties of cooperatives (especially worker cooperatives,
abolishing the old distinction between labor and capital) are different
from the emergent properties of Pure Capitalist markets, especially when
you start forming cooperatives of cooperatives and things like that.
"Eli Gottlieb" <···········@gmail.com> wrote in message
···························@twister.nyroc.rr.com...
> The emergent properties of cooperatives (especially worker cooperatives,
> abolishing the old distinction between labor and capital) are different
> from the emergent properties of Pure Capitalist markets, especially when
> you start forming cooperatives of cooperatives and things like that.
On the lighter side and in the best spirit of the metaobject protocol, these
"cooperatives of cooperatives" could then be legitimately characterized as
"meta-cooperatives", which Lisp (to remind everyone what this newsgroup is
supposed to be all about) can simulate very well, as the premier paradigm of
abstraction. Of course, because in reality there IS a big difference between
labor and capital (otherwise every hawker would be a millionaire after a few
years) the financial failure of instances of this meta-class probably give
an altogether new extension to the semantics of the term .... "closure".
Chill out guys, this is a Common Lisp newsgroup. Get a life!
Panos C. Lekkas
PCL wrote:
> "Eli Gottlieb" <···········@gmail.com> wrote in message
> ···························@twister.nyroc.rr.com...
>
>>The emergent properties of cooperatives (especially worker cooperatives,
>>abolishing the old distinction between labor and capital) are different
>>from the emergent properties of Pure Capitalist markets, especially when
>>you start forming cooperatives of cooperatives and things like that.
>
>
> On the lighter side and in the best spirit of the metaobject protocol, these
> "cooperatives of cooperatives" could then be legitimately characterized as
> "meta-cooperatives", which Lisp (to remind everyone what this newsgroup is
> supposed to be all about) can simulate very well, as the premier paradigm of
> abstraction. Of course, because in reality there IS a big difference between
> labor and capital (otherwise every hawker would be a millionaire after a few
> years) the financial failure of instances of this meta-class probably give
> an altogether new extension to the semantics of the term .... "closure".
>
> Chill out guys, this is a Common Lisp newsgroup. Get a life!
>
> Panos C. Lekkas
>
>
Except that well-formed worker coops (Mondragon, Home Care Associates (I
think that's their name) in NYC) tend to succeed financially and pay
nice wages to their worker-owners.
Eli Gottlieb wrote:
> PCL wrote:
>
>> "Eli Gottlieb" <···········@gmail.com> wrote in message
>> ···························@twister.nyroc.rr.com...
>>
>>> The emergent properties of cooperatives (especially worker
>>> cooperatives, abolishing the old distinction between labor and
>>> capital) are different from the emergent properties of Pure
>>> Capitalist markets, especially when you start forming cooperatives of
>>> cooperatives and things like that.
>>
>>
>>
>> On the lighter side and in the best spirit of the metaobject protocol,
>> these "cooperatives of cooperatives" could then be legitimately
>> characterized as "meta-cooperatives", which Lisp (to remind everyone
>> what this newsgroup is supposed to be all about) can simulate very
>> well, as the premier paradigm of abstraction. Of course, because in
>> reality there IS a big difference between labor and capital (otherwise
>> every hawker would be a millionaire after a few years) the financial
>> failure of instances of this meta-class probably give an altogether
>> new extension to the semantics of the term .... "closure".
>>
>> Chill out guys, this is a Common Lisp newsgroup. Get a life!
>>
>> Panos C. Lekkas
>>
> Except that well-formed worker coops (Mondragon, Home Care Associates (I
> think that's their name) in NYC) tend to succeed financially and pay
> nice wages to their worker-owners.
Addendum to post: Life gotten.
Can we talk about religion or sex, now, please?
Eli Gottlieb wrote:
> Ulrich Hobelmann wrote:
> > Eli Gottlieb wrote:
> >
> >> That German form is what is now called a cooperative, the explicit
> >> form of voting rights and profit sharing. They have nothing to do
> >> with Communism or socialism because they are one of the few known and
> >> viable Third Ways.
> >
> >
> > It's not a third way. In a capitalist (i.e. mostly unregulated) world
> > it's merely one form for people to cooperate, there being many many
> > others. People can cooperate informally, by pooling capital into a
> > shareholders' company, or into a cooperative. All of these are just
> > options. The system is capitalism.
> >
> > Restricted capitalism, like in Germany, still has these explicit forms
> > of cooperation (call them black and white), while others (the gray ones)
> > aren't really possible because of our rules (for instance, if I'd like
> > to pay someone for some sort of cooperation (say, because the other
> > person does more work on it than me), I legally can't, because I would
> > have to obey all kinds of regulations and pay taxes in addition to our
> > deal; of course most people still do it, which is good for both sides,
> > but it doesn't give the government money).
> >
> The emergent properties of cooperatives (especially worker cooperatives,
> abolishing the old distinction between labor and capital) are different
> from the emergent properties of Pure Capitalist markets, especially when
> you start forming cooperatives of cooperatives and things like that.
Joe Marshall wrote:
> Can we talk about religion or sex, now, please?
Religion is good, sex is baaaad.
Or vice versa. Take your pick ;)
(me, I'd prefer a hedonistic society as in Brave New World over one
where Religion is the opiate of the masses; but it's only a small
difference, both are based on opiate)
--
The problems of the real world are primarily those you are left with
when you refuse to apply their effective solutions.
Edsger W. Dijkstra
Ulrich Hobelmann wrote:
> Joe Marshall wrote:
>
>> Can we talk about religion or sex, now, please?
>
>
> Religion is good, sex is baaaad.
>
> Or vice versa. Take your pick ;)
>
> (me, I'd prefer a hedonistic society as in Brave New World over one
> where Religion is the opiate of the masses; but it's only a small
> difference, both are based on opiate)
>
In either you would be conditioned to prefer it over the other. I
prefer Huxley's other great work, "Island". Sans the Buddhism if possible.
Eli Gottlieb <···········@gmail.com> writes:
>> There are corporations (which are internally command economies
>> anyway)
>> where people try to achieve democratic ideals while operating in some
>> kind of market. Semco is one example, explicitly influenced by Bakunin,
>> where the CEO is regularly invited to give talks at Harvard Business
>> School... South America is starting to have a lot of examples. You
>> might watch Argentina and Venezuela.
>>
>
> I think we call those cooperatives.
>
> http://www.mondragon.mcc.es/
>
> That's the web address for a rather large and successful bunch of them.
And a little closer to being on-topic, Check out http://tech.coop ,
which may not be paticularly large, but is a democratically run
business which provides Technical Services (including common lisp
programming) to its member/owners.
The Tech Co-op one of many emerging 'Services Co-operatives', which is
a mix between a Consumer and a Workers co-op. In our case, the
explicit goal of the co-op is simply to provide our members with the
best possible technical services. Obviously, to provide these services
it helps to have happy, well fed workers. And to achieve that, we need
happy, well serviced consumers. Co-operation :)
Our members trust us, because they own us. All our finacials are open
book, and like all co-operatives our board is elected by the members
(one member, one vote).
To me, being a part of a co-operative allows a nice mix of doing well,
and doing right. And i get to code in common lisp ... doesn't get much
better than that!
(sorry for the plug)
--
drewc at tech dot coop
drewc wrote:
> Eli Gottlieb <···········@gmail.com> writes:
>
>
>
>>>There are corporations (which are internally command economies
>>>anyway)
>>>where people try to achieve democratic ideals while operating in some
>>>kind of market. Semco is one example, explicitly influenced by Bakunin,
>>>where the CEO is regularly invited to give talks at Harvard Business
>>>School... South America is starting to have a lot of examples. You
>>>might watch Argentina and Venezuela.
>>>
>>
>>I think we call those cooperatives.
>>
>>http://www.mondragon.mcc.es/
>>
>>That's the web address for a rather large and successful bunch of them.
>
>
> And a little closer to being on-topic, Check out http://tech.coop ,
> which may not be paticularly large, but is a democratically run
> business which provides Technical Services (including common lisp
> programming) to its member/owners.
>
> The Tech Co-op one of many emerging 'Services Co-operatives', which is
> a mix between a Consumer and a Workers co-op. In our case, the
> explicit goal of the co-op is simply to provide our members with the
> best possible technical services. Obviously, to provide these services
> it helps to have happy, well fed workers. And to achieve that, we need
> happy, well serviced consumers. Co-operation :)
>
> Our members trust us, because they own us. All our finacials are open
> book, and like all co-operatives our board is elected by the members
> (one member, one vote).
>
> To me, being a part of a co-operative allows a nice mix of doing well,
> and doing right. And i get to code in common lisp ... doesn't get much
> better than that!
>
> (sorry for the plug)
>
Great, now I'm jealous.
Hi Bruce!
Bruce Hoult <·····@hoult.org> writes:
> In article <··············@rr.trudgett>,
> David Trudgett <······@zeta.org.au.nospamplease> wrote:
>
>> Or perhaps it is you does not understand that there are people who
>> define 'communism' differently from the authoritarian and violent
>> agenda promulgated by Marx, Lenin, Stalin et al.
>
> I'm not sure that Marx and Lenin *intended* authoritarian and violent
> results, although those were the natural consequences of their
> philosophy.
I believe you are correct in one sense; and that sense is that Marx (I
don't know about Lenin, who of course, unlike Marx, was a
revolutionary[*]) most likely did not intend violence as a necessary
outcome or ingredient of his philosophy. I assume that, like a
majority of people, he would have preferred a world without
violence.
[*] In the sense of actively taking part in a revolution.
On the other hand, I am loathe to insult a man who has no come back
that he did not have the intelligence to know what the consequences of
trying to implement his ideas in practice would entail. I see no
reason to believe that Marx was a pacifist or philosophically or
pragmatically opposed to violence; therefore, I can only assume that
he was not in principle opposed to the use of violence in implementing
his revolutionary ideas. On the contrary, he seems to have been of the
belief that, at a minimum, an organised and violent revolution would
be necessary on account of his other belief that the ruling class
would not give up their position of privilege voluntarily.
>
>
>> According to your view there could be no such thing as anarchistic
>> communism, but there is, which shows that your view is not entirely
>> complete or balanced as to what 'communism' is exactly.
>
> There is? In theory or in practise?
Christianity, some say, is a theory that has never been put into
practice. Of course, that is not entirely true, as many individuals
and communities throughout the ages have come a lot closer to the
Christian ideal than, say, present day mainstream Churches of all
flavours. Which is to say that, when looking at the present
disgraceful state of Churches, Christianity is no more than a distant
theory to be discussed in the abstract by theologians. Yet
Christianity exists.
Communism can be regarded in a similar light. State communism, making
necessary use, as it does, of violence, is abhorrent and far from any
true spirit of brotherhood. Yet voluntary and free communism can exist
in small and large communities if they are simply left alone. So, yes,
free communism does exist despite communist states, in the same sense
that Christianity exists despite Christian Churches.
As an aside, although I personally lean towards some of the best
ideals of communism, I am not an ideologue, I don't agree with much of
Marxist analysis, and I believe that any free association and
organisation of people without hierarchical power structures is
legitimate. Hunter gatherer societies, for example, though hardly
communist, were also a good idea at the time and, at least in the case
of Australian Aborigines, largely free of "power" hierarchy long
before the word 'anarchism' was ever thought of.
>
>
>> If you define 'communism' as 'authoritarian communism', as brought to
>> you by the great "communists" of the past, then it is indeed an
>> abomination. Social structures built upon authoritarian principles,
>> coercion and oppression (such as our society, by the way) are
>> illegitimate.
>
> I'm with you there.
As are an increasing number, I believe.
>
>
>> The only legitimate communism is free, anarchistic
>> communism in which people participate free of any coercion.
>
> Does this exist anywhere in any group larger than a hippie commune?
Does it have to, though? Certainly, 'communism' and 'state power' do
not go hand in hand. So there will never be a communist state, same as
there will never be a Christian Church based on a power hierarchy.
>
> All those I've seen (and there were three within about 10 km radius of
> the farm I grew up on in the 60's and 70's and several of my teachers
> and some of my school friends lived in them) had one strong and
> charismatic leader. I don't think that scales becuase eventualyl the
> leader needs several layers of deputies and soon enough the deputies
> become thugs.
There will always be individuals with leadership charisma. That, at
least, appears to be a genuine human trait, as does the propensity of
individuals to give weight to the desires of a leader figure. Christ
himself was a leader by all appearances, yet his deputies did not
become thugs, I think... at least not straight away... :-)
Thuggery and the abuse of one's influence over others will be problems
that will never entirely go away, I think. Unless we become radically
different from the way we are now.
Cheers,
David
--
David Trudgett
http://www.zeta.org.au/~wpower/
Problems cannot be solved
at the same level of awareness
that created them.
-- Albert Einstein
David Trudgett wrote:
> On the contrary, he seems to have been of the
> belief that, at a minimum, an organised and violent revolution would
> be necessary on account of his other belief that the ruling class
> would not give up their position of privilege voluntarily.
Basically saying that the solution to the poor wages paid by factory
owners wasn't for the workers to build their own factory, but to simply
steal one. The question is: what did they do before the factory came to
life? Hand-knit carpets? If so, why didn't they continue to do so?
A simple fact, both in capitalism and in socialism is that you are free
to produce whatever you produced in the way you produced it, but there
is no guarantee that anyone will buy it. Cooperatives are cool, but
they too have to adapt to the market pressure if they want to be
competitive. Unless some central government allocates some money for
them anyway.
> Christianity, some say, is a theory that has never been put into
> practice. Of course, that is not entirely true, as many individuals
> and communities throughout the ages have come a lot closer to the
> Christian ideal than, say, present day mainstream Churches of all
> flavours. Which is to say that, when looking at the present
> disgraceful state of Churches, Christianity is no more than a distant
> theory to be discussed in the abstract by theologians. Yet
> Christianity exists.
I haven't heard of any Christian, except maybe Mother Theresa. Jesus
said that the rich won't come to heaven, and stuff like that. At least
all of Christian USAians don't give up their job etc. Nonetheless, even
though I'm basically against Christianity-as-religion (and all other
Theist the-sole-god-that's-the-only-way-to-heaven religions), Jesus was
a *very* cool guy (more in a cultural and political way) and IMHO a good
person to inspire us. Just leave out the Antisemites like Saul/Paul or
Luther to keep it clean :)
> Communism can be regarded in a similar light. State communism, making
> necessary use, as it does, of violence, is abhorrent and far from any
> true spirit of brotherhood. Yet voluntary and free communism can exist
> in small and large communities if they are simply left alone. So, yes,
> free communism does exist despite communist states, in the same sense
> that Christianity exists despite Christian Churches.
But these communities can perfectly exist within capitalism. Again: I
don't see where anarchism has to be socialist, except that people are
free to choose so (and I like the idea).
In communist states, however, there's enough coercion that maybe a free
anarchist community couldn't exist, unless it operated like a black
market in the underground.
> As an aside, although I personally lean towards some of the best
> ideals of communism, I am not an ideologue, I don't agree with much of
> Marxist analysis, and I believe that any free association and
> organisation of people without hierarchical power structures is
> legitimate. Hunter gatherer societies, for example, though hardly
> communist, were also a good idea at the time and, at least in the case
> of Australian Aborigines, largely free of "power" hierarchy long
> before the word 'anarchism' was ever thought of.
Agreed.
--
The problems of the real world are primarily those you are left with
when you refuse to apply their effective solutions.
Edsger W. Dijkstra
Ulrich Hobelmann wrote:
> David Trudgett wrote:
>
>> On the contrary, he seems to have been of the
>> belief that, at a minimum, an organised and violent revolution would
>> be necessary on account of his other belief that the ruling class
>> would not give up their position of privilege voluntarily.
>
>
> Basically saying that the solution to the poor wages paid by factory
> owners wasn't for the workers to build their own factory, but to simply
> steal one. The question is: what did they do before the factory came to
> life? Hand-knit carpets? If so, why didn't they continue to do so?
Because the factories were driving them out of business by manufacturing
carpets, that's why! Furthermore, they didn't build their own factory,
because that required a large capital investment which THEY COULDN'T
MAKE due to being WORKERS paid LOW WAGES.
We apologize for any inconvenience the capital letters may have caused you.
>
> A simple fact, both in capitalism and in socialism is that you are free
> to produce whatever you produced in the way you produced it, but there
> is no guarantee that anyone will buy it. Cooperatives are cool, but
> they too have to adapt to the market pressure if they want to be
> competitive. Unless some central government allocates some money for
> them anyway.
All the cooperatives I know of operate in the market and adapt to it,
they just don't have as bad or as many conflicts of interest between
workers, owners and management since all three are mostly the same
(though middle-management is sometimes appointed by upper rather than by
the democratically elected Board of Directors).
> I haven't heard of any Christian, except maybe Mother Theresa. Jesus
> said that the rich won't come to heaven, and stuff like that. At least
> all of Christian USAians don't give up their job etc. Nonetheless, even
> though I'm basically against Christianity-as-religion (and all other
> Theist the-sole-god-that's-the-only-way-to-heaven religions), Jesus was
> a *very* cool guy (more in a cultural and political way) and IMHO a good
> person to inspire us. Just leave out the Antisemites like Saul/Paul or
> Luther to keep it clean :)
I would just like to note that there are organized religions without the
"If you're not one of us you're going to hell" attitude.
> But these communities can perfectly exist within capitalism. Again: I
> don't see where anarchism has to be socialist, except that people are
> free to choose so (and I like the idea).
They can exist within capitalism, but it's a better idea not to. Real
Communists (anarcho-communists, as we call them now) don't like the idea
of having to compete with the rest of the world as a business, they'd
rather be a self-sufficient economy.
>> As an aside, although I personally lean towards some of the best
>> ideals of communism, I am not an ideologue, I don't agree with much of
>> Marxist analysis, and I believe that any free association and
>> organisation of people without hierarchical power structures is
>> legitimate. Hunter gatherer societies, for example, though hardly
>> communist, were also a good idea at the time and, at least in the case
>> of Australian Aborigines, largely free of "power" hierarchy long
>> before the word 'anarchism' was ever thought of.
>
>
> Agreed.
>
Marxist analysis switches between wrong and right based on the era.
Right now I'd say it's tilting towards being right.
Eli Gottlieb wrote:
> We apologize for any inconvenience the capital letters may have caused you.
On the topic of anarcho capitala dialecticourse post-materialist
neo-Hegelian corporate duopolies...
I think people will start rebelling against this economic discussion
very soon. I'm sure that at this point, everyone knows where to read up
on each others sources if they have serious curiosity rather than a
desire to debate this on a Lisp forum...
For serious forums across the political spectrum, I think you could ask
around Lew Rockwell's blog, at ZNet or Paul Krugman's archive; and I've
heard of lbo-talk as well.
Tayssir
Eli Gottlieb wrote:
>> Basically saying that the solution to the poor wages paid by factory
>> owners wasn't for the workers to build their own factory, but to
>> simply steal one. The question is: what did they do before the
>> factory came to life? Hand-knit carpets? If so, why didn't they
>> continue to do so?
>
> Because the factories were driving them out of business by manufacturing
> carpets, that's why! Furthermore, they didn't build their own factory,
> because that required a large capital investment which THEY COULDN'T
> MAKE due to being WORKERS paid LOW WAGES.
But why didn't people buy peoples' carpets, but evil capitalists'
carpets? Why can't workers ally to build a factory (cause for the
Capitalist it's also THEM who build them, right? it doesn't take money,
only resources and work!)? Why don't the workers use another currency,
when the current currency is to 95% in the hands of a few capitalists?
They seriously lacked cooperation it seems to me. And in that case, no
system in the world can help such people.
By the way, even poor people can borrow money (I've heard many
US-americans borrowed LOTS of money in the past), and invest it.
> We apologize for any inconvenience the capital letters may have caused you.
Aaaah, silence. :)
> All the cooperatives I know of operate in the market and adapt to it,
> they just don't have as bad or as many conflicts of interest between
> workers, owners and management since all three are mostly the same
> (though middle-management is sometimes appointed by upper rather than by
> the democratically elected Board of Directors).
Yes, many current corporations are severely misguided. Well, anyway I
hope one might employ me sometime ;)
> I would just like to note that there are organized religions without the
> "If you're not one of us you're going to hell" attitude.
People might not have that attitude, but the religion in principle does.
"You can't come to the father than by me" Mostly MHO is that there
are few real Christians who are consistent in their views and strict,
but then that's a good thing, because I wouldn't want any strict
religious people around me who followed that bloody book.
>> But these communities can perfectly exist within capitalism. Again: I
>> don't see where anarchism has to be socialist, except that people are
>> free to choose so (and I like the idea).
>
> They can exist within capitalism, but it's a better idea not to. Real
> Communists (anarcho-communists, as we call them now) don't like the idea
> of having to compete with the rest of the world as a business, they'd
> rather be a self-sufficient economy.
I'd like that, too, but separation of labor, and trade, often make sense
for such communities. Again: it's all possible within capitalism, and
I'd even say encouraged. It's mostly discouraged within current
systems, though.
--
The problems of the real world are primarily those you are left with
when you refuse to apply their effective solutions.
Edsger W. Dijkstra
Ulrich Hobelmann wrote:
> Eli Gottlieb wrote:
>> I would just like to note that there are organized religions without
>> the "If you're not one of us you're going to hell" attitude.
>
>
> People might not have that attitude, but the religion in principle does.
> "You can't come to the father than by me" Mostly MHO is that there are
> few real Christians who are consistent in their views and strict, but
> then that's a good thing, because I wouldn't want any strict religious
> people around me who followed that bloody book.
I wasn't talking about Christianity. Organized religion does not mean
Christianity. There are plenty of non-Christian organized religions (I
can name 2 off the top of my head) which don't brand all outsiders as
horrible, needing their souls saved, going to hell or any such thing.
Ulrich Hobelmann <···········@web.de> writes:
> Eli Gottlieb wrote:
>> Because the factories were driving them out of business by
>> manufacturing carpets, that's why! Furthermore, they didn't build
>> their own factory, because that required a large capital investment
>> which THEY COULDN'T MAKE due to being WORKERS paid LOW WAGES.
>
> But why didn't people buy peoples' carpets, but evil capitalists'
> carpets? Why can't workers ally to build a factory (cause for the
> Capitalist it's also THEM who build them, right? it doesn't take
> money, only resources and work!)? Why don't the workers use another
> currency, when the current currency is to 95% in the hands of a few
> capitalists?
Give me a break! To build a factory you need land. To own land you
need to buy/rent it from the guys with the big guns. They _love_ money
and power, those gun wielding land-owners, and will do everything to
make sure they stay in money and power. This has to involve making
sure that they control the means of production.
And lets say the workers build a wonderful, successful factory and pay
themselves well.. that drives up the cost of the product. Now,
the rest of the people who are not so lucky as to have managed to
subvert the system are still working for the 'evil capitalists' at
shite wages, and cannot afford to buy your carpets (they still need
carpets), so to compete with the caplitalists, you have to become one.
Not to mention the fact the the gun-toters will look at your success
with envy, and possibly seek to take it over, whether by legal
(enforced with guns) means, or through other tactics.
>
> They seriously lacked cooperation it seems to me. And in that case,
> no system in the world can help such people.
Right... systems are not made to help people, they are made to help
systems. Perhaps people can help people, but not with the system
constantly striving to prevent that. Remeber that the system is what
divided up the land, dammed off the water, destroyed our environment,
and then makes money off of letting us live(1) on 'their' land
(whoever has the biggest guns owns the land), pipe us 'their' water
(and charge us for it), and sells 'environmentally friendly' products
at a markup, even though it's obvious to most people that a product
that does not ruin the earth (our only means of survival) has a lower
_cost_ to society than one that does.
I live in the city, so i can not even keep a few chickens for eggs and
a goat for milk. It is illegal. I have to buy the overpriced products
that 'they' feed me. If your suggestion would be 'move to the
country', my question would be why should i have to?
>
> By the way, even poor people can borrow money (I've heard many
> US-americans borrowed LOTS of money in the past), and invest it.
Right, but not everybody wants to be a capitalist, and not everybody
wants to go into debt to the gun-blazing loan sharks. That in no way
makes those people wrong or stupid, or lazy or unco-operative.
> People might not have that attitude, but the religion in principle
> does. "You can't come to the father than by me".
Have you yourself read the works you quote, and come up with your own
interpretations of them, or are you regurgitating what you've heard
others say? If you are going to quote John, which is quite esoteric,
you need to put things in the proper context. John 14:
1"Don't be troubled. You trust God, now trust in me. 2There are many
rooms in my Father's home, and I am going to prepare a place for
you. If this were not so, I would tell you plainly. 3When everything
is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me
where I am. 4And you know where I am going and how to get there."
5"No, we don't know, Lord," Thomas said. "We haven't any idea where
you are going, so how can we know the way?"
6Jesus told him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can
come to the Father except through me. 7If you had known who I am, then
you would have known who my Father is. From now on you know him and
have seen him!"
I think the important line is "There are many
rooms in my Father's home, and I am going to prepare a place for
you. If this were not so, I would tell you plainly."
This is important because Jesus _never_ speaks plainly. He's saying
that there is room in his fathers kingdom for everybody (many rooms),
and if there were not, he'd come out and say it.
Then Thomas (oh that Thomas!) wants to know more about the way to
heaven, and Christ's reply is that 'You already know the way, you know
me.'. Perhaps he is just saying that, if you follow his example (being
a nice guy who tries to help others, forgives those who have sinned,
etc), you are welcome to one of the rooms he has set aside for you.
So, your misquote "You can't come to the father than by me"
drastically mischaracterises what was actually (fsvo actually)
said. "No one can" (not nobody, no _one_) vs. "you can't", and 'than by
me' as opposed to 'but through me'. This could suggest that one must
unite themselves with the person christ is refering to as 'me' in
order to be saved.
While i will admit that by the time John was written, Jesus had gotten
quite full of himself, but a little further on gives us another look
at what Jesus may have been trying to get at :
23Jesus replied, "All those who love me will do what I say. My Father
will love them, and we will come to them and live with them. 24Anyone
who doesn't love me will not do what I say. And remember, my words are
not my own.
That last little bit 'my words are not my own' is important. Whos
words are they? who is the 'I' in "I am the way, the truth, and the
life" if not Jesus? Perhaps the I is the I&I of the Rasta, or the
spark of the divine that lives in us all. Maybe he's saying the the
struggle for salvation is an individual one.
Keep in mind that John was also trying to set up the second coming,
and Christ spends a lot of his time in this book prophesing his own
death and resurrection, so the allegory and metaphor is laid on
pretty thick.
It's still a nice story though.
--
drewc at tech dot coop
drewc <···························@rift.com> writes:
> [...]
> And lets say the workers build a wonderful, successful factory and pay
> themselves well.. that drives up the cost of the product. Now,
> the rest of the people who are not so lucky as to have managed to
> subvert the system are still working for the 'evil capitalists' at
> shite wages, and cannot afford to buy your carpets (they still need
> carpets), so to compete with the caplitalists, you have to become one.
This is the key!
Freedom lover wants (to let) all people become one of them filthy rich
capitalists, with enough cash to be generous and charitable or to buy
gold WC, that is, to have even more freedom.
Commies wants everybody to become filthy poor third worlder.
> I live in the city, so i can not even keep a few chickens for eggs and
> a goat for milk. It is illegal. I have to buy the overpriced products
> that 'they' feed me. If your suggestion would be 'move to the
> country', my question would be why should i have to?
In the meantime, you live to buy these overpriced products, while
thirdworlder who can own chickens for eggs in their homes die of bird
flu.
Well, you know what? While it's illegal in most countries to attempt
suicide, if you're successfull they can't get at you, so go ahead!
(I don't mean you drewc, I feel you're just being ironic. I mean the
commies oppressed by the capitalists).
--
__Pascal Bourguignon__ http://www.informatimago.com/
HANDLE WITH EXTREME CARE: This product contains minute electrically
charged particles moving at velocities in excess of five hundred
million miles per hour.
"Pascal Bourguignon" <····@mouse-potato.com> wrote in message
···················@thalassa.informatimago.com...
> In the meantime, you live to buy these overpriced products, while
> thirdworlder who can own chickens for eggs in their homes die of bird
> flu.
Just to steer this back to Lisp, isn't bird flu a problem of the factory
farm settings, not Ma and Pa Wong?
--
Coby Beck
(remove #\Space "coby 101 @ bigpond . com")
"Coby Beck" <·····@mercury.bc.ca> writes:
> "Pascal Bourguignon" <····@mouse-potato.com> wrote in message
> ···················@thalassa.informatimago.com...
>
>> In the meantime, you live to buy these overpriced products, while
>> thirdworlder who can own chickens for eggs in their homes die of bird
>> flu.
>
> Just to steer this back to Lisp, isn't bird flu a problem of the factory
> farm settings, not Ma and Pa Wong?
On the contrary. In factory farm, the environment is strictly
controled, the birds are enclosed and epidemies, if there was some
there, couldn't spread.
The problem is with Ma and Pa Wong who are in direct contact with
their birds, themselves being in a "natural setting" directly in
contact with salvage migrating birds.
--
__Pascal Bourguignon__ http://www.informatimago.com/
"Specifications are for the weak and timid!"
Pascal Bourguignon <····@mouse-potato.com> writes:
> drewc <···························@rift.com> writes:
>> [...]
>> And lets say the workers build a wonderful, successful factory and pay
>> themselves well.. that drives up the cost of the product. Now,
>> the rest of the people who are not so lucky as to have managed to
>> subvert the system are still working for the 'evil capitalists' at
>> shite wages, and cannot afford to buy your carpets (they still need
>> carpets), so to compete with the caplitalists, you have to become one.
>
> This is the key!
>
> Freedom lover wants (to let) all people become one of them filthy rich
> capitalists, with enough cash to be generous and charitable or to buy
> gold WC, that is, to have even more freedom.
That is absolutely the key. Neither 'Communism' nor 'Capitalism' (note
quotes) nor any other soci-economic system is the problem. The problem
is the lack of freedom, plain and simple. Of course, people would
rather blaim abstracts than take personal responsibility, and those
men in power will make sure there are plenty of abstracts to
blame. Thus freedom slips further.
> Commies wants everybody to become filthy poor third worlder.
:)
> Well, you know what? While it's illegal in most countries to attempt
> suicide, if you're successfull they can't get at you, so go ahead!
I find that the ultimate in irony. The only right i think someone is
entitled to is the right to die, and yet the /archos/ wish to take
even that from us.
(Life is not a right, it's a responsibility)
> (I don't mean you drewc, I feel you're just being ironic. I mean the
> commies oppressed by the capitalists).
Whew! <puts down revolver>. ;)
>
> --
> __Pascal Bourguignon__ http://www.informatimago.com/
>
> HANDLE WITH EXTREME CARE: This product contains minute electrically
> charged particles moving at velocities in excess of five hundred
> million miles per hour.
--
drewc at tech dot coop
Keeping this short, hopefully...
drewc wrote:
> Give me a break! To build a factory you need land. To own land you
> need to buy/rent it from the guys with the big guns. They _love_ money
> and power, those gun wielding land-owners, and will do everything to
> make sure they stay in money and power. This has to involve making
> sure that they control the means of production.
Well, in my country many families buy houses. I think building a small
factory on the land that could hold a few houses isn't much more
expensive, especially if it's not one family financing it, but maybe
1000 families holding shares, or even many more.
> And lets say the workers build a wonderful, successful factory and pay
> themselves well.. that drives up the cost of the product. Now,
> the rest of the people who are not so lucky as to have managed to
> subvert the system are still working for the 'evil capitalists' at
> shite wages, and cannot afford to buy your carpets (they still need
> carpets), so to compete with the caplitalists, you have to become one.
Ok, but I don't see how being a nice anarchist (leftist one) doesn't
change any of reality. Does the world change just by saying that There
Is No Property, and all landowners should be robbed (or what'd be the
conclusion?)?
> I live in the city, so i can not even keep a few chickens for eggs and
> a goat for milk. It is illegal. I have to buy the overpriced products
> that 'they' feed me. If your suggestion would be 'move to the
> country', my question would be why should i have to?
You don't have to; it's your choice. Too bad though, that your
authoritarian society prohibits you from keeping farm animals on your
property, as long as they don't cause others harm.
>> By the way, even poor people can borrow money (I've heard many
>> US-americans borrowed LOTS of money in the past), and invest it.
>
> Right, but not everybody wants to be a capitalist, and not everybody
> wants to go into debt to the gun-blazing loan sharks. That in no way
> makes those people wrong or stupid, or lazy or unco-operative.
I don't mean that. The US system has many problems, most of which hurt
poor people the most. One being that without a car you can't do near
anything.
But still, I think there's definitely more room for cooperative
organizations. I.e. IMHO most political systems are too un-libertarian
(I consider that immoral), but most cultural systems, especially the US,
Europe is better in that regard, are not enough left-wing, i.e. too
little concerned with social cohesion.
>> People might not have that attitude, but the religion in principle
>> does. "You can't come to the father than by me".
>
> Have you yourself read the works you quote, and come up with your own
> interpretations of them, or are you regurgitating what you've heard
> others say? If you are going to quote John, which is quite esoteric,
> you need to put things in the proper context. John 14:
Yes, I read it, but I didn't remember in which book it was. But even
your verbatim quote doesn't change my opinion of that context.
> So, your misquote "You can't come to the father than by me"
> drastically mischaracterises what was actually (fsvo actually)
I think it was pretty close, but if you interpret it differently that's
fine. I'm not telling you what opinion you should have about religion(s).
> It's still a nice story though.
Yep.
--
The problems of the real world are primarily those you are left with
when you refuse to apply their effective solutions.
Edsger W. Dijkstra
drewc wrote:
> I live in the city, so i can not even keep a few chickens for eggs and
> a goat for milk. It is illegal. I have to buy the overpriced products
> that 'they' feed me. If your suggestion would be 'move to the
> country', my question would be why should i have to?
Because the country is the country and the city is the city. I know it's
human nature to chafe at rules, but sometimes there are good reasons for
them. The price we pay for having a society I guess.
BR <······@comcast.com> writes:
> drewc wrote:
>
>> I live in the city, so i can not even keep a few chickens for eggs and
>> a goat for milk. It is illegal. I have to buy the overpriced products
>> that 'they' feed me. If your suggestion would be 'move to the
>> country', my question would be why should i have to?
>
> Because the country is the country and the city is the city. I know it's
> human nature to chafe at rules, but sometimes there are good reasons for
> them.
Ignoring the fact that i was being dramatic and over-simple for
effect, you'll have to do better than argumentum ad antiquitatem. Why
is the country the country, the city the city, and the good reasons
behind it? Bonus points for avoiding further fallacies.
> The price we pay for having a society I guess.
The price of personal liberty? The price of choice? Methinks your
price is too high, and i'll look around for a better deal.
--
drewc at tech dot coop
drewc wrote:
> BR <······@comcast.com> writes:
>
>
>>drewc wrote:
>>
>>
>>>I live in the city, so i can not even keep a few chickens for eggs and
>>>a goat for milk. It is illegal. I have to buy the overpriced products
>>>that 'they' feed me. If your suggestion would be 'move to the
>>>country', my question would be why should i have to?
>>
>>Because the country is the country and the city is the city. I know it's
>>human nature to chafe at rules, but sometimes there are good reasons for
>>them.
>
>
>
> Ignoring the fact that i was being dramatic and over-simple for
> effect, you'll have to do better than argumentum ad antiquitatem. Why
> is the country the country, the city the city, and the good reasons
> behind it? Bonus points for avoiding further fallacies.
Dude, you're a knowledge worker in the 21st century. If your idea of a
stylin' city is one that lets you keep chickens in your coop, by all
means relocate to one. There's cities in this world catering to nearly
every person's preferred amount of civilization.
> The price of personal liberty? The price of choice? Methinks your
> price is too high, and i'll look around for a better deal.
For the remaining few misanthropes, there's the country. Land is cheap,
far from the madding crowd.
Cameron MacKinnon <··········@clearspot.net> writes:
> drewc wrote:
>> Ignoring the fact that i was being dramatic and over-simple for
>> effect, you'll have to do better than argumentum ad antiquitatem. Why
>> is the country the country, the city the city, and the good reasons
>> behind it? Bonus points for avoiding further fallacies.
>
> Dude, you're a knowledge worker in the 21st century. If your idea of a
> stylin' city is one that lets you keep chickens in your coop, by all
> means relocate to one. There's cities in this world catering to nearly
> every person's preferred amount of civilization.
Dude, i run my own business and 90% of my clients are within 10
minutes of me via public transportation. At least twice a week i go to
someones office to meet with them, discuss the project, set up
servers, etc. Perhaps you are in a situation where you can just pick
up and move to the city of your choice, but i, currently, am not.
Are you suggesting that, simply because i may want to keep a chicken
or two, i pack up, shut down my moderately successful business, and
move to another city far away from my clientele? And then what will i
do to survive, get a 'job' working for someone else? I've been doing
nothing but Common Lisp for the last 2 years .. i'm unemployable ;)
This is not really about chickens, and i don't know why you are
focusing on them. How about another example.. I like to play poker. In
fact, i was at a poker game last night (i lost). Now, apparently what
we did was illegal. Just a few friends, some cards and chips, and a
nice game. No harm in that ('cept maybe to my pocketbook),
yet somehow the rulers see it fit to outlaw gaming, unless of course
they are the ones running the house, in which case it's somehow
different, legal and perfectly fine, and actually encouraged.
These same rule-makers are pushing Video Lottery Terminals everywhere,
and gambling addiction is becoming a big problem, especially in
smaller / rural communities. Peoples lives are being destroyed by the
legal form of gaming, but as long as they get their cut of the
(massive) profits, the powers-that-be turn a blind eye.
Again, you might ask why i don't relocate to a city where gambling is
legal. I ask you, why should i have to? My friends who i play with are
in this city, i quite enjoy living in this city, and i don't see why i
should have to relocate just to play a hand of hold-em without threats
to my liberty.
(i will admit that the chance of being fined or imprisoned for playing
poker with my friends is quite low. But it is non-zero, and this was
the first example that came to mind, as i'm still pretty upset about
the loss ;))
>> The price of personal liberty? The price of choice? Methinks your
>> price is too high, and i'll look around for a better deal.
>
> For the remaining few misanthropes, there's the country. Land is
> cheap, far from the madding crowd.
I hope you are not trying to pin the misanthrope label on me. Nowhere
did i say i wished to escape the city, i quite like it here. Nowhere
did i say i don't like people, just that i like eggs.
--
drewc at tech dot coop
drewc wrote:
> This is not really about chickens, and i don't know why you are
> focusing on them.
A guy with a .coop email address shows up and demands that his right to
keep and arm chickens [with apologies to the ABCL creators] not be
infringed? Fish in a barrel, pal.
> Again, you might ask why i don't relocate to a city where gambling is
> legal. I ask you, why should i have to?
Because your fellow citizens (in the original sense of the term) say so.
Ask them, not us. Run for council. Vote. A city, in the end, is nothing
more and nothing less than a concentration of people who have agreed to
circumscribe their behaviour somewhat that they may live harmoniously
cheek-by-jowl. I'm sure you could go back millenia and find signs saying
"no catapults and no sheep inside the city walls."
At no other time in history would you have had more information about
the rules and regulations of the world's other cities, nor has
intercontinental travel ever been cheaper. So go where the rules suit
you, or live with the rules where you're at, or fight to change them.
But don't ask comp.lang.lisp why your neighbours won't let you gamble or
keep chickens.
Well, I have to go play some poker and watch the election results.
drewc wrote:
> BR <······@comcast.com> writes:
> > drewc wrote:
> >
> >> I live in the city, so i can not even keep a few chickens for eggs and
> >> a goat for milk. It is illegal. I have to buy the overpriced products
> >> that 'they' feed me. If your suggestion would be 'move to the
> >> country', my question would be why should i have to?
> >
> > Because the country is the country and the city is the city. I know it's
> > human nature to chafe at rules, but sometimes there are good reasons for
> > them.
>
>
> Ignoring the fact that i was being dramatic and over-simple for
> effect, you'll have to do better than argumentum ad antiquitatem. Why
> is the country the country, the city the city, and the good reasons
> behind it? Bonus points for avoiding further fallacies.
Interesting question. What are your thoughts on the matter? (Or sources
you recommend.)
Tayssir
"Tayssir John Gabbour" <···········@yahoo.com> writes:
> drewc wrote:
>> Why
>> is the country the country, the city the city, and the good reasons
>> behind it? Bonus points for avoiding further fallacies.
>
> Interesting question. What are your thoughts on the matter? (Or sources
> you recommend.)
The guy to read in this subject is probably Vere Gordon Childe. Childe
coined the terms "Neolithic Revolution" and "Urban Revolution" to
describe the point in history where we settled down into agriculture,
and the point where we developed cities and civilisation. He was an
archeologist, rather than a sociologist or some such, which makes for
an interesting viewpoint.
He states that, to get from agricultural villages to 'cities' (which
were mostly city/states), there are certian preconditions that must
exist (give thanks to google, i would never have remembered these):
Permanent Settlement in dense aggregations
Nonagricultural Specialists
Taxation and Wealth Accumulation
Monumental Public Buildings
Ruling Class
Writing Techniques
Predictive Science
Artistic Expression
Trade for Vital materials
Decline in importance of Kinship
While points 6-8 are very positive things, it seems that division of
labour and subjugation of the working (agricultural) class by a ruling
class (backed up with a warrior class of course), along with the rise
of a merchant class is inherent in our civilised society.
All that use of the word 'class' reminds me that he was a Marxist, but
i won't hold that against him ;)
So, answering the question, i feel that it is walls, rulers, taxes and
the disolution (or redirection) of our tribal/familial ties that have
created our cities, our forms of government, and what we call
'civilisation'. I'm not going to come out entirely against that, but i
don't feel that it was a completely positive development (he says with
a cheeky grin).
Note that he doesn't state that civilisation is a precondition for the
existence of writing, arts and sciences, but rather the other way
around. So, i'm not throwing away the baby with the bathwater here,
and we don't have to get into "What have the Romans ever done for us?"
Rather than look at what we've achieved as a civilisation, i simply
propose looking at what we gave up to get here. Quite possibly, there
are other methods of social organisation that can help us reconnect
with what we've lost, while not turning our backs on all we've gained.
drewc
>
> Tayssir
>
--
drewc at tech dot coop
Gidday, Ulrich,
Ulrich Hobelmann <···········@web.de> writes:
> David Trudgett wrote:
>> On the contrary, he seems to have been of the
>> belief that, at a minimum, an organised and violent revolution would
>> be necessary on account of his other belief that the ruling class
>> would not give up their position of privilege voluntarily.
>
> Basically saying that the solution to the poor wages paid by factory
> owners wasn't for the workers to build their own factory, but to
> simply steal one.
Although the owners of capital came to be so through a process of
theft and illegitimate appropriation, violence is never a legitimate
solution. That's what Marx et al. got wrong, and it's what those who
believe in the power of the state get wrong.
No one in Australia, for example, owns the land upon which sit their
factories or houses, even though they may have a "legal title" to
it. Forgetting for a moment the legal reality that title does not
confer ownership because the state arrogates to itself and itself
alone ultimate ownership, the truth still remains that the land is not
legitimately owned, because it was stolen by force from the original
Aboriginal owners when Europeans invaded this continent. Other
countries, such as the U.S., have similar histories in this
regard. The British people committed a crime of aggression against the
Aborigines who lived here, and such a crime does not confer valid
ownership or title.
> The question is: what did they do before the factory came to life?
> Hand-knit carpets? If so, why didn't they continue to do so?
Instead of asking rhetorical questions, you should rather spend your
time finding out the answer.
>
> A simple fact, both in capitalism and in socialism is that you are
> free to produce whatever you produced in the way you produced it, but
> there is no guarantee that anyone will buy it.
As you know, communism is a specific form of socialism, and therefore
nominally covered by your general remark. Did you also know that
communism means a moneyless society? So where does "buying" come into
the picture in that case? It obviously doesn't. If you produce
something useless in communist society, people just won't use it, so
the smart communist will produce something useful, which will get
used. Unlike in capitalist societies, you do not have to "afford"
something before you can use it.
Note that I am referring to communism in the sense of anarchistic,
decentralised communism (the only legitimate communism), and not to
centrally planned state communism, which can never work because it
inherently involves both high complexity and high levels of violent
repression.
It is also interesting to note as an aside that the former Soviet
Union did use money, and that this fact alone rules it out as a valid
example of true communism, and some believe that 'state capitalism' better
describes the reality of the former Soviet Union.
> Cooperatives are cool, but they too have to adapt to the market
> pressure if they want to be competitive. Unless some central
> government allocates some money for them anyway.
There does not need to exist any "market". And competition as a way of
life, as opposed to cooperation, is harmful and dangerous to
individuals and society and the environment.
>
>> Christianity, some say, is a theory that has never been put into
>> practice. Of course, that is not entirely true, as many individuals
>> and communities throughout the ages have come a lot closer to the
>> Christian ideal than, say, present day mainstream Churches of all
>> flavours. Which is to say that, when looking at the present
>> disgraceful state of Churches, Christianity is no more than a distant
>> theory to be discussed in the abstract by theologians. Yet
>> Christianity exists.
>
> I haven't heard of any Christian, except maybe Mother Theresa.
You've led a sheltered life... ;-)
> Jesus said that the rich won't come to heaven, and stuff like that.
Not quite, but close. He said that it is as impossible for a rich man
to enter the kingdom of heaven as it is for a camel to pass through
the eye of a needle; but that for God, anything is possible. See Mark
10:17-29 for the details, if you are interested.
> At least all of Christian USAians don't give up their job etc.
What is rich? Anyone who has a job? Anyone who owns their house? Two
houses? Three houses, two cars and five TVs? Oprah or Gates-rich?
It is a relative term, but if your possessions stop you from doing
what is right, such as shutting up and doing unethical work for the
boss so you can keep your job and pay the mortgage, then your riches
are preventing you from "entering the kingdom of heaven" as Jesus put
it. Obviously, this situation becomes exponentially harder the more
wealth is accumulated, and that fact is what Jesus was referring to.
> Nonetheless, even though I'm basically against
> Christianity-as-religion (and all other Theist
> the-sole-god-that's-the-only-way-to-heaven religions), Jesus was a
> *very* cool guy (more in a cultural and political way) and IMHO a
> good person to inspire us.
Actually, Jesus was a seriously demented madman and blasphemer who
believed he was God and said so, or he was the greatest person who
ever lived and was right when he identified himself with the
godhead. He didn't really leave much room for middle ground; he meant
to make you decide.
> Just leave out the Antisemites like Saul/Paul or Luther to keep it
> clean :)
Paul and Luther were anti-semites?
>
>> Communism can be regarded in a similar light. State communism, making
>> necessary use, as it does, of violence, is abhorrent and far from any
>> true spirit of brotherhood. Yet voluntary and free communism can exist
>> in small and large communities if they are simply left alone. So, yes,
>> free communism does exist despite communist states, in the same sense
>> that Christianity exists despite Christian Churches.
>
> But these communities can perfectly exist within capitalism.
Only up to a point, because capitalist societies are violent and
coercive by nature, and such communities will always be subject to
that violence and coercion which surrounds them (for an extreme
example, you need look no further than the mass murder at Waco,
Texas). Also, community members are less free to leave, because their
main alternative would be to endure life in the surrounding capitalist
hell.
A violent state will not acknowledge the sovereignty of a free
anarchist community, and will seek to levy tribute from it by force in
several different ways. That turns the community into a ghetto.
> Again: I don't see where anarchism has to be socialist, except that
> people are free to choose so (and I like the idea).
Any economic system that ultimately requires the violence of the state
to support it, such as capitalism and state communism, has nothing in
common with anarchism.
>
> In communist states, however, there's enough coercion that maybe a
> free anarchist community couldn't exist, unless it operated like a
> black market in the underground.
True enough, but don't suppose that it is a lot easier in
"enlightened" democratic states like the U.S.^H^H^H^H, Brit^H^H^H^H,
Austral^H^H^H^H^H^H^H ... oh well, I'm sure there are examples.
Cheers,
David
--
David Trudgett
http://www.zeta.org.au/~wpower/
The State is a soulless machine that owes its very existence to violence.
David Trudgett wrote:
> No one in Australia, for example, owns the land upon which sit their
> factories or houses, even though they may have a "legal title" to
> it. Forgetting for a moment the legal reality that title does not
> confer ownership because the state arrogates to itself and itself
> alone ultimate ownership, the truth still remains that the land is not
> legitimately owned, because it was stolen by force from the original
> Aboriginal owners when Europeans invaded this continent. Other
> countries, such as the U.S., have similar histories in this
> regard. The British people committed a crime of aggression against the
> Aborigines who lived here, and such a crime does not confer valid
> ownership or title.
Hmmm. If memory serves there are some (primitive?) societies that don't
belive that one can "own" land to begin with.
BR wrote:
> Hmmm. If memory serves there are some (primitive?) societies that don't
> belive that one can "own" land to begin with.
There used to be nomad cultures, but since people have been claiming
land, farming it, building housing and factories and roads, things have
become a bit difficult for them. Nomad societies also need much land
per person to prosper I think.
--
The problems of the real world are primarily those you are left with
when you refuse to apply their effective solutions.
Edsger W. Dijkstra
Hi, Ben,
BR <······@comcast.com> writes:
>> regard. The British people committed a crime of aggression against the
>> Aborigines who lived here, and such a crime does not confer valid
>> ownership or title.
>
> Hmmm. If memory serves there are some (primitive?) societies that don't
> belive that one can "own" land to begin with.
Yes, I've heard that old canard numerous times over the years, too. I
wouldn't put too much store in it, if I were you. It basically amounts
to cultural hubris to impose one society's ideas of ownership onto
another, claiming that they do not "own" land because they do not till
it and build permanent dwellings. That is nothing more than
imperialism in language, and I find it quite contemptible; although,
of course, many do not see through the guile (to get back on topic
;-)).
Thanks for your comment. Back to lisp?
Cheers,
David
--
David Trudgett
http://www.zeta.org.au/~wpower/
"While the popular understanding of anarchism is of a violent,
anti-State movement, anarchism is a much more subtle and nuanced
tradition than a simple opposition to government power. Anarchists
oppose the idea that power and domination are necessary for society,
and instead advocate more co-operative, anti-hierarchical forms of
social, political and economic organisation."
-- The Politics of Individualism
David Trudgett <······@zeta.org.au.nospamplease> writes:
> Hi, Ben,
>
> BR <······@comcast.com> writes:
>
> >> regard. The British people committed a crime of aggression against the
> >> Aborigines who lived here, and such a crime does not confer valid
> >> ownership or title.
> >
> > Hmmm. If memory serves there are some (primitive?) societies that don't
> > belive that one can "own" land to begin with.
>
> Yes, I've heard that old canard numerous times over the years, too. I
> wouldn't put too much store in it, if I were you. It basically amounts
> to cultural hubris to impose one society's ideas of ownership onto
> another, claiming that they do not "own" land because they do not till
> it and build permanent dwellings. That is nothing more than
> imperialism in language, and I find it quite contemptible; although,
> of course, many do not see through the guile (to get back on topic
> ;-)).
>
While it would be great to get back to lisp, I just wanted to mention
that the comment regarding many "primitive" societies not recognising
the concept of land ownerhsip etc does apply to many traditional
aboriginal societies who believed it was essentially beyond arrogance
to claim ownership over the land or any other resource. In fact, in
some aboriginal societies, the whoe concept is inverted and they
actually believe the land owns them.
BTW, the reference to 'primitive' societies is often considered
insulting and judgemental because it implies a lack of
industrialisation implies less worthy or intelligent social
structure. Therre are some who will argue that modern industrial
copitalism is more primitive as it fails to recognize the central
importance of living with the environment rather than from it. I guess
we will have to wait and see if global warnming, peak oil production,
polution, GM foods and whatever else are as detrimental as some claim
before we will know which is true.
to some
extent, it reminds me of the Douglas Adams Hitchhikers guide where it
is talking about dolphins and humans and says something like
"Humans believed they were more evolved and intelligent than other
creatures because they had left the ocean and learnt to walk on two
legs. Dolphins believed they were more intelligent and evolved for
essentially the same reason".
(Sorry, its paraphrasing - I read "the guide" over 25 years ago and
have'nt seen the movie yet!)
Tim
--
Tim Cross
The e-mail address on this message is FALSE (obviously!). My real e-mail is
to a company in Australia called rapttech and my login is tcross - if you
really need to send mail, you should be able to work it out!
Tim X wrote:
> David Trudgett <······@zeta.org.au.nospamplease> writes:
>
>
>>Hi, Ben,
>>
>>BR <······@comcast.com> writes:
>>
>>
>>>>regard. The British people committed a crime of aggression against the
>>>>Aborigines who lived here, and such a crime does not confer valid
>>>>ownership or title.
>>>
>>>Hmmm. If memory serves there are some (primitive?) societies that don't
>>>belive that one can "own" land to begin with.
>>
>>Yes, I've heard that old canard numerous times over the years, too. I
>>wouldn't put too much store in it, if I were you. It basically amounts
>>to cultural hubris to impose one society's ideas of ownership onto
>>another, claiming that they do not "own" land because they do not till
>>it and build permanent dwellings. That is nothing more than
>>imperialism in language, and I find it quite contemptible; although,
>>of course, many do not see through the guile (to get back on topic
>>;-)).
>>
>
>
> While it would be great to get back to lisp, I just wanted to mention
> that the comment regarding many "primitive" societies not recognising
> the concept of land ownerhsip etc does apply to many traditional
> aboriginal societies who believed it was essentially beyond arrogance
> to claim ownership over the land or any other resource. In fact, in
> some aboriginal societies, the whoe concept is inverted and they
> actually believe the land owns them.
>
> BTW, the reference to 'primitive' societies is often considered
> insulting and judgemental because it implies a lack of
> industrialisation implies less worthy or intelligent social
> structure. Therre are some who will argue that modern industrial
> copitalism is more primitive as it fails to recognize the central
> importance of living with the environment rather than from it. I guess
> we will have to wait and see if global warnming, peak oil production,
> polution, GM foods and whatever else are as detrimental as some claim
> before we will know which is true.
>
> to some
> extent, it reminds me of the Douglas Adams Hitchhikers guide where it
> is talking about dolphins and humans and says something like
>
> "Humans believed they were more evolved and intelligent than other
> creatures because they had left the ocean and learnt to walk on two
> legs. Dolphins believed they were more intelligent and evolved for
> essentially the same reason".
>
> (Sorry, its paraphrasing - I read "the guide" over 25 years ago and
> have'nt seen the movie yet!)
>
> Tim
>
The quote is close enough.
Tim X <····@spamto.devnul.com> writes:
> While it would be great to get back to lisp, I just wanted to mention
> that the comment regarding many "primitive" societies not recognising
> the concept of land ownerhsip etc does apply to many traditional
> aboriginal societies who believed it was essentially beyond arrogance
> to claim ownership over the land or any other resource. In fact, in
> some aboriginal societies, the whoe concept is inverted and they
> actually believe the land owns them.
This is the classic intellectual version of the myth. Which aboriginal
societies in particular are you talking about? I don't believe there
are any credible references for this proposition, and it is an entirely
far too convenient way to rationalise colonialism. I think you'll find
that the myth has been applied to many an indigenous people who have
been dispossessed of their land.
With respect to our own Aboriginal peoples, let me just quote the
following as but one example of the true state of affairs:
The fact is that land ownership is viewed by Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander people as fundamental to our well-being both
individually and collectively as peoples.
To understand the basis of Aboriginal spirituality in relation to
land it is necessary to understand a totally different way of
living and thinking. The connection between land and religion is
largely absent in European societies, where land is mostly a
commodity to be bought and sold.
and:
Our claim to a special connection with the land is supported in a
vast anthropological literature...
and:
Aboriginal concepts and systems of land tenure differ greatly from
European legal models. Complex social systems were and are
expressed in particular attachments to country. The basic
land-owning unit is the clan - a local descent group, larger than
a family but based on family links through a common (usually male)
ancestry.
and:
The relationship was established in what is now generally called
the 'Dreaming'
and so on.
(http://webraft.its.unimelb.edu.au/166230/pub/hislandrights2002.htm)
To talk about "the land owning them, not them owning the land" and
similar is simply to distract from the actual issue that Western
concepts of ownership and title, land-as-a-commodity, and so forth,
are not the only true meanings of "ownership", and it was simple
arrogance for invading Europeans to force these concepts onto native
land holders.
Of course, in Australia, the British also deliberately ignored their
own laws, claiming the false doctrine and legal fiction of "Terra
Nullius", which was eventually exposed for the sham that it was in the
famous Eddie Mabo case.
David
--
David Trudgett
http://www.zeta.org.au/~wpower/
Only let men cease to be hypocrites, and they would at once see that
this cruel social organization, which holds them in bondage, and is
represented to them as something stable, necessary, and ordained of
God, is already tottering and is only propped up by the falsehood of
hypocrisy, with which we, and others like us, support it.
-- Leo Tolstoy, "The Kingdom of God is Within You"
David Trudgett <······@zeta.org.au.nospamplease> writes:
> Tim X <····@spamto.devnul.com> writes:
>
> > While it would be great to get back to lisp, I just wanted to mention
> > that the comment regarding many "primitive" societies not recognising
> > the concept of land ownerhsip etc does apply to many traditional
> > aboriginal societies who believed it was essentially beyond arrogance
> > to claim ownership over the land or any other resource. In fact, in
> > some aboriginal societies, the whoe concept is inverted and they
> > actually believe the land owns them.
>
> This is the classic intellectual version of the myth. Which aboriginal
> societies in particular are you talking about? I don't believe there
> are any credible references for this proposition, and it is an entirely
> far too convenient way to rationalise colonialism. I think you'll find
> that the myth has been applied to many an indigenous people who have
> been dispossessed of their land.
>
I was saying nothing of the sort. I was saying that the european
notion of land ownership DOES NOT APPLY and I certainly wasn't
justifying colonialism.
As for intellectural arguemnt, no - my argument was based on what I
was told by the many aboriginal elders I grew up with. they certainly
didn't put it in quite the same terms, but they certainly stressed
their difficulty in understanding how you could claim ownership. While
it is true various aboriginal groups had 'rights' to certain pieces of
land, in that other groups were not permitted to hunt or even enter
the area, they did not consider they owned the land. Ownership of land
was a concept which came with europeans. Their concept was more like a
mutual rights and responsability notion - they had rights to use the
land, but the land had rights as well i.e. they had responsabilities
with respect to the land.
Tim
--
Tim Cross
The e-mail address on this message is FALSE (obviously!). My real e-mail is
to a company in Australia called rapttech and my login is tcross - if you
really need to send mail, you should be able to work it out!
Tim X wrote:
> Ownership of land
> was a concept which came with europeans. Their concept was more like a
> mutual rights and responsability notion - they had rights to use the
> land, but the land had rights as well i.e. they had responsabilities
> with respect to the land.
Sounds like a recipe for good stewardship.
Tim X <····@spamto.devnul.com> writes:
> David Trudgett <······@zeta.org.au.nospamplease> writes:
>
>> Tim X <····@spamto.devnul.com> writes:
>>
>> > While it would be great to get back to lisp, I just wanted to mention
>> > that the comment regarding many "primitive" societies not recognising
>> > the concept of land ownerhsip etc does apply to many traditional
>> > aboriginal societies who believed it was essentially beyond arrogance
>> > to claim ownership over the land or any other resource. In fact, in
>> > some aboriginal societies, the whoe concept is inverted and they
>> > actually believe the land owns them.
>>
>> This is the classic intellectual version of the myth. Which aboriginal
>> societies in particular are you talking about? I don't believe there
>> are any credible references for this proposition, and it is an entirely
>> far too convenient way to rationalise colonialism. I think you'll find
>> that the myth has been applied to many an indigenous people who have
>> been dispossessed of their land.
>>
>
> I was saying nothing of the sort. I was saying that the european
> notion of land ownership DOES NOT APPLY and I certainly wasn't
> justifying colonialism.
The *European* notion of land ownership does not apply. We agree,
Tim. We are quibbling over semantics.
Catchya later.
David
--
David Trudgett
http://www.zeta.org.au/~wpower/
What I don't know is not as much of a problem
as what I am sure I know that just ain't so.
-- Mark Twain
David Trudgett wrote:
> No one in Australia, for example, owns the land upon which sit their
> factories or houses, even though they may have a "legal title" to
> it. Forgetting for a moment the legal reality that title does not
> confer ownership because the state arrogates to itself and itself
> alone ultimate ownership, the truth still remains that the land is not
> legitimately owned, because it was stolen by force from the original
> Aboriginal owners when Europeans invaded this continent. Other
> countries, such as the U.S., have similar histories in this
> regard. The British people committed a crime of aggression against the
> Aborigines who lived here, and such a crime does not confer valid
> ownership or title.
Then you think it's ok to invade peoples' houses and walk into their
factories, because the land doesn't belong to anybody?
I'm not sure what society one could build on these assumptions.
>> The question is: what did they do before the factory came to life?
>> Hand-knit carpets? If so, why didn't they continue to do so?
>
> Instead of asking rhetorical questions, you should rather spend your
> time finding out the answer.
I'm not interested in the answer. I'm only wondering that Socialists
usually blame a small handful of rich factory owners for paying workers
shit wages, but nobody complains about everybody else who doesn't pay
workers *better* wages. Usually before the Rich Guy opened the factory,
all of these people had lives, too, so it's quite unconstructive
criticism to say: Rich Guy, your wages suck. Let's take your factory
and run it ourselves, even though we didn't pay money to build it.
>> A simple fact, both in capitalism and in socialism is that you are
>> free to produce whatever you produced in the way you produced it, but
>> there is no guarantee that anyone will buy it.
>
> As you know, communism is a specific form of socialism, and therefore
> nominally covered by your general remark. Did you also know that
> communism means a moneyless society? So where does "buying" come into
> the picture in that case? It obviously doesn't. If you produce
> something useless in communist society, people just won't use it, so
> the smart communist will produce something useful, which will get
> used. Unlike in capitalist societies, you do not have to "afford"
> something before you can use it.
Then how are things allocated? Does everybody get a 100th of a car,
until enough cars are produced? In real life the commie-party-people
got the cars, and everybody else didn't. Now that's justice and equality :)
Without currency, how can I say that I want a computer? In capitalism I
would have to NOT buy other things, because my money is limited. If you
want to model this "only buy limited amounts of stuff" thing, you have
to end up with some kind of point system - money. IMHO at least.
> Note that I am referring to communism in the sense of anarchistic,
> decentralised communism (the only legitimate communism), and not to
> centrally planned state communism, which can never work because it
> inherently involves both high complexity and high levels of violent
> repression.
Without repression, why would anybody stop trading with money? It's
convenient you know? ;)
Especially since until the end of time, cars and computers *will* be
scarce resources, people will have to trade for them. On a legal, or on
a black market - they DO. Prices are the automatic result. No society
of more than a few 100 people has ever really lived without a market for
goods or jobs.
> It is also interesting to note as an aside that the former Soviet
> Union did use money, and that this fact alone rules it out as a valid
> example of true communism, and some believe that 'state capitalism' better
> describes the reality of the former Soviet Union.
I'm waiting for your alternative. I don't believe in it, though.
By the way, unlike in current EU or USA, money isn't something made by
government. Money is just a scarce resource, usually one that isn't
often needed for other stuff. Gold is such an example, even though some
gold is wasted on jewellery for the rich.
>> Cooperatives are cool, but they too have to adapt to the market
>> pressure if they want to be competitive. Unless some central
>> government allocates some money for them anyway.
>
> There does not need to exist any "market". And competition as a way of
> life, as opposed to cooperation, is harmful and dangerous to
> individuals and society and the environment.
But markets pop up everywhere where resources are limited. Competition
pops up on every market. Want to sell your corn and wheat? Either
produce better stuff, or make it cheaper than your neighbor's!
>> I haven't heard of any Christian, except maybe Mother Theresa.
>
> You've led a sheltered life... ;-)
No, cause then I'd probably still be Christian and Socialist.
But real life isn't that easy, and not everybody is good in the world.
And corruption exists. I haven't ever met real Christians, only
Churchgoers.
>> Jesus said that the rich won't come to heaven, and stuff like that.
>
> Not quite, but close. He said that it is as impossible for a rich man
> to enter the kingdom of heaven as it is for a camel to pass through
> the eye of a needle; but that for God, anything is possible. See Mark
> 10:17-29 for the details, if you are interested.
I've read the four books some time ago, but I don't remember all the
details.
>> At least all of Christian USAians don't give up their job etc.
>
> What is rich? Anyone who has a job? Anyone who owns their house? Two
> houses? Three houses, two cars and five TVs? Oprah or Gates-rich?
Well, IIRC Jesus said something like "drop all you have, or give it to
the poor, and follow me".
> Actually, Jesus was a seriously demented madman and blasphemer who
> believed he was God and said so, or he was the greatest person who
> ever lived and was right when he identified himself with the
> godhead. He didn't really leave much room for middle ground; he meant
> to make you decide.
But he did away with the bureaucratic society. He said that rules
aren't made by God *for* God, but for men. He had the practical
attitude that it's ok to help people even on Sabbat, or to pick stuff to
eat on that day, when you're hungry. I find that inspiring.
>> Just leave out the Antisemites like Saul/Paul or Luther to keep it
>> clean :)
>
> Paul and Luther were anti-semites?
BIG ones, yes; at least Luther wrote lots of stuff against Jews. AFAIK
Paul also says some sentence against them.
>> But these communities can perfectly exist within capitalism.
>
> Only up to a point, because capitalist societies are violent and
> coercive by nature, and such communities will always be subject to
No, but current society is. Capitalism doesn't give you the right to
coerce people. They may - of course - defend themselves. It's a moral
right.
> that violence and coercion which surrounds them (for an extreme
> example, you need look no further than the mass murder at Waco,
> Texas). Also, community members are less free to leave, because their
> main alternative would be to endure life in the surrounding capitalist
> hell.
Don't know about Waco, but of course in any society there may be
criminals. A sensible Capitalist society would have laws and prosecute
or banish criminals.
> A violent state will not acknowledge the sovereignty of a free
> anarchist community, and will seek to levy tribute from it by force in
> several different ways. That turns the community into a ghetto.
Exactly, but current states are quite far from capitalism, not the least
because they use violent force.
>> Again: I don't see where anarchism has to be socialist, except that
>> people are free to choose so (and I like the idea).
>
> Any economic system that ultimately requires the violence of the state
> to support it, such as capitalism and state communism, has nothing in
> common with anarchism.
What you seem to call capitalism, is nothing but Fascism or
state-capitalism, or mercantilism. Capitalism, or anarcho-capitalism is
a society with laws against all kind of coercion. People live by
voluntary exchange or cooperation.
>> In communist states, however, there's enough coercion that maybe a
>> free anarchist community couldn't exist, unless it operated like a
>> black market in the underground.
>
> True enough, but don't suppose that it is a lot easier in
> "enlightened" democratic states like the U.S.^H^H^H^H, Brit^H^H^H^H,
> Austral^H^H^H^H^H^H^H ... oh well, I'm sure there are examples.
It's not that easy I suppose. As long as you don't do things "for
business" and exchange isn't based on money, but on goods only, maybe
you can get away with free cooperation.
At least neighbors still help each other sometimes; I guess they do
that in State-Communism, too.
--
The problems of the real world are primarily those you are left with
when you refuse to apply their effective solutions.
Edsger W. Dijkstra
Ulrich Hobelmann <···········@web.de> writes:
> No, cause then I'd probably still be Christian and Socialist.
This is not possible.
If you are a true Christian, you are libertarian.
If you are a true Socialist, you are anti-christian.
--
__Pascal Bourguignon__ http://www.informatimago.com/
CAUTION: The mass of this product contains the energy equivalent of
85 million tons of TNT per net ounce of weight.
Pascal Bourguignon wrote:
> If you are a true Christian, you are libertarian.
"Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's" -- JC, libertarian.
> If you are a true Socialist, you are anti-christian.
There have been far too many attempts to redefine words here lately. In
that spirit, I'd like to propose that here in c.l.l 'communist' means
someone in favour of free ice cream every Sunday.
Cameron MacKinnon wrote:
> Pascal Bourguignon wrote:
>
>> If you are a true Christian, you are libertarian.
>
>
> "Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's" -- JC, libertarian.
>
>> If you are a true Socialist, you are anti-christian.
>
>
> There have been far too many attempts to redefine words here lately. In
> that spirit, I'd like to propose that here in c.l.l 'communist' means
> someone in favour of free ice cream every Sunday.
In which case I'm fairly sure we're all Communists.
Hi Cameron,
Cameron MacKinnon <··········@clearspot.net> writes:
> Pascal Bourguignon wrote:
>> If you are a true Christian, you are libertarian.
>
> "Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's" -- JC, libertarian.
It is interesting that Christ's deliberately ambiguous statement is
misrepresented by right wing libertarians, statist Church
organisations, and those who have been hoodwinked by them.
David
--
David Trudgett
http://www.zeta.org.au/~wpower/
Capitalism is about sharing things in the same way that
Tug-Of-War is about sharing the rope.
Cameron MacKinnon <··········@clearspot.net> writes:
> Pascal Bourguignon wrote:
> > If you are a true Christian, you are libertarian.
>
> "Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's" -- JC, libertarian.
>
> > If you are a true Socialist, you are anti-christian.
>
> There have been far too many attempts to redefine words here
> lately. In that spirit, I'd like to propose that here in c.l.l
> 'communist' means someone in favour of free ice cream every Sunday.
You horrible state commie bastard, how dare you! What about that poor
hard working capitalist ice cream vendor that makes 80% of his income
from Sunday ice cream sales? You've just destroyed his business he has
worked hard to develop for the last 500 years and now his 40 kids and
5 wives are all going to starve.
You selfish selfish utter bastard
--
Tim Cross
The e-mail address on this message is FALSE (obviously!). My real e-mail is
to a company in Australia called rapttech and my login is tcross - if you
really need to send mail, you should be able to work it out!
Tim X wrote:
> Cameron MacKinnon <··········@clearspot.net> writes:
>
>
>>Pascal Bourguignon wrote:
>>
>>>If you are a true Christian, you are libertarian.
>>
>>"Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's" -- JC, libertarian.
>>
>>
>>>If you are a true Socialist, you are anti-christian.
>>
>>There have been far too many attempts to redefine words here
>>lately. In that spirit, I'd like to propose that here in c.l.l
>>'communist' means someone in favour of free ice cream every Sunday.
>
>
> You horrible state commie bastard, how dare you! What about that poor
> hard working capitalist ice cream vendor that makes 80% of his income
> from Sunday ice cream sales? You've just destroyed his business he has
> worked hard to develop for the last 500 years and now his 40 kids and
> 5 wives are all going to starve.
>
> You selfish selfish utter bastard
>
>
Hey, if the capitalist can't compete in the Sunday Ice Cream Market he
should just find another business to make money in! That's capitalism,
you know?
> Hey, if the capitalist can't compete in the Sunday Ice Cream Market
> he should just find another business to make money in! That's
> capitalism, you know?
Best to make Sunday Ice Cream a human right. I have the following
quote about that:
I wish I could get the product I sell to become a human right.
Then people would be forced to pay for it and use it. The only
drawback is that, like schoolteachers, I probably would wind up
actually doing something else.
Here's another quote that seems apropos:
A Bolshevik speaker promised his audience "come the revolution,
we will all eat strawberries and cream." "But I don't like
strawberries and cream," responded a listener. "Come the
revolution we will *all* eat strawberries and cream!," the
Bolshevik intoned. -- Butler Shaffer
--
Fred Gilham ······@csl.sri.com
The PTPL (People's Trotskyist Programming League) believes that
hackers are elitist and that all software should be created by the
masses flailing away at millions of keyboards. I didn't have the
heart to tell them that this has already been tried and the result is
called Linux.
Tim X wrote:
> You horrible state commie bastard, how dare you! What about that poor
> hard working capitalist ice cream vendor that makes 80% of his income
> from Sunday ice cream sales? You've just destroyed his business he has
> worked hard to develop for the last 500 years and now his 40 kids and
> 5 wives are all going to starve.
Only if you *force* ice cream to be free, with law and a gun. If you
simply volunteer to provide free ice cream to anyone, you'll either have
to produce it for free (buying ingredients), or buy it from existing
vendors (paying them). So there will probably still be ice cream producers.
--
The problems of the real world are primarily those you are left with
when you refuse to apply their effective solutions.
Edsger W. Dijkstra
Pascal Bourguignon wrote:
> Ulrich Hobelmann <···········@web.de> writes:
>
>
>>No, cause then I'd probably still be Christian and Socialist.
>
>
> This is not possible.
> If you are a true Christian, you are libertarian.
> If you are a true Socialist, you are anti-christian.
>
Remember, the word "socialist" was around for years before Marx used it.
Nowadays, what with the fall of the Soviet Union, it can mean
practically any leftist ideology which wants to change the roots and
systems of the economy.
Ulrich Hobelmann <···········@web.de> writes:
> David Trudgett wrote:
>> regard. The British people committed a crime of aggression against the
>> Aborigines who lived here, and such a crime does not confer valid
>> ownership or title.
>
> Then you think it's ok to invade peoples' houses and walk into their
> factories, because the land doesn't belong to anybody?
Come now, Ulrich, you know me better than that by now. You know I'm a
pacifist, yet you ask rubbish questions like that. I don't see
evidence of sincerity when you do that.
>> Instead of asking rhetorical questions, you should rather spend your
>> time finding out the answer.
>
> I'm not interested in the answer.
I believe you are correct, Ulrich. As Tayssir said, we all have the
ability to research this information further for ourselves. Let's
leave it there.
Cheers,
David
--
David Trudgett
http://www.zeta.org.au/~wpower/
"Then leading him to a height, the devil showed him in a moment of
time all the kingdoms of the world and said to him, 'I will give you
all this power and the glory of these kingdoms, for it has been
committed to me and I give it to anyone I choose. Worship me, then,
and it shall all be yours.' But Jesus answered him, 'Scripture says:
You must worship the Lord your God, and serve him alone.'"
(Luke 4:5-8)
David Trudgett <······@zeta.org.au.nospamplease> writes:
>> Jesus said that the rich won't come to heaven, and stuff like that.
>
> Not quite, but close. He said that it is as impossible for a rich man
> to enter the kingdom of heaven as it is for a camel to pass through
> the eye of a needle; but that for God, anything is possible. See Mark
> 10:17-29 for the details, if you are interested.
And moreover, it's quite possible, by quantum mechanics, for a camel to
pass thru the eye of a needle, only very very slowly.
--
__Pascal Bourguignon__ http://www.informatimago.com/
Nobody can fix the economy. Nobody can be trusted with their finger
on the button. Nobody's perfect. VOTE FOR NOBODY.
Hi Pascal,
(I like that name, by the way! My only question is, why is Lisp your
favourite programming language?! :-))
Pascal Bourguignon <····@mouse-potato.com> writes:
> David Trudgett <······@zeta.org.au.nospamplease> writes:
>>> Jesus said that the rich won't come to heaven, and stuff like that.
>>
>> Not quite, but close. He said that it is as impossible for a rich man
>> to enter the kingdom of heaven as it is for a camel to pass through
>> the eye of a needle; but that for God, anything is possible. See Mark
>> 10:17-29 for the details, if you are interested.
>
> And moreover, it's quite possible, by quantum mechanics, for a camel to
> pass thru the eye of a needle, only very very slowly.
:-) Actually, no, but it's funny anyway.
Cheers,
David
--
David Trudgett
http://www.zeta.org.au/~wpower/
One of the clearest lessons of history, including recent history, is
that rights are not granted; they are won. The rest is up to us.
-- Noam Chomsky
<http://www.chomsky.info/articles/20041217.htm>
David Trudgett wrote:
> Hi Pascal,
>
> (I like that name, by the way! My only question is, why is Lisp your
> favourite programming language?! :-))
>
> Pascal Bourguignon <····@mouse-potato.com> writes:
>
>
>>David Trudgett <······@zeta.org.au.nospamplease> writes:
>>
>>>>Jesus said that the rich won't come to heaven, and stuff like that.
>>>
>>>Not quite, but close. He said that it is as impossible for a rich man
>>>to enter the kingdom of heaven as it is for a camel to pass through
>>>the eye of a needle; but that for God, anything is possible. See Mark
>>>10:17-29 for the details, if you are interested.
>>
>>And moreover, it's quite possible, by quantum mechanics, for a camel to
>>pass thru the eye of a needle, only very very slowly.
>
>
> :-) Actually, no, but it's funny anyway.
>
> Cheers,
>
> David
It's possible, only Infinitely Improbable.
David Trudgett wrote:
> Hi Pascal,
>
> (I like that name, by the way! My only question is, why is Lisp your
> favourite programming language?! :-))
The question should rather be why so many shoddy languages (not implying
Pascal here, even though it doesn't positively overwhelm me) are named
after great people or interesting places. Their names can never be
taken again by a great language.
And I'm honestly hoping nobody names their kid Lisp. :D
--
The problems of the real world are primarily those you are left with
when you refuse to apply their effective solutions.
Edsger W. Dijkstra
David Trudgett <······@zeta.org.au.nospamplease> writes:
> (I like that name, by the way! My only question is, why is Lisp your
> favourite programming language?! :-))
I've learned a number of programming language, searching everytime for
a better one. I've even started to design my own languages.
Eventually, I started to use emacs lisp and Common Lisp and found the
_ultimate_ language, which frees my mind of that language quest I had.
--
__Pascal Bourguignon__ http://www.informatimago.com/
ADVISORY: There is an extremely small but nonzero chance that,
through a process known as "tunneling," this product may
spontaneously disappear from its present location and reappear at
any random place in the universe, including your neighbor's
domicile. The manufacturer will not be responsible for any damages
or inconveniences that may result.
Pascal Bourguignon wrote:
> David Trudgett <······@zeta.org.au.nospamplease> writes:
>
>>(I like that name, by the way! My only question is, why is Lisp your
>>favourite programming language?! :-))
>
>
> I've learned a number of programming language, searching everytime for
> a better one. I've even started to design my own languages.
> Eventually, I started to use emacs lisp and Common Lisp and found the
> _ultimate_ language, which frees my mind of that language quest I had.
>
>
Just because nobody's thought of anything better than Lisp doesn't make
it the ultimate language.
Eli Gottlieb <···········@gmail.com> writes:
> Pascal Bourguignon wrote:
>> David Trudgett <······@zeta.org.au.nospamplease> writes:
>>
>>>(I like that name, by the way! My only question is, why is Lisp your
>>>favourite programming language?! :-))
>> I've learned a number of programming language, searching everytime
>> for
>> a better one. I've even started to design my own languages.
>> Eventually, I started to use emacs lisp and Common Lisp and found the
>> _ultimate_ language, which frees my mind of that language quest I had.
>>
> Just because nobody's thought of anything better than Lisp doesn't
> make it the ultimate language.
In 50 years, nobody came with anything better.
I won't live 50 years to see the next ultimate language.
--
__Pascal Bourguignon__ http://www.informatimago.com/
Small brave carnivores
Kill pine cones and mosquitoes
Fear vacuum cleaner
Pascal Bourguignon wrote:
> In 50 years, nobody came with anything better.
> I won't live 50 years to see the next ultimate language.
We'll have the ultimate language when we have the ultimate hardware. <g>
Eli Gottlieb wrote:
> Pascal Bourguignon wrote:
>
>> David Trudgett <······@zeta.org.au.nospamplease> writes:
>>
>>> (I like that name, by the way! My only question is, why is Lisp your
>>> favourite programming language?! :-))
>>
>>
>>
>> I've learned a number of programming language, searching everytime for
>> a better one. I've even started to design my own languages.
>> Eventually, I started to use emacs lisp and Common Lisp and found the
>> _ultimate_ language, which frees my mind of that language quest I had.
>>
>>
> Just because nobody's thought of anything better than Lisp doesn't make
> it the ultimate language.
That is not why it is the ultimate. It is the ultimate because it can
morph itself to handle the better things people think of. And do not
think any language can do that (or start talking about Turing
equivalence <g>). When Lisp adopted OO we got CLOS, the best OO out
there. When C adopted OO we got C++. Nuff said?
kenny
Kenny Tilton wrote:
> Eli Gottlieb wrote:
>
>> Pascal Bourguignon wrote:
>>
>>> David Trudgett <······@zeta.org.au.nospamplease> writes:
>>>
>>>> (I like that name, by the way! My only question is, why is Lisp your
>>>> favourite programming language?! :-))
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> I've learned a number of programming language, searching everytime for
>>> a better one. I've even started to design my own languages.
>>> Eventually, I started to use emacs lisp and Common Lisp and found the
>>> _ultimate_ language, which frees my mind of that language quest I had.
>>>
>>>
>> Just because nobody's thought of anything better than Lisp doesn't
>> make it the ultimate language.
>
>
> That is not why it is the ultimate. It is the ultimate because it can
> morph itself to handle the better things people think of. And do not
> think any language can do that (or start talking about Turing
> equivalence <g>). When Lisp adopted OO we got CLOS, the best OO out
> there. When C adopted OO we got C++. Nuff said?
>
> kenny
Since when is CLOS the best OO out there? It is a certain style of OO
that happens to work remarkably well as part of Lisp, but I'd think that
Smalltalk takes the prize for best OO out there.
Eli Gottlieb wrote:
> Kenny Tilton wrote:
> >
> > That is not why it is the ultimate. It is the ultimate because it can
> > morph itself to handle the better things people think of. And do not
> > think any language can do that (or start talking about Turing
> > equivalence <g>). When Lisp adopted OO we got CLOS, the best OO out
> > there. When C adopted OO we got C++. Nuff said?
> >
> > kenny
> Since when is CLOS the best OO out there? It is a certain style of OO
> that happens to work remarkably well as part of Lisp, but I'd think that
> Smalltalk takes the prize for best OO out there.
What reasons do you have for this conclusion? Under which metrics do
you evaluate which OO system is better, and is either OO system better
in all ways?
And are we counting things like defacto standards (metaobject
protocols, etc)?
Tayssir
Eli Gottlieb wrote:
> Kenny Tilton wrote:
> > That is not why it is the ultimate. It is the ultimate because it can
> > morph itself to handle the better things people think of. And do not
> > think any language can do that (or start talking about Turing
> > equivalence <g>). When Lisp adopted OO we got CLOS, the best OO out
> > there. When C adopted OO we got C++. Nuff said?
> >
> > kenny
> Since when is CLOS the best OO out there? It is a certain style of OO
> that happens to work remarkably well as part of Lisp, but I'd think that
> Smalltalk takes the prize for best OO out there.
I could press my shirts with the irony of this statement.
You say that Smalltalk is the best OO out there when what you mean is
that it is the most Smalltalk-like OO out there. There are other styles
of OO, CLOS is one, and every style has its advocates claiming that it
is the best.
Kenny said "it is the ultimate because it can morph itself to handle
the better things people think of," and he wasn't lying.
You prefer Smalltalk? That's fine. Make a macro package which provides
Smalltalk-style message passing. You may note that such a macro package
can live side-by-side with CLOS (and would likely _be_ CLOS, on the
inside).
The real reason Lisp has the best OO out there has nothing to do with
CLOS and everything to do with Lisp. Lisp is the greatest common
denominator of programming languages, and can act like any other
programming language if you have the time and know-how to make it so.
Nathan Baum wrote:
> The real reason Lisp has the best OO out there has nothing to do with
> CLOS and everything to do with Lisp. Lisp is the greatest common
> denominator of programming languages, and can act like any other
> programming language if you have the time and know-how to make it so.
Once again, just because a better language hasn't been invented doesn't
make Lisp the Supreme Language Ever. I admit that Lisp can emulate
(with varying amounts of work) any inferior language so far created, but
I doubt it will be able to emulate its superior language - when that is
created - without creating half of a buggy and slow compiler/interpreter
for that language.
Eli Gottlieb schrieb:
> Nathan Baum wrote:
> > The real reason Lisp has the best OO out there has nothing to do with
> > CLOS and everything to do with Lisp. Lisp is the greatest common
> > denominator of programming languages, and can act like any other
> > programming language if you have the time and know-how to make it so.
>
> Once again, just because a better language hasn't been invented doesn't
> make Lisp the Supreme Language Ever. I admit that Lisp can emulate
> (with varying amounts of work) any inferior language so far created, but
> I doubt it will be able to emulate its superior language - when that is
> created - without creating half of a buggy and slow compiler/interpreter
> for that language.
I guess that the language which will be more powerful than Lisp won't
be a formal one - it will be a natural one, like english.
When in 25-45 years strong AI will be developed then people only have
to state what kind of program they want and the computer will write the
program (directly in pure, highly optimized machine language for
unbeatable performance) within a few moments.
Until that time I suppose that Lisp will stay the optimum with a few
other languages. If it will be Common Lisp is another issue. But I
guess it would be a Lisp which is similar enough.
André
--
Eli Gottlieb wrote:
> Nathan Baum wrote:
> > The real reason Lisp has the best OO out there has nothing to do with
> > CLOS and everything to do with Lisp. Lisp is the greatest common
> > denominator of programming languages, and can act like any other
> > programming language if you have the time and know-how to make it so.
>
> Once again, just because a better language hasn't been invented doesn't
> make Lisp the Supreme Language Ever. I admit that Lisp can emulate
> (with varying amounts of work) any inferior language so far created, but
> I doubt it will be able to emulate its superior language - when that is
> created - without creating half of a buggy and slow compiler/interpreter
> for that language.
Not only do there exist languages stronger than Common Lisp on some
axes, there exist older Lisps stronger than Common Lisp. My
understanding is that there was a time when people didn't venerate
Common Lisp's power -- they were embarrassed by its weaknesses. Its
tradeoffs, due to the need to work on tiny machines, to ones which
shipped with 64,000 processors. They simply assumed Lisp would grow and
overshadow what they had then.
Unfortunately, we're more in the position of people trying to recover
from a dark age.
Check out the Chineuals. Or "The Connection Machine." Interlisp.
I'm sure you can conceive of a more powerful CL. Take the hyped
code-is-data, or anything in CL. I'm sure you can improve on it.
Now, the big mistake people make is to be hypnotized by one fancy
brick. How about dynamic scope? Optional declarations? Compiler macros
(not the normal kind)? The reader?
And where will the new ideas flow from? Some "benevolvent dictator" who
must oversimplify things to manage the complexity from his own
perspective, claiming it's for his users' sakes?
Now, the reason people think so highly about Lisp being the Supreme
Tradition is because it fulfills the one minimal requirement of
computer language sanity -- the ability to conveniently operate on
"code." I'm not saying it's the best way, nor even that it does more
than a minimal fulfillment, but it's far ahead of what passes commonly
in the computer world.
Tayssir
"Tayssir John Gabbour" <···········@yahoo.com> writes:
> Not only do there exist languages stronger than Common Lisp on some
> axes, there exist older Lisps stronger than Common Lisp. My
> understanding is that there was a time when people didn't venerate
> Common Lisp's power -- they were embarrassed by its weaknesses. Its
> tradeoffs, due to the need to work on tiny machines, to ones which
> shipped with 64,000 processors. They simply assumed Lisp would grow and
> overshadow what they had then.
>
> Unfortunately, we're more in the position of people trying to recover
> from a dark age.
This is interesting. Can you elaborate on this?
--
Bill Atkins
Bill Atkins wrote:
> "Tayssir John Gabbour" <···········@yahoo.com> writes:
>
> > Not only do there exist languages stronger than Common Lisp on some
> > axes, there exist older Lisps stronger than Common Lisp. My
> > understanding is that there was a time when people didn't venerate
> > Common Lisp's power -- they were embarrassed by its weaknesses. Its
> > tradeoffs, due to the need to work on tiny machines, to ones which
> > shipped with 64,000 processors. They simply assumed Lisp would grow and
> > overshadow what they had then.
> >
> > Unfortunately, we're more in the position of people trying to recover
> > from a dark age.
>
>
> This is interesting. Can you elaborate on this?
I heard that phrase a year or so ago in this newsgroup, and I was
curious too as to what it could mean. (A google of "dark age" on this
forum shows that people were claiming we were in a computing dark age
as early as 1991, and Alan Kay claimed "the last 20 years have been
basically air guitar" for computing's evolution.)
One factor seems to have been the shifting of funding from long term
developments to short term results. (Perhaps due to an increasing
proportion of funding by corporations, rather than government.
Companies are more naturally focussed on their own pressing needs than
the tech industry as a whole.)
And of course, you find oddities... for example Common Lisp was largely
formed to fight Interlisp for defense subsidy, and pretty much killed
them off from what I hear. The Connection Machine was interesting, but
apparently didn't focus enough on solving their customers' problems
[1]. And so on... this is not a story where Lisp users were Defenders
of the Good Faith, but there are systematic reasons why things
degenerate.
So anyway, last year it was obvious how we were very much in a
faith-based computing culture. People didn't evaluate computing ideas
based on facts; they invented absurd arguments, and engaged in
"debate." (Debate is an institution where the players are constrained
to focus on winning in the eyes of some audience, rather than saying,
"This is an interesting point, let's explore it.") A lot of the
advances are from pre-dark age literature, surprising the priests who
were true believers in the computing world being a meritocracy of
ideas. (Rather than advancing ideologically or politically.)
[1]
http://theory.lcs.mit.edu/classes/6.972/TMC%20Corp.html#_Toc408115221
Tayssir
"Tayssir John Gabbour" <···········@yahoo.com> writes:
> Bill Atkins wrote:
>> "Tayssir John Gabbour" <···········@yahoo.com> writes:
>>
>> > Not only do there exist languages stronger than Common Lisp on some
>> > axes, there exist older Lisps stronger than Common Lisp. My
>> > understanding is that there was a time when people didn't venerate
>> > Common Lisp's power -- they were embarrassed by its weaknesses. Its
>> > tradeoffs, due to the need to work on tiny machines, to ones which
>> > shipped with 64,000 processors. They simply assumed Lisp would grow and
>> > overshadow what they had then.
>> >
>> > Unfortunately, we're more in the position of people trying to recover
>> > from a dark age.
>>
>>
>> This is interesting. Can you elaborate on this?
>
> I heard that phrase a year or so ago in this newsgroup, and I was
> curious too as to what it could mean. (A google of "dark age" on this
> forum shows that people were claiming we were in a computing dark age
> as early as 1991, and Alan Kay claimed "the last 20 years have been
> basically air guitar" for computing's evolution.)
Not only in programming language, but also in other domains such as
Operating Systems:
http://herpolhode.com/rob/utah2000.pdf
> One factor seems to have been the shifting of funding from long term
> developments to short term results. (Perhaps due to an increasing
> proportion of funding by corporations, rather than government.
> Companies are more naturally focussed on their own pressing needs than
> the tech industry as a whole.)
But even in the commercial world it feels like we're in a Matrix loop.
In 1991, NeXT Computer Inc issued a new computer with a new Object
Oriented GUI Framework that was 10 years in advance on its time.
Ten years later, Apple Computer Inc issued a new computer with the
same "new" Object Oriented GUI Framework. The same under a new name.
Is it still 10 years in advance on its time? No, since they've
remove a number of features that they are still re-incorporating.
--
__Pascal Bourguignon__ http://www.informatimago.com/
"Klingon function calls do not have "parameters" -- they have
"arguments" and they ALWAYS WIN THEM."
Pascal Bourguignon wrote:
>>I heard that phrase a year or so ago in this newsgroup, and I was
>>curious too as to what it could mean. (A google of "dark age" on this
>>forum shows that people were claiming we were in a computing dark age
>>as early as 1991, and Alan Kay claimed "the last 20 years have been
>>basically air guitar" for computing's evolution.)
>
>
> Not only in programming language, but also in other domains such as
> Operating Systems:
>
> http://herpolhode.com/rob/utah2000.pdf
May I make an observation? From my POV it looks as though both
programming languages and operating systems suffer/benefit from network
effects. Users are attracted to both by a corpus of already-existing
work they can build on, but they both require users to build that
corpus. In short, they both suffer from chicken-and-egg problems of
becoming popular enough to be successful and self-sustaining.
Eli Gottlieb wrote:
> Pascal Bourguignon wrote:
> >>I heard that phrase a year or so ago in this newsgroup, and I was
> >>curious too as to what it could mean. (A google of "dark age" on this
> >>forum shows that people were claiming we were in a computing dark age
> >>as early as 1991, and Alan Kay claimed "the last 20 years have been
> >>basically air guitar" for computing's evolution.)
> >
> >
> > Not only in programming language, but also in other domains such as
> > Operating Systems:
> >
> > http://herpolhode.com/rob/utah2000.pdf
> May I make an observation? From my POV it looks as though both
> programming languages and operating systems suffer/benefit from network
> effects. Users are attracted to both by a corpus of already-existing
> work they can build on, but they both require users to build that
> corpus. In short, they both suffer from chicken-and-egg problems of
> becoming popular enough to be successful and self-sustaining.
Sure, there's various market pressures both for and against Lisp. Some
of them reinforce themselves, like network effects.
But ironically, barriers of entry can be a good thing in the market,
depending on whether you can take advantage of them. We can just look
at any business paperback about some big company, where the CEO is
boasting about entering a market with big barriers to entry.
The big black-and-white techie assumption that barriers to entry = bad
is probably ideological, as then the next question is, "Is there a
class of actors who benefit from these barriers, while others don't?"
And many people seem to have a problem with asking that.
Probably a guess though...
Tayssir
Tayssir John Gabbour wrote:
> Eli Gottlieb wrote:
>
>>Pascal Bourguignon wrote:
>>
>>>>I heard that phrase a year or so ago in this newsgroup, and I was
>>>>curious too as to what it could mean. (A google of "dark age" on this
>>>>forum shows that people were claiming we were in a computing dark age
>>>>as early as 1991, and Alan Kay claimed "the last 20 years have been
>>>>basically air guitar" for computing's evolution.)
>>>
>>>
>>>Not only in programming language, but also in other domains such as
>>>Operating Systems:
>>>
>>>http://herpolhode.com/rob/utah2000.pdf
>>
>>May I make an observation? From my POV it looks as though both
>>programming languages and operating systems suffer/benefit from network
>>effects. Users are attracted to both by a corpus of already-existing
>>work they can build on, but they both require users to build that
>>corpus. In short, they both suffer from chicken-and-egg problems of
>>becoming popular enough to be successful and self-sustaining.
>
>
> Sure, there's various market pressures both for and against Lisp. Some
> of them reinforce themselves, like network effects.
>
> But ironically, barriers of entry can be a good thing in the market,
> depending on whether you can take advantage of them. We can just look
> at any business paperback about some big company, where the CEO is
> boasting about entering a market with big barriers to entry.
>
> The big black-and-white techie assumption that barriers to entry = bad
> is probably ideological, as then the next question is, "Is there a
> class of actors who benefit from these barriers, while others don't?"
> And many people seem to have a problem with asking that.
>
> Probably a guess though...
>
>
> Tayssir
>
The rationale for the assumption is situations like these, where
technically superior products (Lisp, Linux, some genius hobby/research
OS) are unable to obtain a good market share because of network effects
and barriers to entry.
That rationale follows from the black-and-white techie assumption that
superior products, services or ideas *should* win in the market.
Eli Gottlieb wrote:
> The rationale for the assumption is situations like these, where
> technically superior products (Lisp, Linux, some genius hobby/research
> OS) are unable to obtain a good market share because of network effects
> and barriers to entry.
It's because of crappy marketing. Basically most people don't want or
need Windows, but they don't know better. They only want a computer to
switch on and work with. Once you show them that your software is
actually *easier* to use, they love it. But in a way it's a little like
the introduction of New Coke.
I think any modern OS when brought to people has to include *lots* of
emulation facilities.
> That rationale follows from the black-and-white techie assumption that
> superior products, services or ideas *should* win in the market.
It's the far-from-reality assumption of something called "perfect
competition", which doesn't ever happen. Of course people only worry
about that because they have a flawed concept of marketing.
People don't just *buy* a new product because it's better, they only buy
it if they know/think it's better. Marketing involves communication,
and unlike advertising, not all communication (and not even all
advertising) is bad.
Once you take communication and choice into account, it makes sense and
it's ok that competition isn't "perfect", i.e. that there aren't always
infinitely many providers and buyers.
Techies usually are well-informed (reading News for Nerds and stuff) and
thus have early access to information. They tend to be early adopters
too, but that shouldn't give companies the "right" to do crappy
marketing ever after. The tech market just isn't enough.
With Lisp it's easier than with OSes, because nobody needs to know about
it ;)
As long as Lisp software works along C++ software, that's all fine.
Lisp isn't really a platform from the customer side, it's only a tool
from the developer side. OSes are different, but I suppose you could
emulate a really cool OS API on top of Linux, even if it's very slow.
--
The problems of the real world are primarily those you are left with
when you refuse to apply their effective solutions.
Edsger W. Dijkstra
Ulrich Hobelmann wrote:
> Lisp isn't really a platform from the customer side, it's only a tool
> from the developer side. OSes are different, but I suppose you could
> emulate a really cool OS API on top of Linux, even if it's very slow.
Talking about Lisp I more meant the small number of programmers (usually
techies, right?) who use it.
Write an operating system on top of something like Linux? If your
system requires no hardware features that can't be emulated through
Linux system calls, it might be possible. Interrupt handling, for
example, requires being able to get at the IDT directly and run your
interrupt handler code in ring 0. However, it is often suggested "run
on top of Xen" or some other hardware virtualizer.
You say that the lack of adoption of better platforms comes from lack of
sufficient marketing. IMHO, that's only part of the problem. The other
part is that lusers don't know Windoze from Linux in the first place
without being told. You can market to them forever and never make a
sale, because you're telling them about how they'll never get a virus
again while they protest that Norton Antivirus already does that.
As for programmers, I suspect a component of it (just from my Slashdot
readings and a dash of Paul Graham) comes from employers. Companies
like C++/Java/Perl/C because they can always find someone with those
skills. This, coupled with the network effects of most major libraries
and operating systems being written for C/C++ and Java having a VM makes
those the more financially secure choices. So employers require them
and programmers who need food on the table learn them.
Pascal Bourguignon wrote:
>>> This is interesting. Can you elaborate on this?
>> I heard that phrase a year or so ago in this newsgroup, and I was
>> curious too as to what it could mean. (A google of "dark age" on this
>> forum shows that people were claiming we were in a computing dark age
>> as early as 1991, and Alan Kay claimed "the last 20 years have been
>> basically air guitar" for computing's evolution.)
Heh, I love the "air guitar" comparison :D
> Not only in programming language, but also in other domains such as
> Operating Systems:
>
> http://herpolhode.com/rob/utah2000.pdf
Hm, can't connect to the server...
>> One factor seems to have been the shifting of funding from long term
>> developments to short term results. (Perhaps due to an increasing
>> proportion of funding by corporations, rather than government.
>> Companies are more naturally focussed on their own pressing needs than
>> the tech industry as a whole.)
He's right there. Also read Rob Pike's System Software Research is
Irrelevant (or something like that).
> But even in the commercial world it feels like we're in a Matrix loop.
> In 1991, NeXT Computer Inc issued a new computer with a new Object
> Oriented GUI Framework that was 10 years in advance on its time.
>
> Ten years later, Apple Computer Inc issued a new computer with the
> same "new" Object Oriented GUI Framework. The same under a new name.
> Is it still 10 years in advance on its time? No, since they've
> remove a number of features that they are still re-incorporating.
I was totally surprised when I watched the original NeXT demo and
thought, damn, that's not less than my Mac does, it's *more*.
But so was I surprised in 2000 by BeOS, and after Palm bought it they
didn't even manage to release any OS6 devices for several *years* now.
Copland (Apple's pre-OS X) all over again. Now Palm has just released a
Windows device, and rumor says they're working on a Linux platform. If
you got any shares, sell. Quickly.
It's great that in the PL world we at least have Lisp, so we can show
and tell what features are missing from other languages, and aren't even
rocket science. In the OS world we lack such systems that are like a
punch to the head, making people think "OMG, what have I been DOING all
those years?"
--
The problems of the real world are primarily those you are left with
when you refuse to apply their effective solutions.
Edsger W. Dijkstra
Ulrich Hobelmann wrote:
> Pascal Bourguignon wrote:
>
>>>> This is interesting. Can you elaborate on this?
>>>
>>> I heard that phrase a year or so ago in this newsgroup, and I was
>>> curious too as to what it could mean. (A google of "dark age" on this
>>> forum shows that people were claiming we were in a computing dark age
>>> as early as 1991, and Alan Kay claimed "the last 20 years have been
>>> basically air guitar" for computing's evolution.)
>
>
> Heh, I love the "air guitar" comparison :D
>
>> Not only in programming language, but also in other domains such as
>> Operating Systems:
>>
>> http://herpolhode.com/rob/utah2000.pdf
>
>
> Hm, can't connect to the server...
>
>>> One factor seems to have been the shifting of funding from long term
>>> developments to short term results. (Perhaps due to an increasing
>>> proportion of funding by corporations, rather than government.
>>> Companies are more naturally focussed on their own pressing needs than
>>> the tech industry as a whole.)
>
>
> He's right there. Also read Rob Pike's System Software Research is
> Irrelevant (or something like that).
>
>> But even in the commercial world it feels like we're in a Matrix loop.
>> In 1991, NeXT Computer Inc issued a new computer with a new Object
>> Oriented GUI Framework that was 10 years in advance on its time.
>>
>> Ten years later, Apple Computer Inc issued a new computer with the
>> same "new" Object Oriented GUI Framework. The same under a new name.
>> Is it still 10 years in advance on its time? No, since they've
>> remove a number of features that they are still re-incorporating.
>
>
> I was totally surprised when I watched the original NeXT demo and
> thought, damn, that's not less than my Mac does, it's *more*.
>
> But so was I surprised in 2000 by BeOS, and after Palm bought it they
> didn't even manage to release any OS6 devices for several *years* now.
> Copland (Apple's pre-OS X) all over again. Now Palm has just released a
> Windows device, and rumor says they're working on a Linux platform. If
> you got any shares, sell. Quickly.
>
> It's great that in the PL world we at least have Lisp, so we can show
> and tell what features are missing from other languages, and aren't even
> rocket science. In the OS world we lack such systems that are like a
> punch to the head, making people think "OMG, what have I been DOING all
> those years?"
>
You /have/ them in the OS world (or at least we're working on them), but
nobody goes anywhere near them because they don't have working TCP/IP
stacks yet. Apparently having a perfect user interface is no good if
you haven't already written and debugged a TCP/IP stack. Unfortunately,
said stacks are lots and lots of very hairy work.
Tayssir John Gabbour wrote:
> Eli Gottlieb wrote:
>
>>Nathan Baum wrote:
>>
>>>The real reason Lisp has the best OO out there has nothing to do with
>>>CLOS and everything to do with Lisp. Lisp is the greatest common
>>>denominator of programming languages, and can act like any other
>>>programming language if you have the time and know-how to make it so.
>>
>>Once again, just because a better language hasn't been invented doesn't
>>make Lisp the Supreme Language Ever. I admit that Lisp can emulate
>>(with varying amounts of work) any inferior language so far created, but
>>I doubt it will be able to emulate its superior language - when that is
>>created - without creating half of a buggy and slow compiler/interpreter
>>for that language.
>
>
> Not only do there exist languages stronger than Common Lisp on some
> axes, there exist older Lisps stronger than Common Lisp. My
> understanding is that there was a time when people didn't venerate
> Common Lisp's power -- they were embarrassed by its weaknesses. Its
> tradeoffs, due to the need to work on tiny machines, to ones which
> shipped with 64,000 processors. They simply assumed Lisp would grow and
> overshadow what they had then.
>
> Unfortunately, we're more in the position of people trying to recover
> from a dark age.
>
> Check out the Chineuals. Or "The Connection Machine." Interlisp.
>
> I'm sure you can conceive of a more powerful CL. Take the hyped
> code-is-data, or anything in CL. I'm sure you can improve on it.
>
> Now, the big mistake people make is to be hypnotized by one fancy
> brick. How about dynamic scope? Optional declarations? Compiler macros
> (not the normal kind)? The reader?
>
> And where will the new ideas flow from? Some "benevolvent dictator" who
> must oversimplify things to manage the complexity from his own
> perspective, claiming it's for his users' sakes?
>
> Now, the reason people think so highly about Lisp being the Supreme
> Tradition is because it fulfills the one minimal requirement of
> computer language sanity -- the ability to conveniently operate on
> "code." I'm not saying it's the best way, nor even that it does more
> than a minimal fulfillment, but it's far ahead of what passes commonly
> in the computer world.
>
>
> Tayssir
>
The big advantage to Lisps I see is mainly that they are the only
lanuages with vocabularies: Lisp has dialects because any symbol can be
a function name and functions are all called with the same syntax.
Thus, any language which combines a vocabulary-based syntax with the
ability to create code out of data (and vice versa) will be Lisp's equal
at least. I also see no reason Lisp is the only possible syntax or set
of languages which can fulfill these conditions.
Eli Gottlieb wrote:
> The big advantage to Lisps I see is mainly that they are the only
> lanuages with vocabularies: Lisp has dialects because any symbol can be
> a function name and functions are all called with the same syntax.
> Thus, any language which combines a vocabulary-based syntax with the
> ability to create code out of data (and vice versa) will be Lisp's equal
> at least.
No. Any language which combines a vocabulary-based syntax with the
ability to create code out of data (and vice versa) _will be Lisp_.
> I also see no reason Lisp is the only possible syntax or set of languages
> which can fulfill these conditions.
Then you're misunderstanding what Lisp is about. Lisp isn't about its
syntax. Lisp is about what can be represented in its syntax. There are
other possible syntaxes which can represent the same things, although
they'll all have similar features: such as a trivial mapping from
expressions which represent code to data objects. Using an alternative
syntax doesn't make a language which isn't Lisp, it makes a language
which is Lisp with an alternative syntax.
Nathan Baum wrote:
> Eli Gottlieb wrote:
> > The big advantage to Lisps I see is mainly that they are the only
> > lanuages with vocabularies: Lisp has dialects because any symbol can be
> > a function name and functions are all called with the same syntax.
> > Thus, any language which combines a vocabulary-based syntax with the
> > ability to create code out of data (and vice versa) will be Lisp's equal
> > at least.
>
> No. Any language which combines a vocabulary-based syntax with the
> ability to create code out of data (and vice versa) _will be Lisp_.
Upon what are you basing that claim?
> > I also see no reason Lisp is the only possible syntax or set of languages
> > which can fulfill these conditions.
>
> Then you're misunderstanding what Lisp is about. Lisp isn't about its
> syntax. Lisp is about what can be represented in its syntax. There are
> other possible syntaxes which can represent the same things, although
> they'll all have similar features: such as a trivial mapping from
> expressions which represent code to data objects. Using an alternative
> syntax doesn't make a language which isn't Lisp, it makes a language
> which is Lisp with an alternative syntax.
--
Bill Atkins
Bill Atkins wrote:
> Nathan Baum wrote:
> > Eli Gottlieb wrote:
> > > The big advantage to Lisps I see is mainly that they are the only
> > > lanuages with vocabularies: Lisp has dialects because any symbol can be
> > > a function name and functions are all called with the same syntax.
> > > Thus, any language which combines a vocabulary-based syntax with the
> > > ability to create code out of data (and vice versa) will be Lisp's equal
> > > at least.
> >
> > No. Any language which combines a vocabulary-based syntax with the
> > ability to create code out of data (and vice versa) _will be Lisp_.
>
> Upon what are you basing that claim?
Because that's what Lisp is, fundamentally. The syntax is almost an
irrelevance: what's important is what can be represented in it.
If you have a language with a trivial mapping from code to data, a high
degree of orthogonality in its primitives, and the ability to extend
the parser at compile-time, then you necessarily have a Lisp because,
having loaded a suitable macro package, the expressions in any given
Lisp program could be put in a one-to-one correspondance to an
equivalent program in this other language.
Contrast this with C++: No matter what header you include in C++, there
are going to be some Lisp programs which won't have a correspondance
because there are some things which just can't be done as concisely in
C++ because of limitations in the language. Of course, a sufficiently
smart macro preprocessor could overcome those limitations, but that
wouldn't be 'C++', and what's more (I'd argue that) this new extended
C++ would be a cipher of Lisp.
Eli Gottlieb <···········@gmail.com> writes:
> Once again, just because a better language hasn't been invented doesn't
> make Lisp the Supreme Language Ever. I admit that Lisp can emulate
Lisp was not invented, it was discovered, as Paul Graham lucidly
explains here:
http://www.paulgraham.com/icad.html
--
vedm
vedm wrote:
> Eli Gottlieb <···········@gmail.com> writes:
>
> > Once again, just because a better language hasn't been invented doesn't
> > make Lisp the Supreme Language Ever. I admit that Lisp can emulate
>
> Lisp was not invented, it was discovered, as Paul Graham lucidly
> explains here:
>
> http://www.paulgraham.com/icad.html
Lisp wasn't found by someone carelessly tripping over a rock. It was
the result of *years* of very hard work by people like John McCarthy,
Paul Abrahams, Robert Brayton, Daniel Edwards, Patrick Fischer, Phyllis
Fox, Saul Goldberg, Timothy Hart, Louis Hodes, Michael Levin, David
Luckham, Klim Maling, Marvin Minsky, David Park, Nathaniel Rochester,
Steve Russell, Richard Greenblatt, Thomas Knight, Alan Bawden, Dave
Moon, Daniel Weinreb, Howard Cannon, Henry Baker, Carl Hewitt, Gerry
Sussman, Guy Steele, Jack Holloway, Richard Gabriel, JonL White, Larry
Masinter, Daniel Bobrow, Richard Berman, Eric Benson, Will Clinger,
Patrick Dussud, Scott Fahlman, Steve Haflich, Sonya Keene, Barry
Margolin,Timothy Moore, Bernard Greenberg, Richard Waters, and a whole
slew of others that don't come to mind of the top of my head.
Claiming that Lisp was `discovered' really discounts the amount of
effort and the astounding brilliance of the people that worked so hard
on it.
"Joe Marshall" <··········@gmail.com> writes:
> vedm wrote:
> > Eli Gottlieb <···········@gmail.com> writes:
> >
> > > Once again, just because a better language hasn't been invented doesn't
> > > make Lisp the Supreme Language Ever. I admit that Lisp can emulate
> >
> > Lisp was not invented, it was discovered, as Paul Graham lucidly
> > explains here:
> >
> > http://www.paulgraham.com/icad.html
>
> Lisp wasn't found by someone carelessly tripping over a rock. It was
> the result of *years* of very hard work by people like John McCarthy,
> Paul Abrahams, Robert Brayton, Daniel Edwards, Patrick Fischer, Phyllis
> Fox, Saul Goldberg, Timothy Hart, Louis Hodes, Michael Levin, David
> Luckham, Klim Maling, Marvin Minsky, David Park, Nathaniel Rochester,
> Steve Russell, Richard Greenblatt, Thomas Knight, Alan Bawden, Dave
> Moon, Daniel Weinreb, Howard Cannon, Henry Baker, Carl Hewitt, Gerry
> Sussman, Guy Steele, Jack Holloway, Richard Gabriel, JonL White, Larry
> Masinter, Daniel Bobrow, Richard Berman, Eric Benson, Will Clinger,
> Patrick Dussud, Scott Fahlman, Steve Haflich, Sonya Keene, Barry
> Margolin,Timothy Moore, Bernard Greenberg, Richard Waters, and a whole
> slew of others that don't come to mind of the top of my head.
>
> Claiming that Lisp was `discovered' really discounts the amount of
> effort and the astounding brilliance of the people that worked so hard
> on it.
>
Why? Would you argue that other scientific discoveries did not involve hard
work and some unique insight? When something is identified as being
discovered, it doesn't necessarily follow that the discovery was easy
- in fact, many of our discoveries concerning how the world operates
came after lots of hard work and in many cases social, religious or
political persecution also occured. A discovery is not necessarily
something which occurs by accident with little or no effort.
The argument in maths as to whether something was invented or
discovered has gone on for years and will probably go on for years
more. PGs argument is compelling to some, but so are the arguments for
invention - as we cannot independently substantiate either position,
it has to stay in the realms of opinion and to which camp you belong
is really a matter of personal taste - but I don't believe you can say
another is definitely wrong, only that you don't agree.
Its certainly not something with the substance of a real debate, like
saying that emacs is better than vi, which of course is so obvious,
its not worth stating.
Tim
--
Tim Cross
The e-mail address on this message is FALSE (obviously!). My real e-mail is
to a company in Australia called rapttech and my login is tcross - if you
really need to send mail, you should be able to work it out!
On Sun, 22 Jan 2006 06:30:55 +0100, Joe Marshall <··········@gmail.com>
wrote:
>
> Lisp wasn't found by someone carelessly tripping over a rock. It was
> the result of *years* of very hard work by people like John McCarthy,
> ...
> Claiming that Lisp was `discovered' really discounts the amount of
> effort and the astounding brilliance of the people that worked so hard
> on it.
>
Sort of. It makes more sense to say that Church discovered lambda calculus.
Noone is claiming that Common Lisp made itsef.
Whether mathematics is discovered or invented is a endless debate.
My point of view is this.
Nature is based on causality.
That everything that is now depends on what it was a minute ago.
Thus recursion , if you will, is a property of nature.
Then we have the limitations of logic as expressed by Kurt Goedls
incomlpeteness theorem that show that logic can't express itself.
Then we have Allan Turing who is the first to make a machine that can.
But Turing machienes are akward to work with.
Lambda calculus is closer to the nature of the problem and thus more
elegant.
Just something simple like real addition is impossible to define
in logic but can be expressed by a recurive function.
This could probaly be expressed mure succictly.
Difficult to sum up the whole picture in one paragraph.
Suffice it to say I was writing mathematic in lambda calculus
long before I 'discovered' lisp. I liked theory of computation
and found the current expression of Mathematics to be to inaccurate.
Perhaps McCarthy felt the same, but you should probaly ask him.
I note that it was one of his students that first mentioned that
,"Hey, we could make a computer language out of this!" .
--
Using Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/mail/
+ "John Thingstad" <··············@chello.no>:
| Then we have the limitations of logic as expressed by Kurt Goedls
| incomlpeteness theorem that show that logic can't express itself.
It says no such thing. In fact, it is precisely the fact that
predicate logic can be encoded in predicate logic (with sufficiently
strong axioms to talk about natural numbers) that leads to the proof
of the incompleteness theorem.
| Then we have Allan Turing who is the first to make a machine that can.
The impossibility of a Turing machine solving the halting problem is
the exact analogue of G�del's incompleteness theorem. The two
theories have much more in common than you seem to think.
--
* 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
On Sun, 22 Jan 2006 18:57:57 +0100, Harald Hanche-Olsen
<······@math.ntnu.no> wrote:
> + "John Thingstad" <··············@chello.no>:
>
> | Then we have the limitations of logic as expressed by Kurt Goedls
> | incomlpeteness theorem that show that logic can't express itself.
>
> It says no such thing. In fact, it is precisely the fact that
> predicate logic can be encoded in predicate logic (with sufficiently
> strong axioms to talk about natural numbers) that leads to the proof
> of the incompleteness theorem.
>
> | Then we have Allan Turing who is the first to make a machine that can.
>
> The impossibility of a Turing machine solving the halting problem is
> the exact analogue of G�del's incompleteness theorem. The two
> theories have much more in common than you seem to think.
>
Hmm. Being a professor of mathematics you probaly know
what you are talking about. Guess I have some reading to
do tonight..
--
Using Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/mail/
vedm wrote:
> Eli Gottlieb <···········@gmail.com> writes:
>
>
>>Once again, just because a better language hasn't been invented doesn't
>>make Lisp the Supreme Language Ever. I admit that Lisp can emulate
>
>
> Lisp was not invented, it was discovered, as Paul Graham lucidly
> explains here:
>
> http://www.paulgraham.com/icad.html
>
Lisp is not any sort of God Given Scientific Law of Programming
Language. It was invented, and I've read the stupid essay.
Eli Gottlieb <···········@gmail.com> writes:
> vedm wrote:
>> Eli Gottlieb <···········@gmail.com> writes:
>>
>>>Once again, just because a better language hasn't been invented doesn't
>>>make Lisp the Supreme Language Ever. I admit that Lisp can emulate
>> Lisp was not invented, it was discovered, as Paul Graham lucidly
>> explains here:
>> http://www.paulgraham.com/icad.html
>>
> Lisp is not any sort of God Given Scientific Law of Programming
> Language. It was invented, and I've read the stupid essay.
You're right, because the discussion is about Lisp as a language and
its implementations. But vedm's point is a little fuzzier when
applied to Lisp as a notation for expressing functions. Common Lisp
is an invention, no doubt about it, but I'm not sure if mathematical
notations are "invented" or "discovered" or none of the above.
--
Bill Atkins
+ Bill Atkins <············@rpi.edu>:
| Common Lisp is an invention, no doubt about it, but I'm not sure if
| mathematical notations are "invented" or "discovered" or none of the
| above.
The boundary between invention and discovery is surely a fuzzy one.
You can say that every invention is a discovery: The discovery that a
certain solution works and works well.
When Leibniz wrote “Utile erit scribit ∫ pro omnia” back in 1675
(“It is useful to write ∫ instead of omnia” – please pardon my
Unicode), he is clearly expressing the discovery of the usefulness of
a shorter notation for the integral, while at the same time inventing
the particular symbol we are using today.
I think it may be useful to think of an invention as more of a
discovery if it is necessary or very much better suited than any
alternative to the task at hand. Ever since formal grammars were
first used to describe Algol, it has been natural to think of
programming languages more in terms of parse trees than the actual
string of characters used to express a program. So what is more
likely, if you wish to be able to express code as data within the
language, to make the syntax so that the correspondence between
program text and parse trees is as close to trivial as you can get?
It seems to me that sexprs is a very obvious way to achieve that, and
experience with other attempts to do the same thing (XML, say)
indicates that sexprs is really darned close to optimal. So I would
agree that at least the syntax of Lisp seems discovered. (But many
implementation details, like the use of round parentheses, dotted
lists, etc., clearly fall into the "invented" category, but then of
course these details are much less interesting, in the same way that
the specific shape of the integral sign is not terribly significant.)
--
* 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
Harald Hanche-Olsen <······@math.ntnu.no> writes:
> + Bill Atkins <············@rpi.edu>:
>
> | Common Lisp is an invention, no doubt about it, but I'm not sure if
> | mathematical notations are "invented" or "discovered" or none of the
> | above.
>
> The boundary between invention and discovery is surely a fuzzy one.
> You can say that every invention is a discovery: The discovery that a
> certain solution works and works well.
>
> When Leibniz wrote “Utile erit scribit ∫ pro omnia” back in 1675
> (“It is useful to write ∫ instead of omnia” – please pardon my
> Unicode), he is clearly expressing the discovery of the usefulness of
> a shorter notation for the integral, while at the same time inventing
> the particular symbol we are using today.
>
> I think it may be useful to think of an invention as more of a
> discovery if it is necessary or very much better suited than any
> alternative to the task at hand.
I think that since we have on line dictionnaries, there's no excuse
not to read it more, and constat that to invent is synonym of to
discover and to discover is synonym of to invent.
You can use these terms interchangeably.
--
__Pascal Bourguignon__ http://www.informatimago.com/
"Logiciels libres : nourris au code source sans farine animale."
Pascal Bourguignon wrote:
> Harald Hanche-Olsen <······@math.ntnu.no> writes:
>>I think it may be useful to think of an invention as more of a
>>discovery if it is necessary or very much better suited than any
>>alternative to the task at hand.
Although I understand what you're saying, and the distinction you're
trying to draw, I disagree. Just because an invention becomes
indispensable does not mean that its creation was inevitable, or that,
absent the inventor, mankind may not have had to wait a long time for
the device to be invented by someone else.
In our current era of intellectual property, the distinction is vital. I
believe that inventors of non-obvious[1] devices should be rewarded with
patents, that discoverers of extant phenomena should be fêted but not
granted patents, and that patent offices should better mind the distinction.
> I think that since we have on line dictionnaries, there's no excuse
> not to read it more, and constat that to invent is synonym of to
> discover and to discover is synonym of to invent.
>
> You can use these terms interchangeably.
This is complete balderdash. Columbus did not invent America, and
Watson, Crick and whatshername did not invent DNA. James Watt and his
contemporaries did not discover (dis-cover = uncover = reveal that which
was already present) the steam engine.
Words have shades of meaning, and very few pairs of words mean exactly
the same thing. The best that can be said of 'invent' and 'discover' is
that a writer can (usually) mix them up and the reader will still
understand what was meant. The best that can be said of many web
dictionaries is that they may give someone a vague understanding of a
word's meaning.
[1] Non-obvious: Unlike, say, Amazon's famous patent on one-click
ordering. If everyone in the field says "well, duh" upon hearing about a
supposed breakthrough, the non-obviousness of the invention ought to be
called into question.
Cameron MacKinnon <··········@clearspot.net> writes:
> This is complete balderdash. Columbus did not invent America, and
> Watson, Crick and whatshername did not invent DNA. James Watt and his
> contemporaries did not discover (dis-cover = uncover = reveal that
> which was already present) the steam engine.
When you remove the cover, you let the wind in: in-vent!
And to let the wind in (to in-vent), you need to dis-cover.
It's the same thing, ying-yang, pile-et-face, you cannot have the one
without the other.
> Words have shades of meaning, and very few pairs of words mean exactly
> the same thing. The best that can be said of 'invent' and 'discover'
> is that a writer can (usually) mix them up and the reader will still
> understand what was meant. The best that can be said of many web
> dictionaries is that they may give someone a vague understanding of a
> word's meaning.
The shades of meaning come later, rather artificially; each culture
applying its own set of shades.
--
__Pascal Bourguignon__ http://www.informatimago.com/
"Klingon function calls do not have "parameters" -- they have
"arguments" and they ALWAYS WIN THEM."
Pascal Bourguignon wrote:
> When you remove the cover, you let the wind in: in-vent!
> And to let the wind in (to in-vent), you need to dis-cover.
> It's the same thing, ying-yang, pile-et-face, you cannot have the one
> without the other.
Its origin is actually in+venire, and my Oxford gives the number 1
meaning as "To come upon, find; to discover" but lists that definition
as obsolete except in the phrase "Invention of the cross."
Meaning 3 is "To find out in the way of original contrivance; to devise
first, originate (a new method, instrument, etc.)" and gives this as the
chief current sense since 1538.
I discover something new every day.
Cameron MacKinnon wrote:
> James Watt and his
> contemporaries did not discover (dis-cover = uncover = reveal that
> which was already present) the steam engine.
Of course not, any school child knows the discovery of the steam engine
was recorded by Heron of Alexandria over 1600 years before Watt
appeared on the scene... :-)
Of course, as far as I'm concerned, ALL patent law is unjust and should
be abolished. No one should have the absurd power over other people
that patent monopolies grant, in any field. We should find some other
reward if we still want to reward "inventors" over and above the free
market.
David Golden wrote:
> Cameron MacKinnon wrote:
>
>
>>James Watt and his
>>contemporaries did not discover (dis-cover = uncover = reveal that
>>which was already present) the steam engine.
>
>
> Of course not, any school child knows the discovery of the steam engine
> was recorded by Heron of Alexandria over 1600 years before Watt
> appeared on the scene... :-)
>
> Of course, as far as I'm concerned, ALL patent law is unjust and should
> be abolished. No one should have the absurd power over other people
> that patent monopolies grant, in any field. We should find some other
> reward if we still want to reward "inventors" over and above the free
> market.
Great, so when you invent the Warp Drive Ford/Microsoft/IBM can just
copy your design, sell their versions at a loss (Walmart does this all
the time to gain market dominance), and put you out of business. Then
when you're out of business, they're on a gravy train.
Sorry, but the free market went with the more reliable and trusted
company over the uncertain startup.
Eli Gottlieb wrote:
> Great, so when yo u invent the Warp Drive Ford/Microsoft/IBM can just
> copy your design, sell their versions at a loss (Walmart does this all
> the time to gain market dominance), and put you out of business. Then
> when you're out of business, they're on a gravy train.
That's perhaps an argument for considering rewarding inventors over and
above the free market, not an argument that patent monopolies in
particular should exist. And anyway, the obvious startup-favoring
market distortion to apply in that situation would be
anti-price-dumping and/or anti-cross-subsidisation laws (laws which
already exist in most Western legal systems, BTW, but which are
haphazardly and capriciously applied).
David Golden wrote:
> That's perhaps an argument for considering rewarding inventors over and
> above the free market, not an argument that patent monopolies in
> particular should exist.
So you're envisioning some sort of giant organization, like the Nobel
Prize committee, but a million times bigger, presumably supported by
taxation? And inventors would have to hope they get noticed, and that
the judges don't show favouritism along country or zaibatsu lines? That
sounds like a big, expensive, easily corruptible drag on the market to me.
> And anyway, the obvious startup-favoring
> market distortion to apply in that situation would be
> anti-price-dumping and/or anti-cross-subsidisation laws (laws which
> already exist in most Western legal systems, BTW, but which are
> haphazardly and capriciously applied).
Startup-favouring: Shouldn't inventors be able to sell their inventions
to existing organizations if they don't have the capital or the desire
to create a startup?
Dumping: Is a crock, as currently defined. Typically based on one of
two fallacies, that because 'they' are selling at below my cost of
production, it must be below their cost of production* -or- that
companies are somehow obligated to sell in ALL markets at or above their
price in their HOME market, thus giving an automatic advantage to
companies lucky enough to have a large home market and/or one with a low
cost of doing business.
Cross-subsidization laws: Who bears the costs of regulators and forensic
accountants combing through accused companies' books and arguing about
the minutiae of cost-allocation accounting? Sounds like another dead
economic loss to me.
The current system, for all its warts, has the advantage of bringing me
an awful lot of neat stuff for cheap, having stimulated the greatest era
of invention that mankind has ever known. The costs of regulation are
comparatively low, and borne by the companies that benefit. I don't
think your command-economy solutions would be either cheaper or more
stimulative than the status quo. This probably isn't the place for this
debate, either -- that's what slashdot is for.
* And, speaking for a moment as a consumer, what's wrong with me getting
a below-cost deal if a company is dumb/desperate enough to offer it, anyway?
Cameron MacKinnon wrote:
>
> So you're envisioning some sort of giant organization, like the Nobel
> Prize committee, but a million times bigger, presumably supported by
> taxation? And inventors would have to hope they get noticed, and that
> the judges don't show favouritism along country or zaibatsu lines? That
> sounds like a big, expensive, easily corruptible drag on the market to me.
[..]
>
> The current system, for all its warts, has the advantage of bringing me
> an awful lot of neat stuff for cheap, having stimulated the greatest era
> of invention that mankind has ever known. The costs of regulation are
> comparatively low, and borne by the companies that benefit. I don't
> think your command-economy solutions would be either cheaper or more
> stimulative than the status quo. This probably isn't the place for this
> debate, either -- that's what slashdot is for.
Quick antidote to the above misinformation... I'm not going to spend
much time on this, so I'll just use the words of Steele, Gabriel, Bill
Gates's dad, John McCarthy, former Intel head honcho Andy Grove, Noam
Chomsky, etc.
(Of course, corporations, patent offices, gov't, etc, are all "command
economies," with bureacratic appendages.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Command_economy
"2.10 Early Common Lisp
"If there were no consolidation in the Lisp community at this point,
Lisp might have died. ARPA was not interested in funding a variety of
needlessly competing and gratuitously different Lisp projects. And
there was no commercial arena - yet."
-- Steele, Gabriel in "The Evolution of Lisp" (uncut)
"Let's talk about the question of why people are wealthy. There is a
myth that it's a function of enormous personal attributes. There's a
myth that achieving wealth is a function of personal intelligence and
energy and thus that the product of that intelligence and energy being
wealth is the sole and exclusive possession of the person who developed
and earned it. And that myth is so egregious. It's just egregious.
[...]
"The individual wealth which is generated in this economy is, in my
judgment, and I doubt that there is much that anyone could disagree
with about this, is a function of the innovative businesses which are
created as a result of federal research. But you understand that the
people who benefit from that research get it free. [...] So, if
somebody starts a software company or a biotechnology company, or even
if somebody owns a building in downtown Washington which you rent to
those people, it starts from the same place. It starts from this
incredible research activity which is going on with federal money."
-- Bill Gates Sr., 2003
http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/publications/template.cfm?PubID=900584
"Hundreds of research projects supported by the agency, known as Darpa,
have paid off handsomely in recent decades, leading not only to new
weapons, but to commercial technologies from the personal computer to
the Internet. The agency has devoted hundreds of millions of dollars to
basic software research, too, including work that led to such recent
advances as the Web search technologies that Google and others have
introduced.
"The shift away from basic research is alarming many leading computer
scientists and electrical engineers, who warn that there will be
long-term consequences for the nation's economy. They are accusing the
Pentagon of reining in an agency that has played a crucial role in
fostering America's lead in computer and communications technologies.
[..]
"John McCarthy founded the Stanford artificial research lab in 1964,
helping to turn it into a wellspring for some of Silicon Valley's most
important companies, from Xerox Parc to Apple to Intel.
"'American leadership in computer science and in applications has
benefited more from the longer-term work,' Mr. McCarthy said, 'than
from the deliverables.'"
-- John Markoff, New York Times in "Pentagon Redirects Its Research
Dollars"
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/02/technology/02darpa.html?ex=1270094400&en=6ca69efefeb9c0dc&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt
"It should be borne in mind that 'military spending' does not mean just
military spending. A great deal of it is high-tech R&D. Virtually the
entire 'new economy' has relied heavily on the military cover to
socialize risk and cost and privatize profit, often after many decades:
computers and electronics generally, telecommunications and the
Internet, satellites, the aeronautical industry (hence tourism, the
largest 'service industry'), containerization (hence contemporary
trade), computer-controlled machine tools, and a great deal more. Alan
Greenspan and others like to orate about how all of this is a tribute
to the grand entrepreneurial spirit and consumer choice in free
markets. That's true of the late marketing stage, but far less so in
the more significant R&D stage. Much the same is true in the
biology-based sectors of industry, though different pretexts are used.
The record goes far back, but these mechanisms to sustain the advanced
industrial economy became far more significant after World War II."
[..]
"In the 1950s, computers were not marketable, so the public paid 100
percent of the cost of research, development and production through the
Pentagon. By the 1960s, they were beginning to be marketable in the
commercial market, so the public participation declined to about 50
percent. The idea is that the public pays the costs, the corporations
make the profits. Public subsidy, private profit; that's what we call
free enterprise. By the 1980s there were very substantial new
expenditures required for advances in fifth-generation computers and
new fancy parallel processing systems, etc. So the public's share in
the costs went up very substantially through Star Wars and the
Pentagon, etc. That's the way it works."
[..]
"Well, that's what the intellectual property rights are for. In fact
there's a name for it in economic history. Friedrich List, famous
German political economist in the 19th century, who was actually
borrowing from Andrew Hamilton, called it 'kicking away the ladder.'
First you use state power and violence to develop, then you kick away
those procedures so that other people can't do it.
"Intellectual property rights has very little to do with individual
initiative. I mean, Einstein didn't have any intellectual property
rights on relativity theory. Science and innovation is carried out by
people that are interested in it. That's the way science works.
There's an effort in very recent years to commercialize it, like they
commercialize everything else. So you don't do it because it's
exciting and challenging, and you want to find out something new, and
you want the world to benefit from it. You do it because maybe you can
make some money out of it. I mean that's a... you can make your own
judgment about the moral value. I think it's extremely cheapening,
but, also destructive of initiative and development.
"And the profits don't go back to individual inventors. It's a very
well studied topic. Take one that's really well studied, MIT's
involved: computer controlled machine tools, a very fundamental
component of the economy. Well, there's a very good study of this by
David Noble, a leading political economist. What he pointed out and
discovered is the techniques were invented by some small guy, you know
working in his garage somewhere in, I think, Michigan. Actually when
the MIT mechanical engineering department learned about it they picked
them up and they developed them and extended them and so on. And then
the corporations came in and picked them up from them, and finally it
became a core part of US industry. Well, what happened to the guy who
invented it? He's still probably working in his garage in Michigan, or
wherever it is. And that's very typical.
-- MIT prof. Noam Chomsky
"In the case of steel, U.S. companies never recovered, dropping from
nearly 90 percent of worldwide market share to roughly 10 percent. The
semiconductor industry, Intel's core business, faced similar challenges
in the 1980s, when it began its drop from 90 percent to 40 percent of
the world market, Grove said, before aggressive trade and other U.S.
policies helped it recover and stabilize at about 50 percent."
http://www.forbes.com/2003/10/10/1010grovepinnacor.html
Tayssir
Tayssir John Gabbour wrote:
> Cameron MacKinnon wrote:
>>The current system, for all its warts, has the advantage of bringing me
>>an awful lot of neat stuff for cheap, having stimulated the greatest era
>>of invention that mankind has ever known. The costs of regulation are
>>comparatively low, and borne by the companies that benefit. I don't
>>think your command-economy solutions would be either cheaper or more
>>stimulative than the status quo. This probably isn't the place for this
>>debate, either -- that's what slashdot is for.
>
>
> Quick antidote to the above misinformation... I'm not going to spend
> much time on this, so I'll just use the words of Steele, Gabriel, Bill
> Gates's dad, John McCarthy, former Intel head honcho Andy Grove, Noam
> Chomsky, etc.
Bill Sr.? Aside from being an Eagle Scout and a proud parent, is there
any reason this man's opinion should be given weight in these areas? I
can sometimes accept appeal to authority, but appeal to C-list celebrity?
Every 'expert' on your list is an American, commenting mainly on US
specific military/industrial complex issues. If America votes for
big-government Republicans over fiscally conservative Democrats, that's
America's business. There are many countries succeeding through their
exports of IP innovations (just as America does) which aren't based on a
model of massive government subsidy, so don't try to generalize from one
bad example. Besides, even if I were to concede that there's no free
market anywhere, would it diminish my main claim that the current system
has been wonderful at encouraging innovation and delivering me the
fruits thereof?
> (Of course, corporations, patent offices, gov't, etc, are all "command
> economies," with bureacratic appendages.)
A corporation has market discipline imposed upon it when it needs to go
to the capital markets for funds, or when it starts to underperform its
peers significantly. A steady-state corporation which doesn't
underperform and has positive cash flow fits your description, but
they're not where the action is.
I think I'm just going to reiterate here, since your sequence of
clippings didn't refute my statement: The current system, for all its
warts, has the advantage of bringing me an awful lot of neat stuff for
cheap, having stimulated the greatest era of invention that mankind has
ever known.
Cameron MacKinnon wrote:
> Tayssir John Gabbour wrote:
> > Cameron MacKinnon wrote:
> >>The current system, for all its warts, has the advantage of bringing me
> >>an awful lot of neat stuff for cheap, having stimulated the greatest era
> >>of invention that mankind has ever known. The costs of regulation are
> >>comparatively low, and borne by the companies that benefit. I don't
> >>think your command-economy solutions would be either cheaper or more
> >>stimulative than the status quo. This probably isn't the place for this
> >>debate, either -- that's what slashdot is for.
> >
> >
> > Quick antidote to the above misinformation... I'm not going to spend
> > much time on this, so I'll just use the words of Steele, Gabriel, Bill
> > Gates's dad, John McCarthy, former Intel head honcho Andy Grove, Noam
> > Chomsky, etc.
>
> Bill Sr.? Aside from being an Eagle Scout and a proud parent, is there
> any reason this man's opinion should be given weight in these areas? I
> can sometimes accept appeal to authority, but appeal to C-list celebrity?
>
> Every 'expert' on your list is an American, commenting mainly on US
> specific military/industrial complex issues. If America votes for
> big-government Republicans over fiscally conservative Democrats, that's
> America's business. There are many countries succeeding through their
> exports of IP innovations (just as America does) which aren't based on a
> model of massive government subsidy, so don't try to generalize from one
> bad example. Besides, even if I were to concede that there's no free
> market anywhere, would it diminish my main claim that the current system
> has been wonderful at encouraging innovation and delivering me the
> fruits thereof?
>
> > (Of course, corporations, patent offices, gov't, etc, are all "command
> > economies," with bureacratic appendages.)
>
> A corporation has market discipline imposed upon it when it needs to go
> to the capital markets for funds, or when it starts to underperform its
> peers significantly. A steady-state corporation which doesn't
> underperform and has positive cash flow fits your description, but
> they're not where the action is.
>
> I think I'm just going to reiterate here, since your sequence of
> clippings didn't refute my statement: The current system, for all its
> warts, has the advantage of bringing me an awful lot of neat stuff for
> cheap, having stimulated the greatest era of invention that mankind has
> ever known.
Don't worry, I'm not interested in "refuting your statement", as that
would give those statements undue respect. :-) It just takes a minute
to offer information correcting the misinformation you mention, citing
sources which allow interested people to look further for themselves.
I'm sure in all your words on this forum, you do say some correct
things, based on facts rather than wishfulness or trollling.
Tayssir
Cameron MacKinnon wrote:
> That sounds like a big, expensive, easily corruptible drag on the
> market to me.
With the important difference that no one would have the legal right to
stop people building stuff. It's the "I'm the only person on the beach
allowed build sandcastles, STOMP!" of patent law I object to most
strongly. My pro-free-market economic concerns are thoroughly secondary
to my concerns over essential liberty.
> I don't think your command-economy solutions would be either
> cheaper or more stimulative than the status quo.
"My" command-economy solutions? They're not "mine". I was entertaining
Eli Gottlieb's argument a bit, FWIW my own position is that there
should be a free market. That would mean neither committee nor patent
office.
> This probably isn't
> the place for this debate, either -- that's what slashdot is for.
Or at least a different newsgroup. Either way, I agree, it's got little
to do with lisp directly, except in the trivial and indisputable "you
might currently be in principle legally prohibited in the USA from
applying certain conceivable lisp programs without permission from the
official government-granted monopoly holder" way. I'll shut up about it
here now, hey I'm not even _in_ the USA (though, pessimistically, given
the Republic of Ireland's general spinelessness in the face of the
American Empire (see the Shannon situation) I dunno if that makes much
odds)
> * And, speaking for a moment as a consumer, what's wrong with me
> getting a below-cost deal if a company is dumb/desperate enough to
> offer it, anyway?
I don't think it's particularly wrong, myself. But I was taking it as a
given Eli wouldn't be satisfied with _no_ market interference. Given
the choice between patent-law or anti-dumping-law market interference
to prevent perceived dumping (which was after all Eli's concern [1]),
I'd rather anti-dumping law.
[1] Message-ID: <······················@twister.nyroc.rr.com>
David Golden wrote:
> Cameron MacKinnon wrote:
>
>
>>That sounds like a big, expensive, easily corruptible drag on the
>>market to me.
>
>
> With the important difference that no one would have the legal right to
> stop people building stuff. It's the "I'm the only person on the beach
> allowed build sandcastles, STOMP!" of patent law I object to most
> strongly. My pro-free-market economic concerns are thoroughly secondary
> to my concerns over essential liberty.
>
>
>>I don't think your command-economy solutions would be either
>>cheaper or more stimulative than the status quo.
>
>
> "My" command-economy solutions? They're not "mine". I was entertaining
> Eli Gottlieb's argument a bit, FWIW my own position is that there
> should be a free market. That would mean neither committee nor patent
> office.
>
>
>>This probably isn't
>>the place for this debate, either -- that's what slashdot is for.
>
>
> Or at least a different newsgroup. Either way, I agree, it's got little
> to do with lisp directly, except in the trivial and indisputable "you
> might currently be in principle legally prohibited in the USA from
> applying certain conceivable lisp programs without permission from the
> official government-granted monopoly holder" way. I'll shut up about it
> here now, hey I'm not even _in_ the USA (though, pessimistically, given
> the Republic of Ireland's general spinelessness in the face of the
> American Empire (see the Shannon situation) I dunno if that makes much
> odds)
>
>
>>* And, speaking for a moment as a consumer, what's wrong with me
>>getting a below-cost deal if a company is dumb/desperate enough to
>>offer it, anyway?
>
>
> I don't think it's particularly wrong, myself. But I was taking it as a
> given Eli wouldn't be satisfied with _no_ market interference. Given
> the choice between patent-law or anti-dumping-law market interference
> to prevent perceived dumping (which was after all Eli's concern [1]),
> I'd rather anti-dumping law.
>
> [1] Message-ID: <······················@twister.nyroc.rr.com>
I maintain that there should be some form of compensation for inventors,
because they aren't discovering new laws of physics (usually) that allow
their invention, they're making creative leaps in the application of
already-known principles.
Why should there be interference? Let's say I invent a Widget and sell
1000 of them. Then IBM says "We want to sell Widgets, too, they're
profitable." Even if they don't uae such a sleazy tactic as
price-dumping against me, they're "inventing" their Widget by reference
to mine rather than creating an entirely new one from whole cloth. So
even if they play fair they're still using my creativity against me with
no credit given, because everyone can see my creative leap just by
using, studying and probing my product thoroughly enough!
So I favor some kind of compensation for inventors. Not nearly as broad
as patents have become, but some assurance that until the makings of
Widgets become common knowledge nobody can copy my design without
credit. Note that this standard provides an incentive for people to
make things "common knowledge".
I should be able to take out some kind of "invention-right" on my
Widget, which ensures that aside from Fair Use - for example studying a
new scientific principle the Widget makes use of - everyone who makes
Widgets has to give me credit. Perhaps a licensing fee at or below a
certain level. I shouldn't be allowed to keep somebody from licensing
my Widgets if they're willing to pay. This invention-right would wear
off after ten years or when Widget-making becomes common knowledge,
whichever comes first. 10 years is a reasonable time to build any
business, and note that this system would provide a financial incentive
for the inventor to license their inventions around rather than stomp on
other people's works.
The problem with patents nowadays is that it's more profitable to hold
them close to your chest and sue everyone (or cross-license with your
close friends) than to broadly license your patent to anyone who asks.
If most patents were specific and broadly licensed, there wouldn't be as
many complaints. What's wrong, after all, with paying $50-100 for the
right to make and sell somebody's invention?
Eli Gottlieb wrote:
> David Golden wrote:
> > Cameron MacKinnon wrote:
> >
> >
> >>That sounds like a big, expensive, easily corruptible drag on the
> >>market to me.
> >
> >
> > With the important difference that no one would have the legal right to
> > stop people building stuff. It's the "I'm the only person on the beach
> > allowed build sandcastles, STOMP!" of patent law I object to most
> > strongly. My pro-free-market economic concerns are thoroughly secondary
> > to my concerns over essential liberty.
> >
> >
> >>I don't think your command-economy solutions would be either
> >>cheaper or more stimulative than the status quo.
> >
> >
> > "My" command-economy solutions? They're not "mine". I was entertaining
> > Eli Gottlieb's argument a bit, FWIW my own position is that there
> > should be a free market. That would mean neither committee nor patent
> > office.
> >
> >
> >>This probably isn't
> >>the place for this debate, either -- that's what slashdot is for.
> >
> >
> > Or at least a different newsgroup. Either way, I agree, it's got little
> > to do with lisp directly, except in the trivial and indisputable "you
> > might currently be in principle legally prohibited in the USA from
> > applying certain conceivable lisp programs without permission from the
> > official government-granted monopoly holder" way. I'll shut up about it
> > here now, hey I'm not even _in_ the USA (though, pessimistically, given
> > the Republic of Ireland's general spinelessness in the face of the
> > American Empire (see the Shannon situation) I dunno if that makes much
> > odds)
> >
> >
> >>* And, speaking for a moment as a consumer, what's wrong with me
> >>getting a below-cost deal if a company is dumb/desperate enough to
> >>offer it, anyway?
> >
> >
> > I don't think it's particularly wrong, myself. But I was taking it as a
> > given Eli wouldn't be satisfied with _no_ market interference. Given
> > the choice between patent-law or anti-dumping-law market interference
> > to prevent perceived dumping (which was after all Eli's concern [1]),
> > I'd rather anti-dumping law.
> >
> > [1] Message-ID: <······················@twister.nyroc.rr.com>
>
> I maintain that there should be some form of compensation for inventors,
> because they aren't discovering new laws of physics (usually) that allow
> their invention, they're making creative leaps in the application of
> already-known principles.
>
> Why should there be interference? Let's say I invent a Widget and sell
> 1000 of them. Then IBM says "We want to sell Widgets, too, they're
> profitable." Even if they don't uae such a sleazy tactic as
> price-dumping against me, they're "inventing" their Widget by reference
> to mine rather than creating an entirely new one from whole cloth. So
> even if they play fair they're still using my creativity against me with
> no credit given, because everyone can see my creative leap just by
> using, studying and probing my product thoroughly enough!
>
> So I favor some kind of compensation for inventors. Not nearly as broad
> as patents have become, but some assurance that until the makings of
> Widgets become common knowledge nobody can copy my design without
> credit. Note that this standard provides an incentive for people to
> make things "common knowledge".
Surely it provides the _inventor_ with an incentive to prevent the
workings of his invention from becoming "common knowledge", if he
wishes to continue to profit from it? As such we should expect to see
that profit-minded inventors will try to keep their inventions as
secret as possible for as long as possible.
> I should be able to take out some kind of "invention-right" on my
> Widget, which ensures that aside from Fair Use - for example studying a
> new scientific principle the Widget makes use of - everyone who makes
> Widgets has to give me credit.
I'm curious how to how you'll make the workings of the Widget available
for Fair Use but at the same time stop them instantly becoming "common
knowledge".
> Perhaps a licensing fee at or below a
> certain level. I shouldn't be allowed to keep somebody from licensing
> my Widgets if they're willing to pay. This invention-right would wear
> off after ten years or when Widget-making becomes common knowledge,
> whichever comes first. 10 years is a reasonable time to build any
> business, and note that this system would provide a financial incentive
> for the inventor to license their inventions around rather than stomp on
> other people's works.
>
> The problem with patents nowadays is that it's more profitable to hold
> them close to your chest and sue everyone (or cross-license with your
> close friends) than to broadly license your patent to anyone who asks.
> If most patents were specific and broadly licensed, there wouldn't be as
> many complaints. What's wrong, after all, with paying $50-100 for the
> right to make and sell somebody's invention?
In my opinion, what's wrong with it is that _some_ inventors will be
compensated many times for doing the same amount of work as some other
inventors. Suppose some inventor invents a Clockwise Sputznetz and some
other inventor invents an Anticlockwise Sputznetz.
As you know, Sputznetzs can only be used together when they have the
same winding, and therefore it's likely that one type of Sputznetz will
dominate the market, whilst the other effectively equivalent, but
technically distinct, Sputznetz will dwindle into bankruptcy.
As a more extreme example, suppose two inventors invent literally the
same thing. What happens then?
If people have to pay both licenses, then less people could afford
licenses, which might have the result that inventors would avoid
researching things that they know others are researching, in case they
invent the same thing and are consequently less able to sell it. The
problem with this is that you _need_ lots of people researching the
same thing (and sharing the research) to have a reasonable chance of
actually making a breakthrough.
On the other hand, if people can pick one license to pay, then that
pretty much puts paid to the notion that one should be compensated for
inventing, since some people might randomly not be compensated even
though they've invented something that _other_ people are being
compensated for.
Stefan Ram wrote:
> Eli Gottlieb <···········@gmail.com> writes:
>
>>nobody can copy my design without credit.
>
>
> What, if someone else independently is inventing the same
> design, not being aware of your invention? Is this "copy"?
>
> With software patents, when writing software, you always would
> be afraid of this happening, especially if such patents are
> granted even for quite obvious ideas.
>
> Say, one has written a large software system. What steps
> should one take to find out, if this is touching any patents
> of third-parties - not by conscious copying, but by
> independent reinvention?
>
> What percentage of effort is spent on both sides for the
> actual research and implementation and how much effort (time
> and money) is spent for the administration of patent filing,
> patent research and patent licensing?
>
>
>
That is an excellent objection. Why should a patent or invention-right
system allow people to invent things independently? The problem is
where the burden of proof goes. If it's on the "independent" inventor
than truly independent inventors get crushed by large companies, because
these little guys haven't the money to fight. However, if it goes on
the accuser then it becomes quite easy to copy a design and get away
with it just by not keeping records of any way you might have come in
contact with the accuser's invention.
So where to put it?
Eli Gottlieb wrote:
> Stefan Ram wrote:
> > Eli Gottlieb <···········@gmail.com> writes:
> >
> >>nobody can copy my design without credit.
> >
> >
> > What, if someone else independently is inventing the same
> > design, not being aware of your invention? Is this "copy"?
> >
> > With software patents, when writing software, you always would
> > be afraid of this happening, especially if such patents are
> > granted even for quite obvious ideas.
> >
> > Say, one has written a large software system. What steps
> > should one take to find out, if this is touching any patents
> > of third-parties - not by conscious copying, but by
> > independent reinvention?
> >
> > What percentage of effort is spent on both sides for the
> > actual research and implementation and how much effort (time
> > and money) is spent for the administration of patent filing,
> > patent research and patent licensing?
> >
> >
> >
> That is an excellent objection. Why should a patent or invention-right
> system allow people to invent things independently?
Why shouldn't it? Indeed, _how_ couldn't it?
I can perfectly legitimately reinvent some patented technique. Chances
are good that most people in this group have reinvented several trivial
patented software patents that most programmers would think far too
obvious to be patented.
> The problem is
> where the burden of proof goes. If it's on the "independent" inventor
> than truly independent inventors get crushed by large companies, because
> these little guys haven't the money to fight. However, if it goes on
> the accuser then it becomes quite easy to copy a design and get away
> with it just by not keeping records of any way you might have come in
> contact with the accuser's invention.
>
> So where to put it?
The burden of proof for most other areas of the law falls primarily
upon the accuser: they have to prove the accused's guilt beyond a
reasonable doubt, whilst all the defense has to do is show that there
is reasonable doubt that the accused didn't do it.
If we follow that principle with patents, then it should be up to the
person who currently owns the patent to show, beyond reasonable doubt,
that the accused knowingly duplicated their patented invention.
Another problem is 'stealth patents'. The MP3 format was widely
distributed and advertised in 1994 by the Fraunhofer Society who held
patents on some of the techniques therein. But it wasn't until 4 years
later that they decided to tell the makers of MP3 software that, and
demand licensing fees.
A generous soul might suppose that they simply forget, for four years,
that they had patents which covered the software which they themselves
released. A more synical view would be to conclude that they had
planned all along to wait until MP3 was ubiquitous before demanding
fees.
So what to do in the case of the stealth patent? The accused might have
a hard time claiming he hadn't seen the patented work: he may even have
thought it safe to cite it openly in his own code. But if he didn't
know it was patented, then can he really be said to have violated the
patent?
An analogy: Somebody walks up to you in the street and gives you a
really nice pen. Later on, you use it to sign the papers for selling
your house, which makes you a hundred thousand dollars. The next day,
the same guy comes up to you and demands half of that because he thinks
the pen is still his property and he's owed part of any profit which is
obtained by use of it.
Nathan Baum wrote:
> I can perfectly legitimately reinvent some patented technique. Chances
> are good that most people in this group have reinvented several trivial
> patented software patents that most programmers would think far too
> obvious to be patented.
Quite how one patents a software patent, I am uncertain. It is always
possible I mistyped.
Eli Gottlieb wrote:
> I maintain that there should be some form of compensation for inventors,
> because they aren't discovering new laws of physics (usually) that allow
> their invention, they're making creative leaps in the application of
> already-known principles.
But I still don't see why I should pay you, when we both develop an
invention (cause it's just 1% inspiration, but 99% perspiration), but
you go to the patent office a year earlier maybe...
If I develop and build something, thus my philosophy, it's none of your
business, and nobody else's.
> So I favor some kind of compensation for inventors. Not nearly as broad
> as patents have become, but some assurance that until the makings of
> Widgets become common knowledge nobody can copy my design without
> credit. Note that this standard provides an incentive for people to
> make things "common knowledge".
But who fixes the price? How much would I have to pay you? Clearly
this whole thing doesn't really make sense. Either the price is too
low, so you aren't happy either, or it's too high, and I can't develop
anything, because I have to pay millions for patents of giants I want to
build my invention upon.
There's no god-given right that investors become millionaires. Do I get
credit for clever programming tricks? No, it's the end product that
counts, so you are free to use the same clever tricks; no patents
involved. (unlike the software patent Mafia wins...)
> The problem with patents nowadays is that it's more profitable to hold
> them close to your chest and sue everyone (or cross-license with your
> close friends) than to broadly license your patent to anyone who asks.
> If most patents were specific and broadly licensed, there wouldn't be as
> many complaints. What's wrong, after all, with paying $50-100 for the
> right to make and sell somebody's invention?
Exactly. That's because patents allow you to push others around.
They're a weapon against others. If you hold a patent, you take others'
freedom. Doesn't sound good to me...
(and I don't know if it's just $50, or $50 per low-cost device, i.e.
higher than the revenues maybe...)
--
The problems of the real world are primarily those you are left with
when you refuse to apply their effective solutions.
Edsger W. Dijkstra
Ulrich Hobelmann wrote:
> Eli Gottlieb wrote:
>
>> I maintain that there should be some form of compensation for
>> inventors, because they aren't discovering new laws of physics
>> (usually) that allow their invention, they're making creative leaps in
>> the application of already-known principles.
>
>
> But I still don't see why I should pay you, when we both develop an
> invention (cause it's just 1% inspiration, but 99% perspiration), but
> you go to the patent office a year earlier maybe...
>
> If I develop and build something, thus my philosophy, it's none of your
> business, and nobody else's.
>
>> So I favor some kind of compensation for inventors. Not nearly as
>> broad as patents have become, but some assurance that until the
>> makings of Widgets become common knowledge nobody can copy my design
>> without credit. Note that this standard provides an incentive for
>> people to make things "common knowledge".
>
>
> But who fixes the price? How much would I have to pay you? Clearly
> this whole thing doesn't really make sense. Either the price is too
> low, so you aren't happy either, or it's too high, and I can't develop
> anything, because I have to pay millions for patents of giants I want to
> build my invention upon.
>
> There's no god-given right that investors become millionaires. Do I get
> credit for clever programming tricks? No, it's the end product that
> counts, so you are free to use the same clever tricks; no patents
> involved. (unlike the software patent Mafia wins...)
>
>> The problem with patents nowadays is that it's more profitable to hold
>> them close to your chest and sue everyone (or cross-license with your
>> close friends) than to broadly license your patent to anyone who asks.
>> If most patents were specific and broadly licensed, there wouldn't be
>> as many complaints. What's wrong, after all, with paying $50-100 for
>> the right to make and sell somebody's invention?
>
>
> Exactly. That's because patents allow you to push others around.
> They're a weapon against others. If you hold a patent, you take others'
> freedom. Doesn't sound good to me...
>
> (and I don't know if it's just $50, or $50 per low-cost device, i.e.
> higher than the revenues maybe...)
>
When I typed "$50" I meant "$50 for a license to produce your own line
of Widgets", "a total of $50". A successful invention should make many
through licensing without having to charge per-unit license fees.
David Golden wrote:
> With the important difference that no one would have the legal right to
> stop people building stuff. It's the "I'm the only person on the beach
> allowed build sandcastles, STOMP!" of patent law I object to most
> strongly. My pro-free-market economic concerns are thoroughly secondary
> to my concerns over essential liberty.
I'll accept your essential liberty to steal my ideas and use them
without recompense if you accept my essential liberty to brain you with
a cudgel when I catch you doing it.
> FWIW my own position is that there
> should be a free market. That would mean neither committee nor patent
> office.
So no market at all then, except in goods? This idea that producer of
mere goods is the noble ideal to which we should all aspire, and that
producers of ideas are somehow idlers or town buskers or doomed to
salaried positions within producers-of-goods corporations is two hundred
years out of date. While the assembly line labourers toiled on,
knowledge workers and symbol manipulators have created a vast economy
whose linchpin is a market in legally protected ideas. This economy is
now comparable in size to the manufacturing economy in several
countries, including Ireland, and it has been largely responsible for
the significant quality of life improvements that much of humanity
experienced during the twentieth century.
Cameron MacKinnon <··········@clearspot.net> writes:
> David Golden wrote:
>> With the important difference that no one would have the legal right to
>> stop people building stuff. It's the "I'm the only person on the beach
>> allowed build sandcastles, STOMP!" of patent law I object to most
>> strongly. My pro-free-market economic concerns are thoroughly secondary
>> to my concerns over essential liberty.
>
> I'll accept your essential liberty to steal my ideas and use them
> without recompense if you accept my essential liberty to brain you
> with a cudgel when I catch you doing it.
>
>> FWIW my own position is that there
>> should be a free market. That would mean neither committee nor patent
>> office.
>
> So no market at all then, except in goods? This idea that producer of
> mere goods is the noble ideal to which we should all aspire, and that
> producers of ideas are somehow idlers or town buskers or doomed to
> salaried positions within producers-of-goods corporations is two
> hundred years out of date. While the assembly line labourers toiled
> on, knowledge workers and symbol manipulators have created a vast
> economy whose linchpin is a market in legally protected ideas. This
> economy is now comparable in size to the manufacturing economy in
> several countries, including Ireland, and it has been largely
> responsible for the significant quality of life improvements that much
> of humanity experienced during the twentieth century.
What does any of this have to do with Lisp?
--
Bill Atkins
Cameron MacKinnon wrote:
> So no market at all then, except in goods? This idea that producer of
> mere goods is the noble ideal to which we should all aspire, and that
> producers of ideas are somehow idlers or town buskers or doomed to
> salaried positions within producers-of-goods corporations is two hundred
> years out of date. While the assembly line labourers toiled on,
> knowledge workers and symbol manipulators have created a vast economy
> whose linchpin is a market in legally protected ideas. This economy is
> now comparable in size to the manufacturing economy in several
> countries, including Ireland, and it has been largely responsible for
> the significant quality of life improvements that much of humanity
> experienced during the twentieth century.
But how many of the great ideas are common sense and commonplace, and
which ones are patented? How many companies create great products and
services without holding patents? How many small and medium-sized
companies hold patents at all, compared to huge holdings?
--
The problems of the real world are primarily those you are left with
when you refuse to apply their effective solutions.
Edsger W. Dijkstra
On Mon, 23 Jan 2006 02:07:25 +0100, David Golden
<············@oceanfree.net> wrote:
>
> Of course, as far as I'm concerned, ALL patent law is unjust and should
> be abolished. No one should have the absurd power over other people
> that patent monopolies grant, in any field. We should find some other
> reward if we still want to reward "inventors" over and above the free
> market.
>
Patents were invented to prevent knowlege from being lost.
Against a fee the user get's sole rights to the invention to
do as he pleases for a while. When the patentexpires the
knowlege is public domain. For instance the original patent
for manefaturing Microchips from Fairchil is now public domain.
Had we not had patents people would resort to keeping the
information secret instead and the information would often be lost.
--
Using Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/mail/
"John Thingstad" <··············@chello.no> writes:
> On Mon, 23 Jan 2006 02:07:25 +0100, David Golden
> <············@oceanfree.net> wrote:
>
>>
>> Of course, as far as I'm concerned, ALL patent law is unjust and should
>> be abolished. No one should have the absurd power over other people
>> that patent monopolies grant, in any field. We should find some other
>> reward if we still want to reward "inventors" over and above the free
>> market.
>>
>
> Patents were invented to prevent knowlege from being lost.
> Against a fee the user get's sole rights to the invention to
> do as he pleases for a while. When the patentexpires the
> knowlege is public domain. For instance the original patent
> for manefaturing Microchips from Fairchil is now public domain.
> Had we not had patents people would resort to keeping the
> information secret instead and the information would often be lost.
Not nowadays. Nowadays, the information is kept in Cocacola's safe.
--
__Pascal Bourguignon__ http://www.informatimago.com/
"This statement is false." In Lisp: (defun Q () (eq nil (Q)))
> > Had we not had patents people would resort to keeping the
> > information secret instead and the information would often be lost.
>
> Not nowadays. Nowadays, the information is kept in Cocacola's safe.
>
Safe? I'm afraid not.
X
Citrate caffein 1oz,
Ext. Vanilla 1oz,
Flavoring 2.5 oz,
F.E Coco 4 oz, (sic?)
Citric Acid 3 oz,
Lime Juice 1 Qt,
Sugar 30 lbs,
Water 2.5 Gal,
Caramel sufficient.
Mix Caffein Acid and Lime Juice in 1 Qt Boiling water, add vanilla and
flavoring when cool.
Flavoring
Oil orange 80
Oil lemon 120
Oil nutmeg 40
Oil cinnamon 40
Oil coriander 20
Oil neroli 40
Alcohol 1 Qt
let stand 24 hours.
;; -----------------------------------------------------------
F.E coco is presumably the fluid extract of coca. Some day, I'll get
around to trying this out. Coca cola (traditional recipe) = healthy
drink!
John Thingstad schrieb:
> Patents were invented to prevent knowlege from being lost.
> Against a fee the user get's sole rights to the invention to
> do as he pleases for a while. When the patentexpires the
> knowlege is public domain. For instance the original patent
> for manefaturing Microchips from Fairchil is now public domain.
> Had we not had patents people would resort to keeping the
> information secret instead and the information would often be lost.
There is anyway secret information.
Do you want to keep your information secret instead of a patent?
It is not very useful to keep info secret, on day it is no longer secret
or someone find an equal way or it is lost - and there is always
information lost on this planet.
My op.: Patents are no good for (a too old model). Just like a key for
something to say "my" - and there are 6mrd natural "my" and more not
natural "my"... at least it is to expensive for a single person, while
only a single person needs that, so what? Something like: register my
knowledge, i will pay for vs. protect my interrests, others should pay
for.
stefan
John Thingstad wrote:
> Had we not had patents people would resort to keeping the
> information secret instead and the information would often be lost.
I'll agree this is the motivation behind current patent law. However,
isn't secrecy, when possible, better than a patent from the point of
view of the inventor? Cf. Coca-Cola.
Philippe Lorin wrote:
> I'll agree this is the motivation behind current patent law. However,
> isn't secrecy, when possible, better than a patent from the point of
> view of the inventor? Cf. Coca-Cola.
Maybe, but there's the punitive aspect, that trade secrets really don't
give.
Philippe Lorin wrote:
> John Thingstad wrote:
>
>> Had we not had patents people would resort to keeping the
>> information secret instead and the information would often be lost.
>
>
> I'll agree this is the motivation behind current patent law. However,
> isn't secrecy, when possible, better than a patent from the point of
> view of the inventor? Cf. Coca-Cola.
Back in the day, there was no real legal concept of a trade secret.
Recently in the US, things are changing such that companies can claim
trade secret protection even on secrets that have leaked out. Bizarre.
The system made more sense before: If you thought your employees were a
happy and loyal lot, and your competitors unable to reverse-engineer
your product or process, you didn't patent and hoped your secret lasted
longer than twenty years. Those are two big ifs, and you also have to
own the capital for the means of production yourself.
Were I running the patent office, I don't think I'd grant a patent to a
novel elixir of sugar-water. I don't think it beneficial to mankind.
David Golden wrote:
> Of course, as far as I'm concerned, ALL patent law is unjust and should
> be abolished. No one should have the absurd power over other people
> that patent monopolies grant, in any field. We should find some other
> reward if we still want to reward "inventors" over and above the free
> market.
Such as the fact that many things were invented outside patent systems,
or the fact that in almost every case, first-movers end up capturing the
biggest market share, and have a much higher ROI and margins than
second-movers, even though second-movers usually run cheaper copycat
products with similar quality.
I don't want to pay for the message, but for whoever brings it to me
efficiently.
--
The problems of the real world are primarily those you are left with
when you refuse to apply their effective solutions.
Edsger W. Dijkstra
+ Cameron MacKinnon <··········@clearspot.net>:
|> Harald Hanche-Olsen <······@math.ntnu.no> writes:
|>>I think it may be useful to think of an invention as more of a
|>>discovery if it is necessary or very much better suited than any
|>> alternative to the task at hand.
|
| Although I understand what you're saying, and the distinction you're
| trying to draw, I disagree. Just because an invention becomes
| indispensable does not mean that its creation was inevitable, or that,
| absent the inventor, mankind may not have had to wait a long time for
| the device to be invented by someone else.
My choice of the word "necessary" was unfortunate. I did not mean
"indispensable". "Inevitable" is closer to what I meant to say. And
discoveries and inventions, whether inevitable or not, may indeed take
a long time to happen. So that is not a suitable criterion to
distinguish the two. I believe something like Lisp was bound to
happen, sooner or later: The basic ideas are that important and
fundamental. That makes it a bit closer to a discovery. To put it
all in different words, an invention that seems obvious, if only in
retrospect (what sight is clearer than hindsight?) has the flaovour of
discovery to me. I don't claim I could have invented Lisp, but now
that I know of its existence, I can hardly imagine how it could not
have been invented. Or discovered.
| In our current era of intellectual property, the distinction is
| vital.
Indeed. But I think the distinction is not at all obvious. Sure,
there are obvious cases, like the invention of the mouse trap and the
discovery of quantum mechanics, but there are and will probably always
be a fuzzy border, a gray area if you wish.
But I am not sure I am ready to enter into a debate (see my signature)
about the exact location of that border.
--
* 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
On Sun, 22 Jan 2006 21:58:42 +0100, Pascal Bourguignon
<····@mouse-potato.com> wrote:
> I think that since we have on line dictionnaries, there's no excuse
> not to read it more, and constat that to invent is synonym of to
> discover and to discover is synonym of to invent.
>
> You can use these terms interchangeably.
>
Not really..A invention is created a discovery is found.
The difference is most definately there.
One is the product of human creativity.
The other is a observation of something that is already there.
The difference is fuzzy and open to enterpretation.
So one man's discovery is another's invention.
But the words are distinct.
Synonymous is not the same as equivalent.
Plump is a synonym of obese but there is a big difference
in the degree of fat.
--
Using Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/mail/
On Mon, 23 Jan 2006 18:35:29 +0100, Pisin Bootvong <··········@gmail.com>
wrote:
> So someone invented America and someone invented gravity?
>
> I wanted to lived before someone invented gravity, it would be fun. :-)
>
I always knew America was a con.. :)
--
Using Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/mail/
Pascal Bourguignon <····@mouse-potato.com> writes:
> Harald Hanche-Olsen <······@math.ntnu.no> writes:
>> I think it may be useful to think of an invention as more of a
>> discovery if it is necessary or very much better suited than any
>> alternative to the task at hand.
>
> I think that since we have on line dictionnaries, there's no excuse
> not to read it more, and constat that to invent is synonym of to
> discover and to discover is synonym of to invent.
Or just bite the bullet and come out as a Platonist. One of the
reasons, surely, for Lisp's superiority is that it is based on an
attempt to formalize all mathematics in terms of a concept that is
simplicity itself. Thus the rules for "parsing" an expression can be
written in two lines, then we can get onto the interesting stuff.
--
Tiarn�n
Eli Gottlieb wrote:
> vedm wrote:
>
>> Eli Gottlieb <···········@gmail.com> writes:
>>
>>
>>> Once again, just because a better language hasn't been invented doesn't
>>> make Lisp the Supreme Language Ever. I admit that Lisp can emulate
>>
>>
>>
>> Lisp was not invented, it was discovered, as Paul Graham lucidly
>> explains here:
>>
>> http://www.paulgraham.com/icad.html
>>
> Lisp is not any sort of God Given Scientific Law of Programming
> Language. It was invented, and I've read the stupid essay.
Sure it was invented, but how do you explain languages forty years later
coming up with great new features Lisp had on day one? Your options are
that McCarthy was:
(a) touched by God
(b) (my preference) aliens among us
kenny
Kenny Tilton wrote:
> Sure it was invented, but how do you explain languages forty years later
> coming up with great new features Lisp had on day one? Your options are
> that McCarthy was:
>
> (a) touched by God
> (b) (my preference) aliens among us
>
The universality of ideas.
On 2006-01-22 02:51:07 +0000, Kenny Tilton <·············@nyc.rr.com> said:
> Sure it was invented, but how do you explain languages forty years
> later coming up with great new features Lisp had on day one? Your
> options are that McCarthy was:
>
> (a) touched by God
> (b) (my preference) aliens among us
I'm not exactly sure how to express this, but it seems to
me that most other languages are for expressing solutions
whereas Lisp is about expressing problems.
And this s-expression stuff is probably the closest
mathematicians have to pen and paper, which are still
the ultimate tool for thinking :-)
--
JFB
Eli Gottlieb <···········@gmail.com> wrote:
> vedm wrote:
>> Eli Gottlieb <···········@gmail.com> writes:
>>
>>>Once again, just because a better language hasn't been invented doesn't
>>>make Lisp the Supreme Language Ever. I admit that Lisp can emulate
>> Lisp was not invented, it was discovered, as Paul Graham lucidly
>> explains here:
>> http://www.paulgraham.com/icad.html
>>
> Lisp is not any sort of God Given Scientific Law of Programming
> Language. It was invented, and I've read the stupid essay.
You do not believe in the divinity of Lisp?
Oh infidel!! Thou shalt burn in a C of boiling JAVA, and when thou runst
for the shores of an island, thou shalt find that the mighty PYTHON -
that slyest of serpents - is waiting there for thee! And it shalt
stifle thee in its coils! And when after long struggle thou extricate
thyself from the slimy reptile's clutches and stagger around in search
for food, thou shalt find nothing but indigestible PERLS and RUBIES!
And then thou shalt hurl thyself in despair back into the C, and just
before the muddy boiling JAVA closes upon you for ever, thou shalt look
up towards Heaven, and there thou shalt see the salvation - in the form of
a shining lambda surrounded by two divine parens, and around them the
words: "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life". Amen.
:)
--
vedm
(format t "~{~a~}"
(mapcar #'(lambda (c) (code-char (1+ (char-code c))))
(reverse (list #\l #\n #\b (code-char (1- (char-code #\.)))
#\m #\h (code-char (1- (char-code #\a))) #\m #\y
(code-char (1- (char-code ··@))) #\l #\c #\d #\u))))
vedm wrote:
> Eli Gottlieb <···········@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>vedm wrote:
>>
>>>Eli Gottlieb <···········@gmail.com> writes:
>>>
>>>
>>>>Once again, just because a better language hasn't been invented doesn't
>>>>make Lisp the Supreme Language Ever. I admit that Lisp can emulate
>>>
>>>Lisp was not invented, it was discovered, as Paul Graham lucidly
>>>explains here:
>>>http://www.paulgraham.com/icad.html
>>>
>>
>>Lisp is not any sort of God Given Scientific Law of Programming
>>Language. It was invented, and I've read the stupid essay.
>
>
> You do not believe in the divinity of Lisp?
>
> Oh infidel!! Thou shalt burn in a C of boiling JAVA, and when thou runst
> for the shores of an island, thou shalt find that the mighty PYTHON -
> that slyest of serpents - is waiting there for thee! And it shalt
> stifle thee in its coils! And when after long struggle thou extricate
> thyself from the slimy reptile's clutches and stagger around in search
> for food, thou shalt find nothing but indigestible PERLS and RUBIES!
> And then thou shalt hurl thyself in despair back into the C, and just
> before the muddy boiling JAVA closes upon you for ever, thou shalt look
> up towards Heaven, and there thou shalt see the salvation - in the form of
> a shining lambda surrounded by two divine parens, and around them the
> words: "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life". Amen.
>
> :)
>
Sorry, Jewish.
vedm wrote:
> Oh infidel!! Thou shalt burn in a C of boiling JAVA, and when thou runst
> for the shores of an island, thou shalt find that the mighty PYTHON -
> that slyest of serpents - is waiting there for thee! And it shalt
> stifle thee in its coils! And when after long struggle thou extricate
> thyself from the slimy reptile's clutches and stagger around in search
Hey, SLIME is cool...
--
The problems of the real world are primarily those you are left with
when you refuse to apply their effective solutions.
Edsger W. Dijkstra
+ Ulrich Hobelmann <···········@web.de>:
| vedm wrote:
|> Oh infidel!! Thou shalt burn in a C of boiling JAVA, and when thou runst
|> for the shores of an island, thou shalt find that the mighty PYTHON -
|> that slyest of serpents - is waiting there for thee! And it shalt
|> stifle thee in its coils! And when after long struggle thou extricate
|> thyself from the slimy reptile's clutches and stagger around in search
|
| Hey, SLIME is cool...
Indeed. But contrary to popular belief, snakes aren't slimy.
--
* 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
Eli Gottlieb wrote:
> Nathan Baum wrote:
> > The real reason Lisp has the best OO out there has nothing to do with
> > CLOS and everything to do with Lisp. Lisp is the greatest common
> > denominator of programming languages, and can act like any other
> > programming language if you have the time and know-how to make it so.
>
> Once again, just because a better language hasn't been invented doesn't
> make Lisp the Supreme Language Ever. I admit that Lisp can emulate
> (with varying amounts of work) any inferior language so far created, but
> I doubt it will be able to emulate its superior language - when that is
> created - without creating half of a buggy and slow compiler/interpreter
> for that language.
Why would you create a buggy and slow compiler/interpreter? Wouldn't it
make rather more sense to make a robust and fast implementation?
I find this sentiment most curious because if Lisp -- which you seem to
be conceding is _currently_ capable of emulating the language of your
choice -- cannot be used to implement its successor, _what language
can_?
It would therefore appear to be impossible to create an implementation
of Lisp's successor. Either that, or it would in fact be entirely
possible to implement Lisp's successor in Lisp.
I'm reminded of the words of Deep Thought:
> "I speak of none other than the computer that is to come after me," intoned Deep
> Thought, his voice regaining its accustomed declamatory tones. "A computer
> whose merest operational parameters I am not worthy to calculate - and yet I will
> design it for you. A computer which can calculate the Question to the Ultimate
> Answer, a computer of such infinite and subtle complexity that organic life itself
> shall form part of its operational matrix.
"Nathan Baum" <···········@btinternet.com> writes:
> Eli Gottlieb wrote:
>> Nathan Baum wrote:
>> > The real reason Lisp has the best OO out there has nothing to do with
>> > CLOS and everything to do with Lisp. Lisp is the greatest common
>> > denominator of programming languages, and can act like any other
>> > programming language if you have the time and know-how to make it so.
>>
>> Once again, just because a better language hasn't been invented doesn't
>> make Lisp the Supreme Language Ever. I admit that Lisp can emulate
>> (with varying amounts of work) any inferior language so far created, but
>> I doubt it will be able to emulate its superior language - when that is
>> created - without creating half of a buggy and slow compiler/interpreter
>> for that language.
> Why would you create a buggy and slow compiler/interpreter? Wouldn't it
> make rather more sense to make a robust and fast implementation?
I believe he's referring to Robert Morris's corollary to Greenspun's
Tenth Rule: that even Common Lisp is not exempt from the Rule.
> I find this sentiment most curious because if Lisp -- which you seem to
> be conceding is _currently_ capable of emulating the language of your
> choice -- cannot be used to implement its successor, _what language
> can_?
>
> It would therefore appear to be impossible to create an implementation
> of Lisp's successor. Either that, or it would in fact be entirely
> possible to implement Lisp's successor in Lisp.
>
> I'm reminded of the words of Deep Thought:
>
>> "I speak of none other than the computer that is to come after me," intoned Deep
>> Thought, his voice regaining its accustomed declamatory tones. "A computer
>> whose merest operational parameters I am not worthy to calculate - and yet I will
>> design it for you. A computer which can calculate the Question to the Ultimate
>> Answer, a computer of such infinite and subtle complexity that organic life itself
>> shall form part of its operational matrix.
--
Bill Atkins
Bill Atkins wrote:
> "Nathan Baum" <···········@btinternet.com> writes:
>
> > Eli Gottlieb wrote:
> >> Nathan Baum wrote:
> >> > The real reason Lisp has the best OO out there has nothing to do with
> >> > CLOS and everything to do with Lisp. Lisp is the greatest common
> >> > denominator of programming languages, and can act like any other
> >> > programming language if you have the time and know-how to make it so.
> >>
> >> Once again, just because a better language hasn't been invented doesn't
> >> make Lisp the Supreme Language Ever. I admit that Lisp can emulate
> >> (with varying amounts of work) any inferior language so far created, but
> >> I doubt it will be able to emulate its superior language - when that is
> >> created - without creating half of a buggy and slow compiler/interpreter
> >> for that language.
> > Why would you create a buggy and slow compiler/interpreter? Wouldn't it
> > make rather more sense to make a robust and fast implementation?
>
> I believe he's referring to Robert Morris's corollary to Greenspun's
> Tenth Rule: that even Common Lisp is not exempt from the Rule.
But that only applies to implementations of Common Lisp, and not some
random future language which is better than Common Lisp.
Nathan Baum wrote:
> Bill Atkins wrote:
>
>>"Nathan Baum" <···········@btinternet.com> writes:
>>
>>
>>>Eli Gottlieb wrote:
>>>
>>>>Nathan Baum wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>The real reason Lisp has the best OO out there has nothing to do with
>>>>>CLOS and everything to do with Lisp. Lisp is the greatest common
>>>>>denominator of programming languages, and can act like any other
>>>>>programming language if you have the time and know-how to make it so.
>>>>
>>>>Once again, just because a better language hasn't been invented doesn't
>>>>make Lisp the Supreme Language Ever. I admit that Lisp can emulate
>>>>(with varying amounts of work) any inferior language so far created, but
>>>>I doubt it will be able to emulate its superior language - when that is
>>>>created - without creating half of a buggy and slow compiler/interpreter
>>>>for that language.
>>>
>>>Why would you create a buggy and slow compiler/interpreter? Wouldn't it
>>>make rather more sense to make a robust and fast implementation?
>>
>>I believe he's referring to Robert Morris's corollary to Greenspun's
>>Tenth Rule: that even Common Lisp is not exempt from the Rule.
>
>
> But that only applies to implementations of Common Lisp, and not some
> random future language which is better than Common Lisp.
>
I was actually talking about Greenspun's Tenth Rule, generalizing it to
say: Any sufficiently complicated program in Inferior Language X
contains an ad-hoc, informally specified, bug-ridden and slow
implementation of a good part of Superior Language Y. This rule
applies, IMHO, not only to Common Lisp but to Lisps in general.
It will be entirely possible to implement Superior Language Y in Lisp,
but it will be as hairy as implementing a C compiler in assembler.
However, it will probably be necessary to make that future
compiler/interpreter work, and a truly elegant compiler/interpreter for
Language Y will only be written in Language Y. Much like how Dennis
Ritchie wrote the first C compiler in assembler, then reimplemented both
the compiler and the operating system it was to run on in C.
"Nathan Baum" <···········@btinternet.com> writes:
> I can't help but note that the first Lisp interpreter was written in
> Lisp.
More or less. In LISP 1.5, the Lisp code was put in comments in the
actual source:
EJECT PAGE 147
REM APPLY
REM
REM APPLY(F,L,A) =
REM SELECT(CAR(L).,
REM -1,APP2(F,L,A).,
REM LAMBDA,EVAL(F,APPEND(PAIR(CADR(F),L),A)).,
REM LABEL,APPLY(CADDR(F),L,APPEND(
REM PAIR1(CADR(F),CADDR(F))),A).,
REM APPLY(EVAL(F,A),L,A))
REM
A HED
APPLY SXD ASS1,4
TZE 1,4
STO AST1 F
PDX 0,4
SXA ASS1,4 SAVE FUNCTION ALONG WITH INDEX REGISTE
CLA 0,4 CWR(F)
PAX 0,4 CAR(F)
TXH ASP1,4,-2 =-1
PXD 0,4
CAS ASLMD = LAMBDA
TRA *+2
TRA ASP2
CAS ASFUN
TRA *+2
TRA ASP4
CAS ASLBL = LABEL
TRA *+2
TRA ASP3
TSX $SAVE,4
TXL $END3,,ASSA+2 SAVE 3 ITEMS
STQ ASSL
LDQ $ARG3
STQ ASSA
...
(I blindly cite LISP 1.5 when it's spoken of LISP 1.0 because I
believe a lot of code was inherited, perhaps I wrong.)
--
__Pascal Bourguignon__ http://www.informatimago.com/
"Our users will know fear and cower before our software! Ship it!
Ship it and let them flee like the dogs they are!"
Pascal Bourguignon wrote:
> "Nathan Baum" <···········@btinternet.com> writes:
>
> > I can't help but note that the first Lisp interpreter was written in
> > Lisp.
>
> More or less. In LISP 1.5, the Lisp code was put in comments in the
> actual source:
Actually, I was refering to the fact that McCarthy wrote EVAL before it
was even implemented on a computer.
"Nathan Baum" <···········@btinternet.com> writes:
> Why would you create a buggy and slow compiler/interpreter? Wouldn't it
> make rather more sense to make a robust and fast implementation?
>
> I find this sentiment most curious because if Lisp -- which you seem to
> be conceding is _currently_ capable of emulating the language of your
> choice -- cannot be used to implement its successor, _what language
> can_?
Haven't you noticed that compilers are usually written in the language
they compile?
C compilers are written in C
Pascal compilers are written in Pascal
Ada compilers are written in Ada
Haskell compilers are written in Haskell
Lisp compilers are written in Lisp
Why do you think it's so?
Of course, you can boot strap one language from another, but this
gives an ad-hoc, informally-specified, bug-ridden, slow implementation
of half of one language in another. Usually, compiler writers don't
even try, they design a subset of their target language to be
implemented in the boot strap language, and then they write the target
language in the target subset language.
> It would therefore appear to be impossible to create an implementation
> of Lisp's successor. Either that, or it would in fact be entirely
> possible to implement Lisp's successor in Lisp.
It's not impossible, but as soon as the subset of the Successor is
implemented in Common Lisp, the rest of the Successor will be
implemented in this subset, not in Common Lisp.
--
__Pascal Bourguignon__ http://www.informatimago.com/
"Remember, Information is not knowledge; Knowledge is not Wisdom;
Wisdom is not truth; Truth is not beauty; Beauty is not love;
Love is not music; Music is the best." -- Frank Zappa
Pascal Bourguignon wrote:
> "Nathan Baum" <···········@btinternet.com> writes:
>
> > Why would you create a buggy and slow compiler/interpreter? Wouldn't it
> > make rather more sense to make a robust and fast implementation?
> >
> > I find this sentiment most curious because if Lisp -- which you seem to
> > be conceding is _currently_ capable of emulating the language of your
> > choice -- cannot be used to implement its successor, _what language
> > can_?
>
> Haven't you noticed that compilers are usually written in the language
> they compile?
>
> C compilers are written in C
> Pascal compilers are written in Pascal
> Ada compilers are written in Ada
> Haskell compilers are written in Haskell
> Lisp compilers are written in Lisp
>
> Why do you think it's so?
>
> Of course, you can boot strap one language from another, but this
> gives an ad-hoc, informally-specified, bug-ridden, slow implementation
> of half of one language in another. Usually, compiler writers don't
> even try, they design a subset of their target language to be
> implemented in the boot strap language, and then they write the target
> language in the target subset language.
That's true, but Eli's claims was not that "people wouldn't _want_ to
implement the successor to Lisp in Lisp" but rather "people wouldn't
_be able_ to implement the successor to Lisp in Lisp."
>>>>>> I doubt it will be able to emulate its superior language - when that is
>>>>>> created - without creating half of a buggy and slow compiler/interpreter
>>>>>> for that language.
Nathan Baum wrote:
> Pascal Bourguignon wrote:
>
>>"Nathan Baum" <···········@btinternet.com> writes:
>>
>>
>>>Why would you create a buggy and slow compiler/interpreter? Wouldn't it
>>>make rather more sense to make a robust and fast implementation?
>>>
>>>I find this sentiment most curious because if Lisp -- which you seem to
>>>be conceding is _currently_ capable of emulating the language of your
>>>choice -- cannot be used to implement its successor, _what language
>>>can_?
>>
>>Haven't you noticed that compilers are usually written in the language
>>they compile?
>>
>>C compilers are written in C
>>Pascal compilers are written in Pascal
>>Ada compilers are written in Ada
>>Haskell compilers are written in Haskell
>>Lisp compilers are written in Lisp
>>
>>Why do you think it's so?
>>
>>Of course, you can boot strap one language from another, but this
>>gives an ad-hoc, informally-specified, bug-ridden, slow implementation
>>of half of one language in another. Usually, compiler writers don't
>>even try, they design a subset of their target language to be
>>implemented in the boot strap language, and then they write the target
>>language in the target subset language.
>
>
> That's true, but Eli's claims was not that "people wouldn't _want_ to
> implement the successor to Lisp in Lisp" but rather "people wouldn't
> _be able_ to implement the successor to Lisp in Lisp."
>
>
>>>>>>>I doubt it will be able to emulate its superior language - when that is
>>>>>>>created - without creating half of a buggy and slow compiler/interpreter
>>>>>>>for that language.
>
>
A buggy and slow compiler/interpreter is stil a compiler/interpreter.
The Successor will likely be bootstrapped in Lisp, then have its
compiler written in it like everything else.
Strangely, Lisp itself is an exception to that rule. I know of 2 Lisp
interpreters (GCL and SBCL) which are themselves written in Lisp.
Eli Gottlieb wrote:
> Nathan Baum wrote:
> > Pascal Bourguignon wrote:
> >
> >>"Nathan Baum" <···········@btinternet.com> writes:
> >>
> >>
> >>>Why would you create a buggy and slow compiler/interpreter? Wouldn't it
> >>>make rather more sense to make a robust and fast implementation?
> >>>
> >>>I find this sentiment most curious because if Lisp -- which you seem to
> >>>be conceding is _currently_ capable of emulating the language of your
> >>>choice -- cannot be used to implement its successor, _what language
> >>>can_?
> >>
> >>Haven't you noticed that compilers are usually written in the language
> >>they compile?
> >>
> >>C compilers are written in C
> >>Pascal compilers are written in Pascal
> >>Ada compilers are written in Ada
> >>Haskell compilers are written in Haskell
> >>Lisp compilers are written in Lisp
> >>
> >>Why do you think it's so?
> >>
> >>Of course, you can boot strap one language from another, but this
> >>gives an ad-hoc, informally-specified, bug-ridden, slow implementation
> >>of half of one language in another. Usually, compiler writers don't
> >>even try, they design a subset of their target language to be
> >>implemented in the boot strap language, and then they write the target
> >>language in the target subset language.
> >
> >
> > That's true, but Eli's claims was not that "people wouldn't _want_ to
> > implement the successor to Lisp in Lisp" but rather "people wouldn't
> > _be able_ to implement the successor to Lisp in Lisp."
> >
> >
> >>>>>>>I doubt it will be able to emulate its superior language - when that is
> >>>>>>>created - without creating half of a buggy and slow compiler/interpreter
> >>>>>>>for that language.
> >
> >
> A buggy and slow compiler/interpreter is stil a compiler/interpreter.
Yes, but I'd argue that a buggy XYZ compiler isn't, technically, a XYZ
compiler.
But that doesn't counter my claim, which was that you were saying that
it wouldn't be _possible_ to implement Successor in Lisp. It is, after
all, _possible_ to implement a non-buggy compiler for Common Lisp in
Pascal.
> The Successor will likely be bootstrapped in Lisp, then have its
> compiler written in it like everything else.
That would of course be the sensible approach. The compiler itself is
an ideal testbed for making the compiler conforms to the standard.
> Strangely, Lisp itself is an exception to that rule. I know of 2 Lisp
> interpreters (GCL and SBCL) which are themselves written in Lisp.
There's also CMUCL. CMUCL has the dubious distinction of only being
compilable by CMUCL.
On Mon, 23 Jan 2006 22:56:21 GMT, Eli Gottlieb <···········@gmail.com> wrote:
> Strangely, Lisp itself is an exception to that rule. I know of 2
> Lisp interpreters (GCL and SBCL) which are themselves written in
> Lisp.
Almost all Common Lisp compilers are written in Common Lisp. Go
figure.
Cheers,
Edi.
--
Lisp is not dead, it just smells funny.
Real email: (replace (subseq ·········@agharta.de" 5) "edi")
Edi Weitz <········@agharta.de> writes:
> On Mon, 23 Jan 2006 22:56:21 GMT, Eli Gottlieb <···········@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Strangely, Lisp itself is an exception to that rule. I know of 2
>> Lisp interpreters (GCL and SBCL) which are themselves written in
>> Lisp.
>
> Almost all Common Lisp compilers are written in Common Lisp. Go
> figure.
Every time this comes up, I wonder slightly. The first cut goes
something like
Common Lisp:
Allegro, Lispworks, CMUCL, SBCL, OpenMCL, Scieneer, Movitz
Not Common Lisp:
GCL, CLISP, ECL, NaCL, ABCL, lisp500(!)
(and yes, I know you can argue about the proportion of the library
that's implemented in the minimal lisp that you get from the "Not
Common Lisp" bit, so my division is a little bit arbitrary; feel free
to reassign some of them as you see fit. Basically, my criterion is
whether or not (setf aref) is implemented in CL or not.)
However, going by a different criterion, things look a little
different:
Common Lisp:
SBCL, Movitz
Not Common Lisp:
Everything else.
(Almost all Common Lisp compilers which claim to be written in Common
Lisp are in fact written in themselves. Only SBCL and Movitz are
written in Common Lisp. This doesn't by any means invalidate the
point about compiling your own dogfood.)
Christophe
Christophe Rhodes <·····@cam.ac.uk> writes:
> Edi Weitz <········@agharta.de> writes:
>
>> On Mon, 23 Jan 2006 22:56:21 GMT, Eli Gottlieb <···········@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Strangely, Lisp itself is an exception to that rule. I know of 2
>>> Lisp interpreters (GCL and SBCL) which are themselves written in
>>> Lisp.
>>
>> Almost all Common Lisp compilers are written in Common Lisp. Go
>> figure.
>
> Every time this comes up, I wonder slightly. The first cut goes
> something like
>
> Common Lisp:
> Allegro, Lispworks, CMUCL, SBCL, OpenMCL, Scieneer, Movitz
> Not Common Lisp:
> GCL, CLISP, ECL, NaCL, ABCL, lisp500(!)
Be careful!
The compiler of CLISP is written in Common Lisp:
;; Common-Lisp-Function COMPILE
(defun compile (name &optional (definition nil svar)
&aux (macro-flag nil) (trace-flag nil) (save-flag nil)
#+clisp-debug (*form* definition))
(setq name (check-function-name name 'compile))
(let ((symbol (get-funname-symbol name)))
(if svar
;; Re-Definition of name as function.
(progn
;; if name is traced -> if previously a macro, first untrace.
(when (and name (setq svar (get symbol 'sys::traced-definition)))
11435 LoC of pure Common Lisp code.
In CLISP, what is written in a C pre-processor language, is the
Virtual Machine, and library functions (MAPCAR etc).
I've not checked GCL, ECL, NaCL and ABCL, but I'd bet at least half
of these implementations that have a _compiler_, have it written in
Common Lisp.
> (Almost all Common Lisp compilers which claim to be written in Common
> Lisp are in fact written in themselves. Only SBCL and Movitz are
> written in Common Lisp. This doesn't by any means invalidate the
> point about compiling your own dogfood.)
The CLISP compiler is also written in CLISP (interpreter).
--
__Pascal Bourguignon__ http://www.informatimago.com/
HANDLE WITH EXTREME CARE: This product contains minute electrically
charged particles moving at velocities in excess of five hundred
million miles per hour.
Pascal Bourguignon <····@mouse-potato.com> writes:
> Christophe Rhodes <·····@cam.ac.uk> writes:
>
>> Every time this comes up, I wonder slightly. The first cut goes
>> something like
>>
>> Common Lisp:
>> Allegro, Lispworks, CMUCL, SBCL, OpenMCL, Scieneer, Movitz
>> Not Common Lisp:
>> GCL, CLISP, ECL, NaCL, ABCL, lisp500(!)
>
> Be careful!
Um. In the bit you elided, I explained my criterion for this
classification, and admitted that other interpretations were possible.
I'd have thought that was being careful enough, but apparently not.
> The compiler of CLISP is written in Common Lisp:
"compiler" means various different things in different contexts, and
in the upthread context I was taking it to mean "implementation".
Christophe
Christophe Rhodes <·····@cam.ac.uk> writes:
> Pascal Bourguignon <····@mouse-potato.com> writes:
>
>> Christophe Rhodes <·····@cam.ac.uk> writes:
>>
>>> Every time this comes up, I wonder slightly. The first cut goes
>>> something like
>>>
>>> Common Lisp:
>>> Allegro, Lispworks, CMUCL, SBCL, OpenMCL, Scieneer, Movitz
>>> Not Common Lisp:
>>> GCL, CLISP, ECL, NaCL, ABCL, lisp500(!)
>>
>> Be careful!
>
> Um. In the bit you elided, I explained my criterion for this
> classification, and admitted that other interpretations were possible.
> I'd have thought that was being careful enough, but apparently not.
>
>> The compiler of CLISP is written in Common Lisp:
>
> "compiler" means various different things in different contexts, and
> in the upthread context I was taking it to mean "implementation".
I was taking it to mean the compiler. So we're both right.
--
__Pascal Bourguignon__ http://www.informatimago.com/
READ THIS BEFORE OPENING PACKAGE: According to certain suggested
versions of the Grand Unified Theory, the primary particles
constituting this product may decay to nothingness within the next
four hundred million years.
Pascal Bourguignon <····@mouse-potato.com> writes:
> I've not checked GCL, ECL, NaCL and ABCL, but I'd bet at least half
> of these implementations that have a _compiler_, have it written in
> Common Lisp.
ECL's compiler is written in Common Lisp.
Regards,
--
Julian Stecklina
"I object to doing things that computers can do." - Olin Shivers
"Nathan Baum" <···········@btinternet.com> writes:
> You prefer Smalltalk? That's fine. Make a macro package which provides
> Smalltalk-style message passing. You may note that such a macro package
> can live side-by-side with CLOS (and would likely _be_ CLOS, on the
> inside).
>
> The real reason Lisp has the best OO out there has nothing to do with
> CLOS and everything to do with Lisp. Lisp is the greatest common
> denominator of programming languages, and can act like any other
> programming language if you have the time and know-how to make it so.
This is all getting to be a bit too much of a self-cheerleading chorus
here. Yes, it's rather straight-forward to make a ST-like object
system on top of Lisp (syntax not having anything to do with it). But
to make a fully ST-like system, you'd have to allow subclassing all
existing classes and make all function calls generic with regard to
one of their arguments. That's a very fundemental change that can't
just be tacked onto CL. If you wanted to add a new Lisp dialect to
the same image (living in, say, the STLISP package) you could do it,
though.
On the other hand, ST could build a CLOS-like object system on top of
itself. There have been successful experiments with adding both MI
and multiple dispatch to the language. Those features can be added
for the same reason we can easily emulate other features in Lisp: it's
a dynamic language, with closures.
But this really shouldn't be a surprise. CL is not the most dynamic
language in existence. It has some significant static bits in there,
most of which are a good thing. In those cases where they're
limiting, you can easily work around the limitation, or build yourself
a new dialect in the same image. Adding a new dialect generally takes
a few hours of hacking once you know how to do it, so that's not much
overhead (of course you still have to implement the new feature you
want).
--
/|_ .-----------------------.
,' .\ / | Free Mumia Abu-Jamal! |
,--' _,' | Abolish the racist |
/ / | death penalty! |
( -. | `-----------------------'
| ) |
(`-. '--.)
`. )----'
Eli Gottlieb schrieb:
> Since when is CLOS the best OO out there? It is a certain style of OO
> that happens to work remarkably well as part of Lisp, but I'd think that
> Smalltalk takes the prize for best OO out there.
The inventor of Smalltalk, Dr. Alan Kay, (he was also the one who
coined the term "object oriented programmin) said in an interview [1]
that he is aware of only two programming languages in which one can do
OOP: Lisp and Smalltalk.
And one other thing Alan Kay said about Lisp [2]:
"the greatest single programming language ever designed"
[1] http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~ram/pub/pub_jf47htuHHt/doc_kay_oop_en
(Stefan Ram)
[2] http://www.paulgraham.com/quotes.html
André
--
Eli Gottlieb wrote:
> Since when is CLOS the best OO out there? It is a certain style of OO
> that happens to work remarkably well as part of Lisp, but I'd think that
> Smalltalk takes the prize for best OO out there.
Well, ST has a nice syntax [foo doStuffWith: bar], but CLOS has multiple
dispatch and looks more function-like. Methods don't have to reside in
classes; you can start with simple functions, and later generalize to
classes etc.
I wouldn't call it the best, because I don't know much OO though...
--
The problems of the real world are primarily those you are left with
when you refuse to apply their effective solutions.
Edsger W. Dijkstra
On Sat, 21 Jan 2006 14:43:19 GMT, Eli Gottlieb <···········@gmail.com> wrote:
> Since when is CLOS the best OO out there?
You didn't get the memo?
--
Lisp is not dead, it just smells funny.
Real email: (replace (subseq ·········@agharta.de" 5) "edi")
Eli Gottlieb wrote:
> Since when is CLOS the best OO out there? It is a certain style of OO
> that happens to work remarkably well as part of Lisp, but I'd think that
> Smalltalk takes the prize for best OO out there.
I do not know, whether CLOS is the "best OO", but syntax aside, the
Smalltalk system is a subset of CLOS, as a Smalltalk message equals
a generic function which only dispatches on the object given as the
first argument.
Peter
--
Ltk, the easy lisp gui http://www.peter-herth.de/ltk/
In article <··············@news.t-online.com>,
Peter Herth <·······@t-online.de> wrote:
> Eli Gottlieb wrote:
>
> > Since when is CLOS the best OO out there? It is a certain style of OO
> > that happens to work remarkably well as part of Lisp, but I'd think that
> > Smalltalk takes the prize for best OO out there.
>
> I do not know, whether CLOS is the "best OO", but syntax aside, the
> Smalltalk system is a subset of CLOS, as a Smalltalk message equals
> a generic function which only dispatches on the object given as the
> first argument.
There is also the issue that in Smalltalk everything is an object, which
is not true in Common Lisp, but is true in Dylan (which uses a system
very similar to CLOS).
--
Bruce | 41.1670S | \ spoken | -+-
Hoult | 174.8263E | /\ here. | ----------O----------
On Sun, 22 Jan 2006 10:35:27 +1300, Bruce Hoult <·····@hoult.org> wrote:
> There is also the issue that in Smalltalk everything is an object,
> which is not true in Common Lisp
Nope. In Common Lisp /everything/ is an object (cf. definition of
"object" in the glossary of the CLHS) and of type T. Not every object
is a /standard/ object, though. Perhaps this is what you meant.
Cheers,
Edi.
--
Lisp is not dead, it just smells funny.
Real email: (replace (subseq ·········@agharta.de" 5) "edi")
Edi Weitz wrote:
> On Sun, 22 Jan 2006 10:35:27 +1300, Bruce Hoult <·····@hoult.org> wrote:
>
>
>>There is also the issue that in Smalltalk everything is an object,
>>which is not true in Common Lisp
>
>
> Nope. In Common Lisp /everything/ is an object (cf. definition of
> "object" in the glossary of the CLHS) and of type T. Not every object
> is a /standard/ object, though. Perhaps this is what you meant.
And in Lisp, you can perform dynamic dispatch against all classes, not
just standard-classes, so it doesn't matter if fixnum or list are not
standard-classes.
CL-USER> (defmethod test ((value fixnum))
(format nil "~A is a fixnum" value))
#<STANDARD-METHOD TEST (FIXNUM) {B633F71}>
CL-USER> (defmethod test ((value bignum))
(format nil "~A is a bignum" value))
#<STANDARD-METHOD TEST (BIGNUM) {B742149}>
CL-USER> (test 1)
"1 is a fixnum"
CL-USER> (test 100)
"100 is a fixnum"
CL-USER> (test most-positive-fixnum)
"536870911 is a fixnum"
CL-USER> (test (1+ most-positive-fixnum))
"536870912 is a bignum"
-- MJF
On Sat, 21 Jan 2006 23:56:01 +0100, M Jared Finder <·····@hpalace.com>
wrote:
> Edi Weitz wrote:
>> On Sun, 22 Jan 2006 10:35:27 +1300, Bruce Hoult <·····@hoult.org> wrote:
>>
>>> There is also the issue that in Smalltalk everything is an object,
>>> which is not true in Common Lisp
>> Nope. In Common Lisp /everything/ is an object (cf. definition of
>> "object" in the glossary of the CLHS) and of type T. Not every object
>> is a /standard/ object, though. Perhaps this is what you meant.
>
> And in Lisp, you can perform dynamic dispatch against all classes, not
> just standard-classes, so it doesn't matter if fixnum or list are not
> standard-classes.
>
> CL-USER> (defmethod test ((value fixnum))
> (format nil "~A is a fixnum" value))
> #<STANDARD-METHOD TEST (FIXNUM) {B633F71}>
> CL-USER> (defmethod test ((value bignum))
> (format nil "~A is a bignum" value))
> #<STANDARD-METHOD TEST (BIGNUM) {B742149}>
> CL-USER> (test 1)
> "1 is a fixnum"
> CL-USER> (test 100)
> "100 is a fixnum"
> CL-USER> (test most-positive-fixnum)
> "536870911 is a fixnum"
> CL-USER> (test (1+ most-positive-fixnum))
> "536870912 is a bignum"
>
> -- MJF
This is not the whole truth.
CL-USER 2 > (type-of 1)
BIT
CL-USER 3 > (class-of 1)
#<BUILT-IN-CLASS FIXNUM 203BC754>
CL-USER 4 > (defmethod test ((value bit))
(format nil "~A is a bit."))
Error: BIT is not the name of a class
1 (continue) Try finding the class BIT again
2 (abort) Return to level 0.
3 Return to top loop level 0.
CL-USER 6 > (subtypep (type-of 1) 'fixnum)
T
--
Using Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/mail/
In article <······················@speakeasy.net>,
M Jared Finder <·····@hpalace.com> wrote:
> Edi Weitz wrote:
> > On Sun, 22 Jan 2006 10:35:27 +1300, Bruce Hoult <·····@hoult.org> wrote:
> >
> >
> >>There is also the issue that in Smalltalk everything is an object,
> >>which is not true in Common Lisp
> >
> >
> > Nope. In Common Lisp /everything/ is an object (cf. definition of
> > "object" in the glossary of the CLHS) and of type T. Not every object
> > is a /standard/ object, though. Perhaps this is what you meant.
>
> And in Lisp, you can perform dynamic dispatch against all classes, not
> just standard-classes, so it doesn't matter if fixnum or list are not
> standard-classes.
>
> CL-USER> (defmethod test ((value fixnum))
> (format nil "~A is a fixnum" value))
> #<STANDARD-METHOD TEST (FIXNUM) {B633F71}>
> CL-USER> (defmethod test ((value bignum))
> (format nil "~A is a bignum" value))
> #<STANDARD-METHOD TEST (BIGNUM) {B742149}>
> CL-USER> (test 1)
> "1 is a fixnum"
> CL-USER> (test 100)
> "100 is a fixnum"
> CL-USER> (test most-positive-fixnum)
> "536870911 is a fixnum"
> CL-USER> (test (1+ most-positive-fixnum))
> "536870912 is a bignum"
It appears I was misinformed and I just tried much the same experiment
myself.
I'm sure I've read somewhere that CLOS doesn't integrate well with the
older data types, so I guess I'm not sure in what way that is true.
Anotehr point on which I'm a little confused: according to the
Hyperspec definition for DEFMETHOD "If parameter-specializer-name is a
symbol it names a class". And "integer" is a class, but "fixnum" and
"bignum" are types, not classes. So how does that work?
--
Bruce | 41.1670S | \ spoken | -+-
Hoult | 174.8263E | /\ here. | ----------O----------
On Sun, 22 Jan 2006 12:42:51 +1300, Bruce Hoult <·····@hoult.org> wrote:
> Anotehr point on which I'm a little confused: according to the
> Hyperspec definition for DEFMETHOD "If parameter-specializer-name is
> a symbol it names a class". And "integer" is a class, but "fixnum"
> and "bignum" are types, not classes. So how does that work?
See the end of 4.3.7 in the HyperSpec:
"Individual implementations may be extended to define other type
specifiers to have a corresponding class."
Jared Finder's example was flawed as it wasn't portable Common Lisp
and you caught him. It wouldn't work in CLISP 2.36 for example
because FIXNUM isn't a class there.
Cheers,
Edi.
--
Lisp is not dead, it just smells funny.
Real email: (replace (subseq ·········@agharta.de" 5) "edi")
Bruce Hoult <·····@hoult.org> writes:
>>
>> And in Lisp, you can perform dynamic dispatch against all classes, not
> I'm sure I've read somewhere that CLOS doesn't integrate well with the
> older data types, so I guess I'm not sure in what way that is true.
In no way is that true (that i can think of), 'cept that you can only
inherit from a standard-class. Perhaps for some early cltl lisps
(pre-CLOS), they might have had to jump through a hoop or two, but i
wouldn't know much about that.
>
> Anotehr point on which I'm a little confused: according to the
> Hyperspec definition for DEFMETHOD "If parameter-specializer-name is a
> symbol it names a class". And "integer" is a class, but "fixnum" and
> "bignum" are types, not classes. So how does that work?
CL-USER> (class-of (1+ most-positive-fixnum))
#<BUILT-IN-CLASS BIGNUM>
just like that! :)
drewc
--
drewc at tech dot coop
drewc <···························@rift.com> writes:
>> Anotehr point on which I'm a little confused: according to the
>> Hyperspec definition for DEFMETHOD "If parameter-specializer-name is a
>> symbol it names a class". And "integer" is a class, but "fixnum" and
>> "bignum" are types, not classes. So how does that work?
>
>
> CL-USER> (class-of (1+ most-positive-fixnum))
> #<BUILT-IN-CLASS BIGNUM>
So i am completely wrong on this, should have perused the
hyperspec. While SBCL's behavior is conformant, it's not required.
clisp gives me:
[1]> (class-of (1+ most-positive-fixnum))
#<BUILT-IN-CLASS INTEGER>
and allegro
CL-USER(1): (class-of (1+ most-positive-fixnum))
#<BUILT-IN-CLASS INTEGER>
Damnit, i know i have code somewhere that relies on this behavior.
HyperSpec 4.3.7 says:
"Many /but not all/ of the predefined type specifiers have a
corresponding class with the same proper name as the type."
(emphasis mine)
Figure 4-8 lists those types, and BIGNUM/FIXNUM are not listed. I'm
going to add this to my list of ANSI annoyances. Is there any
compelling reason why all the _predefined_ atomic type specifiers
shouldn't have a class as well? Figure 4-2 is not all that much longer
than 4-8, and i can come up with a couple of use cases for a few that
are in 4-2 and not 4-8.
--
drewc at tech dot coop
drewc <···························@rift.com> writes:
> Bruce Hoult <·····@hoult.org> writes:
>
> >>
> >> And in Lisp, you can perform dynamic dispatch against all classes, not
> > I'm sure I've read somewhere that CLOS doesn't integrate well with the
> > older data types, so I guess I'm not sure in what way that is true.
>
> In no way is that true (that i can think of), 'cept that you can only
> inherit from a standard-class. Perhaps for some early cltl lisps
> (pre-CLOS), they might have had to jump through a hoop or two, but i
> wouldn't know much about that.
You can inherit from instances of STANDARD-CLASS, and STRUCTURE-CLASS,
but not BUILT-IN-CLASS. If the metaclass of CONDITION is not one of
the first two, you can inherit from instances of that, too. You can
specialize on any of these.
--
/|_ .-----------------------.
,' .\ / | Free Mumia Abu-Jamal! |
,--' _,' | Abolish the racist |
/ / | death penalty! |
( -. | `-----------------------'
| ) |
(`-. '--.)
`. )----'
Bruce Hoult <·····@hoult.org> writes:
> It appears I was misinformed and I just tried much the same experiment
> myself.
>
> I'm sure I've read somewhere that CLOS doesn't integrate well with the
> older data types, so I guess I'm not sure in what way that is true.
Various standard "generic" functions, like those operating on
collections, numbers, and streams, aren't generic in the CLOS sense,
aren't extensible: they have hardwired knowledge about certain
standard Lisp types.
--
__("< Marcin Kowalczyk
\__/ ······@knm.org.pl
^^ http://qrnik.knm.org.pl/~qrczak/
Eli Gottlieb wrote:
> Kenny Tilton wrote:
>
>> Eli Gottlieb wrote:
>>
>>> Pascal Bourguignon wrote:
>>>
>>>> David Trudgett <······@zeta.org.au.nospamplease> writes:
>>>>
>>>>> (I like that name, by the way! My only question is, why is Lisp your
>>>>> favourite programming language?! :-))
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I've learned a number of programming language, searching everytime for
>>>> a better one. I've even started to design my own languages.
>>>> Eventually, I started to use emacs lisp and Common Lisp and found the
>>>> _ultimate_ language, which frees my mind of that language quest I had.
>>>>
>>>>
>>> Just because nobody's thought of anything better than Lisp doesn't
>>> make it the ultimate language.
>>
>>
>>
>> That is not why it is the ultimate. It is the ultimate because it can
>> morph itself to handle the better things people think of. And do not
>> think any language can do that (or start talking about Turing
>> equivalence <g>). When Lisp adopted OO we got CLOS, the best OO out
>> there. When C adopted OO we got C++. Nuff said?
>>
>> kenny
>
> Since when is CLOS the best OO out there? It is a certain style of OO
> that happens to work remarkably well as part of Lisp, but I'd think that
> Smalltalk takes the prize for best OO out there.
You digress. The point is that Lisp was able to do OO (in the
conventional sense) out of the box when someone thought up OO, even
though no one was thinking about OO (in the conventional sense) when
Lisp was created. That is why it is the ultimate language.
kenny
Stefan Ram wrote:
> Kenny Tilton <·············@nyc.rr.com> writes:
>
>>You digress. The point is that Lisp was able to do OO (in the
>>conventional sense) out of the box when someone thought up OO, even
>>though no one was thinking about OO (in the conventional sense) when
>>Lisp was created. That is why it is the ultimate language.
>
>
> Are speaking of LISP (not Lisp) as in, say, LISP 1.5?
No, I am a renegade. I use Lisp to refer to more modern Lisps. Mostly
because Common Lisp is both too long and too ugly a name, and CL is both
too obscure and reminds me of "Common Lisp".
kenny
Stefan Ram wrote:
> Kenny Tilton <·············@nyc.rr.com> writes:
>
>>>>You digress. The point is that Lisp was able to do OO (in the
>>>>conventional sense) out of the box when someone thought up OO, even
>>>>though no one was thinking about OO (in the conventional sense) when
>>>>Lisp was created. That is why it is the ultimate language.
>>>
>>> Are speaking of LISP (not Lisp) as in, say, LISP 1.5?
>>
>>No, I am a renegade. I use Lisp to refer to more modern Lisps. Mostly
>>because Common Lisp is both too long and too ugly a name, and CL is both
>>too obscure and reminds me of "Common Lisp".
>
>
> Alan Kay began to speak of "OOP" sometime after Nov 66.
> That was between LISP 1.5 and MacLisp/Interlisp.
>
yeah, and I started talking about Cells in 1995. :)
kenny
Stefan Ram wrote:
> Kenny Tilton <·············@nyc.rr.com> writes:
>
>>>>You digress. The point is that Lisp was able to do OO (in the
>>>>conventional sense) out of the box when someone thought up OO, even
>>>>though no one was thinking about OO (in the conventional sense) when
>>>>Lisp was created. That is why it is the ultimate language.
>>>
>>> Are speaking of LISP (not Lisp) as in, say, LISP 1.5?
>>
>>No, I am a renegade. I use Lisp to refer to more modern Lisps. Mostly
>>because Common Lisp is both too long and too ugly a name, and CL is both
>>too obscure and reminds me of "Common Lisp".
>
>
> Alan Kay began to speak of "OOP" sometime after Nov 66.
> That was between LISP 1.5 and MacLisp/Interlisp.
>
Oh, I get it, my time warp has you off balance.
The issue is not when OO was invented and whether Lisp could handle it
at the time. (When /was/ DEFMACRO introduced to the language?)
The issue is, is Common Lisp (I'll spell it out for now) The Ultimate
Language? In which case, we are talking about Common Lisp. I hope.
Try this exercise at home: take a good Common Lisp. Eliminate the CLOS
that came with it. Or just avoid it scrupulously. Re-create CLOS using
only duct tape and what is left of CL. Well lookee there.
Rinse and repeat with C and Java. In the latter case, make one Java
class called CLOS and use Java OO internally (do you have a choice?) but
otherwise create an apparent new OO interface with multiple inheritance,
multimethods and anything else in AMOP. ouch.
kenny
Stefan Ram wrote:
> Kenny Tilton <·············@nyc.rr.com> writes:
>
>>class called CLOS and use Java OO internally (do you have a choice?) but
>>otherwise create an apparent new OO interface with multiple inheritance,
>>multimethods and anything else in AMOP. ouch.
>
>
> Multimethods has been done:
>
> http://igm.univ-mlv.fr/~forax/works/jmmf/
>
> (On request, I could post a small Java code, where I have
> implemented some kind of multimethods in Java.)
>
> Multiple inheritance would have to be emulated by multiple
> interfaces and delegation. The system, then, would have to
> generate class files at run time with many small proxy methods
> doing the actual delegation to a base class delegate.
>
Ahhh, but then I want to see the resulting syntax. :)
Java has a nice Reflection packge or whatever they call it, and I once
did a proof-of-concept using that for Cells. It worked, but oh that
synatx! Anonymous classes just to get lambda. ewwwwww.
kenny
Kenny Tilton <·············@nyc.rr.com> writes:
> Stefan Ram wrote:
>> Kenny Tilton <·············@nyc.rr.com> writes:
>>
>>>>> You digress. The point is that Lisp was able to do OO (in the
>>>>> conventional sense) out of the box when someone thought up OO,
>>>>> even though no one was thinking about OO (in the conventional
>>>>> sense) when Lisp was created. That is why it is the ultimate
>>>>> language.
>>>>
>>>> Are speaking of LISP (not Lisp) as in, say, LISP 1.5?
>>>
>>> No, I am a renegade. I use Lisp to refer to more modern
>>> Lisps. Mostly because Common Lisp is both too long and too ugly a
>>> name, and CL is both too obscure and reminds me of "Common Lisp".
>> Alan Kay began to speak of "OOP" sometime after Nov 66. That was
>> between LISP 1.5 and MacLisp/Interlisp.
>>
>
> Oh, I get it, my time warp has you off balance.
>
> The issue is not when OO was invented and whether Lisp could handle it
> at the time. (When /was/ DEFMACRO introduced to the language?)
>
> The issue is, is Common Lisp (I'll spell it out for now) The Ultimate
> Language? In which case, we are talking about Common Lisp. I hope.
>
> Try this exercise at home: take a good Common Lisp. Eliminate the CLOS
> that came with it. Or just avoid it scrupulously. Re-create CLOS using
> only duct tape and what is left of CL. Well lookee there.
For example: PCL. Not the book, the CLOS implementation.
http://www-cgi.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/project/ai-repository/ai/lang/lisp/oop/clos/pcl/0.html
> Rinse and repeat with C and Java. In the latter case, make one Java
> class called CLOS and use Java OO internally (do you have a choice?)
> but otherwise create an apparent new OO interface with multiple
> inheritance, multimethods and anything else in AMOP. ouch.
>
> kenny
--
__Pascal Bourguignon__ http://www.informatimago.com/
"Klingon function calls do not have "parameters" -- they have
"arguments" and they ALWAYS WIN THEM."
Pascal Bourguignon <····@mouse-potato.com> writes:
> David Trudgett <······@zeta.org.au.nospamplease> writes:
> >> Jesus said that the rich won't come to heaven, and stuff like that.
> >
> > Not quite, but close. He said that it is as impossible for a rich man
> > to enter the kingdom of heaven as it is for a camel to pass through
> > the eye of a needle; but that for God, anything is possible. See Mark
> > 10:17-29 for the details, if you are interested.
>
> And moreover, it's quite possible, by quantum mechanics, for a camel to
> pass thru the eye of a needle, only very very slowly.
>
Yes, but only if nobody is watching while it does it.
--
Tim Cross
The e-mail address on this message is FALSE (obviously!). My real e-mail is
to a company in Australia called rapttech and my login is tcross - if you
really need to send mail, you should be able to work it out!
David Trudgett <······@zeta.org.au.nospamplease> writes:
>
>> Jesus said that the rich won't come to heaven, and stuff like that.
>
> Not quite, but close. He said that it is as impossible for a rich man
> to enter the kingdom of heaven as it is for a camel to pass through
> the eye of a needle; but that for God, anything is possible. See Mark
> 10:17-29 for the details, if you are interested.
Actually, there is some interesting debate on the meaning of this
phrase (as with all of Jesus's parables of course, but this one is one
of my favorites).
Although the scholars generally frown on it, the following is one of
my favorite interpretations :
There was, it seems, a very narrow mountain pass (or a town gate in
some interpretations) near Jerusalem which has traditionally been
known as the 'needle's eye'. For a (fully laden) camel to make it
through was very difficult. The story goes that it was neccesary to
either/both remove the camels trappings and/or have it kneel to get it
through. It paints an interesting visual for certain.
Now, there are some fundamentalists who would use that interpretation
of the story to mean that a rich man can be saved as long as he walks
a narrow path, but i prefer the idea that it is neccesary to both cast
off your wealth (or more importantly, the desire for wealth) and
humble thyself before passing.
Another interpretation relies on the fact that the words "Camel" and
"Rope" are very similar in some languages (Aramaic and Greek being the
two particularly important examples here), so the saying could refer
to the difficulties of threading a needle with a rope.
Now, or so the scholars say, the canonical interpretation is quite
literal. A camel and a sewing needle. There is more evidence for this
than any of the others. In some Talmudic works the eye of a needle is
used simply to mean 'a small place', and a similar saying used but
with elephant in place of camel. (The Talmud being partially a
geographically babyloninan work, where elephants are not uncommon and
larger than camels.)
So the prevailing opinion is that the phrase is a great example of
typical, beautiful hebrew hyperbole (like removing a spec from
anothers eye whilst having a tree in your own). I'd leave it at that,
but then i wouldn't get a chance to explore the apocrypha.
There is a wonderful story in the "Acts of Peter and Andrew (vv.14-21)"
where Peter and Andrew, to the amazement of a Rich Man (who provides
the camel), actually do the impossible (with a little help from a
manafestation of the Christ), and a Camel is seen by many to pass
through a needle. The rich man is even allowed to order the camel
through the needle himself, although the Camel only gets halfway
through do to the fact the the rich man was not baptised.
I really like this saying, as it's one of the few that can be
attributed directly to Jesus. I personally think that the context is
very similar to when he says that Mary M. must first become a man in
order to enter heaven. We must be willing to become what we are not,
to be one with ourselves etc.
Of course, all that debate is a failure to see the forest, for finally
(as you've noted) Jesus states that in the end, it is all up to
YHWH. I feel that he was simply saying one should not concern oneself
with anothers wealth (or sins), as men are not free to judge each
other (speck and tree again). In the end, the choice is that of YHWH
and YHWH alone.
Is has to be noted that the reaction of his followers to this
statement was amazement and disbelief, as it was thought that the rich
and prosperous were favoured by god (how else would they get rich and
prosperous?).
> What is rich? Anyone who has a job? Anyone who owns their house? Two
> houses? Three houses, two cars and five TVs? Oprah or Gates-rich?
>
> It is a relative term, but if your possessions stop you from doing
> what is right, such as shutting up and doing unethical work for the
> boss so you can keep your job and pay the mortgage, then your riches
> are preventing you from "entering the kingdom of heaven" as Jesus put
> it. Obviously, this situation becomes exponentially harder the more
> wealth is accumulated, and that fact is what Jesus was referring to.
The _desire_ for wealth, and not the wealth itself, is the actual
problem (which is similar to what you state). A similar theme exists
in many of the other eastern faiths (Buddhism being the obvious
example, esp as they consider Christ a buddha).
When you look at it in terms of desire, then a desire for wealth,
poverty, or even a desire for salvation(!) is a detriment to those
seeking 'to enter the kingdom of heaven', 'enlightenment', or
'salvation' itself.
One must not desire to do and be right, one must simply do and be
right. There is no try, only do, road to hell paved with good
intentions and all that
Anyways, thanks for giving me the opportunity to 'word-wank', it's not
often i get to spew out all this interesting information i've
accumulated :)
Viva L'Anarchia.
PS- I am not Christian/Jew nor Atheist, and i hope i did not offend
any group with my interpretations/ideas.
--
drewc at tech dot coop
"drewc" <···························@rift.com> wrote in message
···················@rift.com...
> David Trudgett <······@zeta.org.au.nospamplease> writes:
>
>>
>> Not quite, but close. He said that it is as impossible for a rich man
>> to enter the kingdom of heaven as it is for a camel to pass through
>> the eye of a needle; but that for God, anything is possible. See Mark
>> 10:17-29 for the details, if you are interested.
>
> Actually, there is some interesting debate on the meaning of this
> phrase (as with all of Jesus's parables of course, but this one is one
> of my favorites).
>
> Another interpretation relies on the fact that the words "Camel" and
> "Rope" are very similar in some languages (Aramaic and Greek being the
> two particularly important examples here), so the saying could refer
> to the difficulties of threading a needle with a rope.
>
I just wanted to express my own five-cents worth on this impressive thread
where the intellectual prowess of the group is stunningly evident.
This is indeed the correct interpretation of the original Greek text by
Mark. In the Hellenistic dialect of ancient Greek in which the New Testament
is written the 'kamilos' ('camel' in English) referred to by the Evangelist
is the type of thick rope used to tie boats on buoys, at the harbor, etc. It
not only makes literal sense it also conveys the message of what the text
meant to imply. Although the same physical principle can be also conveyed by
the unlikely image of a big animal walking through the eye of a needle, it
is highly improbable that was the intention.
The important point though is the concluding remark by Jesus, namely that
what is impossible to man is possible to God. In this same context, this
phrase means God's grace (freely given to those who seek it in humility, and
wealth without helping others can hardly be considered a gauge of humility)
will help ANYONE to attain the objective of salvation. Man is fallen from
where he was built to be, hence weak and incapable. He cannot do anything
without God's grace. Christ has said it clearly "without me you cannot do
anything". Man must ask and the Loving Father will give him because He
desires everyone to be saved and He said "ask and it will be given to you".
If one approaches God with humility, without arrogance, with sense of one's
unworthiness and seeking the Truth, seeking eternity in His loving presence,
then God always gives His grace, and you know what, it is FREE. That is the
meaning.
Being wealthy is not a sine-qua-non condition for perdition and damnation,
as poverty is not a similar condition for salvation. Other much more
relevant criteria enter in play.
Someone mentioned "choice" in the thread. Man is free to choose ALWAYS.
Choices in life do have consequences both bad and good. Like eating healthy.
You stand chances of not getting as sick as someone who eats junk or does
not eat.
Further to this, Christ's teaching reinforced in a more comprehensive way
what the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus had already said centuries ago
(albeit from a different angle). You have absolutely no control as to what
is happening to you in life. But you have absolute control as to how you
feel about it.
This is also the reason why some unbelievably poor people are so happy and
some wealthy people cannot understand how it is possible.
I hear people to whom misery has befallen and they say "why me?" My gut
thought is maybe the question should be "why not me?". There is no rational
answer to this, except by accepting the world is a fallen place, an
imperfect place and we are preparing (well or bad) for the future. How do we
cope with the load? I am talking from experience, having an incurably sick
child. No matter how much I push myself to think about this in a different
way though, I always know there are other people who have it worse than us.
I have seen them at hospitals. At least I am fortunate enough to be able to
afford good doctors, good hospitals, etc. Others less fortunate than me do
not even have insurance or a car to drive to the doctor etc. The point I am
trying to make is we need to look at life POSITIVELY even in the presence of
tremendous adversity and contrary attitudes. Life is like a cross we all
have to bear. Each one of us carries a different one on his shoulders, some
bigger than others, some heavier than others, some thornier than others,
etc. each one though to his capabilities. The question is how we measure up
in front of the eyes of God. No one among us can say we have had to be
literally crucified like a criminal on a wood like He did. Consequently we
have an example to follow and the yardstick of patience and forgiveness.
So couple all of this this with the true Christian belief that we are all
passers-by in this life preparing for eternity based on our choices not on
our life conditions, and all of a sudden things take a perspective. Life is
suddenly not that impossible to bear. My neighbor is not as bad as I thought
originally. My kid's health problem is not the end of the world. Someone's
financial trouble is not doomsday. There is HOPE! And that drives us,
humans, forward. Hope. Some of us have it, some us don't and boy do they
miss on something awesome. Something you don't even need a prescription for.
Justice will prevail but OUT of this world, because this world is fallen
even if it is difficult for us engineers to accept.
The problem is not just freedom as is mentioned elsewhere in the thread,
because we are all free. Free to choose even if our petty arguments and/or
para-intellectual sophistry say otherwise. The problem is inherent human
weakness and inability to accept it in front of God. It is probably our ego.
The problem is the more scholarly we become, the more books we read, the
more we think highly of ourselves. That is a symptom of our weakness because
it goes back straight to the humility point I made earlier.
God is not to be feared as some of the "Christian" Churches have taught. God
is to be loved. And one can only love God if one is humble.
I was reading the other day an essay from one of the early Fathers of the
Church (incidentally a multimillionaire who gave up his whole inherited
properety to the poor), St.Basil the Great. He was describing in simple yet
unbelievable depth and beauty, as if he was a Lisp hacker really :-) , the
concept of Fear of God, which is so unlike what the Medieval Churches with
love of hypocricy, power, and politics promulgated and bequeathed to our
times. Fear in ancient Greek (fovos) means 'respect' incindentally.
He says there are 3 types of Fear of God starting from the lowest and going
higher. At the bottom of the hierarchy we feel fear of God as the slave, who
will be whipped and caned if he does not do what the master commands. This
fear probably leads to salvation because the rules have been obeyed, yet no
satisfaction is earned while doing so, and there is better than that. Above
that level of fear of God there is the fear of the servant, who does what
the master requests, not because he is afraid of punishment but so that he
can get his promised wages. That fear also leads to salvation because again
the rules have been adhered to. But there is even better, there is the
highest form of fear of God, namely that we feel if we behave like sons of
God. Like the son who takes care of the father's store in his father's
absence. He does it not because he is afraid of punishment and retribution.
He does that not because of salary and wages he will obtain as compensation.
He does that because he loves his father and he knows that everything the
father owns is ultimately his too. That is what St.Paul in his epistle to
the Romans 8:17 means that we are when he says "if children of God then
inheritors of God" (lose transcription here for illustration).
It is this love of God that saves. If you love and have money you will help
the needy because you love and empathize with their plight, not because you
are asked to. If you have a passion try to cut is as sacrfice to God,
bearing your own cross, whether it is lust, lying, gluttony, materialism,
conceit, etc. Passions are just self-love as opposed to love of God which is
what He has required as the number one commandment and the point He is
making. Morality is then a logical conclusion of love and not an abstract
and arbitrary set of rules. It is easier to know what is OK and what is not
OK. Likewise, if you love God above all and you are poor, you don't curse
your situation, you don't revolt cutting people's throats, you do your best
and you accept your pain as your own cross and render this as a sacrifice to
God who loves only the meek and the humble. There is more to life than land
owning and .... fast compilation. There is after life. The question is
whether we are even thinking of it or not?
Alternatively, keeping God out of the picture consistently is like us
opening up the umbrella for shade and hiding under it. Can we possibly blame
the sun for the fact that we are likely not getting a nice tan? I don't
think so. It is a matter of CHOICE and it has CONSEQUENCES.
Thank you for the opportunity to express some inner thoughts to a bright
group of colleagues. I hope I did not offend anyone. There was no such
intention whatsoever.
Panos C. Lekkas
Gidday, Panos!
It looks like merciless snipping will have to be the order of the day!
I didn't think scriptural exegesis could be so popular in a Lisp
group!
"Panos C. Lekkas" <·······@ieee.org> writes:
> I just wanted to express my own five-cents worth on this impressive thread
> where the intellectual prowess of the group is stunningly evident.
You should be careful when using irony because it can come across as sarcasm.
;-)
>
> This is indeed the correct interpretation of the original Greek text by
> Mark.
Is that so? :-) Let's not forget that Jesus most likely spoke Aramaic,
and may not have spoken Koine Greek (I'm not aware of any evidence
that he did).
> In the Hellenistic dialect of ancient Greek
That would be Koine Greek or New Testament Greek.
> in which the New Testament is written the 'kamilos' ('camel' in
> English) referred to by the Evangelist is the type of thick rope
You force me to do some research, you scoundrel! ;-) 'Rope' in Koine
Greek is a different word: 'kamelos'. So they are not the same word at
all in Greek (but quite similar). In Aramaic, however, the language
Jesus would have been speaking, the two words were the same:
'gamla'. Could it be that Jesus was actually having fun with words,
and that everyone listening promptly broke into laughter? After all,
both interpretations are absurdly impossible. Combine that with a
reversal of the likely prevailing view that the wealthy are favoured
by God, and you have the makings of a stand-up comedy routine.
> used to tie boats on buoys, at the harbor, etc. It not only makes
> literal sense it also conveys the message of what the text meant to
> imply. Although the same physical principle can be also conveyed by
> the unlikely image of a big animal walking through the eye of a
> needle, it is highly improbable that was the intention.
The earliest Greek manuscripts seem to all disagree, though.
Personally, I think the most likely explanation is that it was a pun
in Aramaic, which didn't quite translate into Greek. That didn't
really matter, though, because the point of impossibility is the same
in either case.
>
> The important point though is the concluding remark by Jesus, namely that
> what is impossible to man is possible to God.
Yes, indeed, we seem to be all agreed on that!
> Being wealthy is not a sine-qua-non condition for perdition and damnation,
I don't think anyone ever said it was. Jesus specifically said that
even the rich can be saved through the grace of God. So can
prostitutes, murderers, thieves, gangsters, politicians, tax
collectors, and so on.
>
> Thank you for the opportunity to express some inner thoughts to a bright
> group of colleagues.
Hi! My name is David and I... oh, sorry, I was getting carried away! ;-)
No problem, Panos, you had some good thoughts to offer there. You just
forgot to tie it into Lisp. Or did I miss that bit? :-)
David
--
David Trudgett
http://www.zeta.org.au/~wpower/
When it is said that we disturb people too much by the words pacifism
and anarchism, I can only think that people need to be disturbed, that
their consciences need to be aroused, that they do indeed need to look
into their work, and study new techniques of love and poverty and
suffering for each other. Of course the remedies are drastic, but then
too the evil is a terrible one and we are all involved, we are all
guilty, and most certainly we are all going to suffer. The fact that
we have "the faith," that we go to the sacraments, is not enough.
"Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these my brethren, ye
have done it unto me" with napalm, nerve gas, our hydrogen bomb, our
"new look."
-- Dorothy Day, The Catholic Worker, April 1954
(Dorothy Day Library on the Web at
http://www.catholicworker.org/dorothyday/)
David Trudgett wrote:
> I don't think anyone ever said it was. Jesus specifically said that
> even the rich can be saved through the grace of God. So can
> prostitutes, murderers, thieves, gangsters, politicians, tax
> collectors, and so on.
You sure about politicians?
"Eli Gottlieb" <···········@gmail.com> wrote in message
···························@twister.nyroc.rr.com...
> David Trudgett wrote:
>> I don't think anyone ever said it was. Jesus specifically said that
>> even the rich can be saved through the grace of God. So can
>> prostitutes, murderers, thieves, gangsters, politicians, tax
>> collectors, and so on.
> You sure about politicians?
Only if they repent and work themselves out of their jobs;
something that is extremely likely as we all know.... :-)
"Panos C. Lekkas" <·······@ieee.org> writes:
> "Eli Gottlieb" <···········@gmail.com> wrote in message
> ···························@twister.nyroc.rr.com...
>> David Trudgett wrote:
>>> I don't think anyone ever said it was. Jesus specifically said that
>>> even the rich can be saved through the grace of God. So can
>>> prostitutes, murderers, thieves, gangsters, politicians, tax
>>> collectors, and so on.
>> You sure about politicians?
>
> Only if they repent and work themselves out of their jobs;
> something that is extremely likely as we all know.... :-)
>
I apologise for the extreme redundancy in that list, by the way. ;-)
David
--
David Trudgett
http://www.zeta.org.au/~wpower/
It's sociologically interesting, though scary, that you can be inside
an evil system and be somehow unaware of it.
-- Actor Anthony Sher on growing up in apartheid-South Africa,
interviewed by John Walsh, The Independent, 1 May, 2000
David Trudgett <······@zeta.org.au.nospamplease> writes:
>> in which the New Testament is written the 'kamilos' ('camel' in
>> English) referred to by the Evangelist is the type of thick rope
>
> You force me to do some research, you scoundrel! ;-) 'Rope' in Koine
> Greek is a different word: 'kamelos'. So they are not the same word at
> all in Greek (but quite similar). In Aramaic, however, the language
> Jesus would have been speaking, the two words were the same:
> 'gamla'. Could it be that Jesus was actually having fun with words,
> and that everyone listening promptly broke into laughter? After all,
> both interpretations are absurdly impossible. Combine that with a
> reversal of the likely prevailing view that the wealthy are favoured
> by God, and you have the makings of a stand-up comedy routine.
Damnit, you stole my post! Even made the same 'comedy' point i was
going to aim towards. Jesus was a very funny guy IMO, as are a lot of
great philosophers/teachers/masters. The "render unto Caesar"
punchline has always been one of my favorites, and i'm sure a lot of
his followers had to cover a smile when he made that pronouncement,
lest they be arrested by the very men Jesus was trying to appease.
> The earliest Greek manuscripts seem to all disagree, though.
> Personally, I think the most likely explanation is that it was a pun
> in Aramaic, which didn't quite translate into Greek. That didn't
> really matter, though, because the point of impossibility is the same
> in either case.
Although the point is the same, the alternate interpretations (or at
least our explorations of them) do at least help us try to understand
Jesus the Man (as opposed Jesus the Christ). Humour is subversive ;)
> No problem, Panos, you had some good thoughts to offer there. You just
> forgot to tie it into Lisp. Or did I miss that bit? :-)
The gospels, in their original greek, are very much tied into lisp, or
did you miss the continual use of LAMBDA ;)
--
drewc at tech dot coop
"drewc" <···························@rift.com> wrote in message
···················@rift.com...
> David Trudgett <······@zeta.org.au.nospamplease> writes:
>
> The gospels, in their original greek, are very much tied into lisp, or
> did you miss the continual use of LAMBDA ;)
>
Proof is that "lisp" is spelled as lambda - iota - sigma - pi
:-)
"David Trudgett" <······@zeta.org.au.nospamplease> wrote in message
···················@rr.trudgett...
>
> Gidday, Panos!
And a good day to you too, David! Nice to meet you!
>
>> I just wanted to express my own five-cents worth on this impressive
>> thread
>> where the intellectual prowess of the group is stunningly evident.
>
> You should be careful when using irony because it can come across as
> sarcasm.
> ;-)
I can see your point but it was not even my remotest intention to come
across as sarcastic. I may disagree profoundly with a lot of things in this
and other threads, but this does not mean that I don't respect the intellect
or the opinions of the people who express them. The comment came straight
from the heart. It was not ironic.
>
>>
>> This is indeed the correct interpretation of the original Greek text by
>> Mark.
>
> Is that so? :-) Let's not forget that Jesus most likely spoke Aramaic,
> and may not have spoken Koine Greek (I'm not aware of any evidence
> that he did).
You are right. I was only commenting on Mark's text, which was clearly not
written in Aramaic. Whether it contains exactly what Christ said (whatever
"exactly" may mean in a translation after years) is a completely different
subject.
> Personally, I think the most likely explanation is that it was a pun
> in Aramaic, which didn't quite translate into Greek. That didn't
> really matter, though, because the point of impossibility is the same
> in either case.
>
You are right in the sense that neither one of us can prove it or disprove
it either way. I would say it is rather a classical case of substance over
form. Either expressions by Jesus in Mark's Gospel semantically convey the
same moral message no matter what the physical image analogy.
>
>>
>> The important point though is the concluding remark by Jesus, namely that
>> what is impossible to man is possible to God.
>
> Yes, indeed, we seem to be all agreed on that!
>>
>
> No problem, Panos, you had some good thoughts to offer there. You just
> forgot to tie it into Lisp. Or did I miss that bit? :-)
You are right, David, in the sense that apparently I clearly was the .....
only one in this whole thread who omitted the obvious direct Lisp
connection, something I might try to remedy it at this point.
I'd say that the thread topic "Lisp is a Sin" (although literally extracted
from someone else's weblog) sounded so morally and teleologically
self-refering (i.e. a sort of a metacircular evaluator) that I could not
resist the temptation. Code is data and data is code and ... all of it is
sin (not to mention, separating compile-time execution from runtime
execution). Do you remember that commercial for a candy or ice cream (I
don't remember exactly) saying that it is so delicious that indulging in it
must create some sense of guilt because it is probably sinful? If Lisp is
the ultimate language so far, clearly there must be (tongue in cheek)
something sinful about all of us using it to be productive or expressive.
:-)
Panos C. Lekkas
Hi, Panos,
"Panos C. Lekkas" <·······@ieee.org> writes:
> "David Trudgett" <······@zeta.org.au.nospamplease> wrote in message
> ···················@rr.trudgett...
>>
>> Gidday, Panos!
>
> And a good day to you too, David! Nice to meet you!
>
>>
>>> I just wanted to express my own five-cents worth on this impressive
>>> thread
>>> where the intellectual prowess of the group is stunningly evident.
>>
>> You should be careful when using irony because it can come across as
>> sarcasm.
>> ;-)
>
> I can see your point but it was not even my remotest intention to come
> across as sarcastic. I may disagree profoundly with a lot of things in this
> and other threads, but this does not mean that I don't respect the intellect
> or the opinions of the people who express them. The comment came straight
> from the heart. It was not ironic.
I'm glad to hear it, Panos! Usually, when people use extravagant
praise, especially with words like "stunningly", it is an indication
that they are being sarcastic. In writing, it is even worse because of
the fewer visual and aural clues. It's good to see language being used
for its intended purpose of honesty! :-)
>
> I'd say that the thread topic "Lisp is a Sin" (although literally extracted
> from someone else's weblog) sounded so morally and teleologically
> self-refering (i.e. a sort of a metacircular evaluator) that I could not
> resist the temptation. Code is data and data is code and ... all of it is
> sin (not to mention, separating compile-time execution from runtime
> execution). Do you remember that commercial for a candy or ice cream (I
> don't remember exactly) saying that it is so delicious that indulging in it
> must create some sense of guilt because it is probably sinful? If Lisp is
> the ultimate language so far, clearly there must be (tongue in cheek)
> something sinful about all of us using it to be productive or expressive.
If the definition of 'sin' is 'fantastically enjoyable', then I think
most of us would have to agree that of all programming languages, Lisp
is the most sinful! ;-) To counteract this sin, I think I will just
have to go down the shops and buy one of those "Heaven" ice creams. I
see no other solution! :-)
Now, back to fractals in Lisp... bye for now.
Happy Lisping,
David
--
David Trudgett
http://www.zeta.org.au/~wpower/
Naturally the common people don't want war...but after all it is the
leaders of a country who determine policy, and it is always a simple
matter to drag the people along.... All you have to do is tell them
they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of
patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in
any country.
-- Hermann Goering (1893-1946), 1936
Hi, Drew,
Wow, you sure packed a lot in! I'm going to have to mercilessly snip
out a lot of good stuff for brevity, though!
drewc <···························@rift.com> writes:
> David Trudgett <······@zeta.org.au.nospamplease> writes:
>
>>
>>> Jesus said that the rich won't come to heaven, and stuff like that.
>>
>> Not quite, but close. He said that it is as impossible for a rich man
>> to enter the kingdom of heaven as it is for a camel to pass through
>> the eye of a needle; but that for God, anything is possible. See Mark
>> 10:17-29 for the details, if you are interested.
>
> Actually, there is some interesting debate on the meaning of this
> phrase (as with all of Jesus's parables of course, but this one is one
> of my favorites).
Yes, I've heard alternative interpretations, but was never very
convinced by them, and the motivation for them seems to be the same as
that which caused the disciples' amazement.
>
> Although the scholars generally frown on it, the following is one of
> my favorite interpretations :
>
> There was, it seems, a very narrow mountain pass (or a town gate in
> some interpretations) near Jerusalem which has traditionally been
> known as the 'needle's eye'.
That always came across to me as a bit of a manufactured myth. When
you look at a literal translation, however, it does on the face of it
seem that the text was referring to _the_ eye of the needle:
It is easier for a camel through the eye of the needle to enter,
than for a rich man to enter into the reign of God.
-- Young's literal translation
The matched word or phrase "to enter" (one instance of which is
altered to "pass through" in other translations) seems to add some
weight to the interpretation, which (in English only, perhaps) does
not seem to make sense if it were a reference to a literal sewing
needle. Also, of course, the significance of 'the' in the translation
depends on the use of definite and indefinite articles (or their
presence or absence) in the original language (New Testament Greek, I
believe, in this case).
There is at least one logical counter argument to the narrow gateway
interpretation, however. If it were possible, but hard, for a camel to
pass through this "eye of the needle" gateway, then the disciples
would have no reason to ask, "Who, then, can be saved?" implying that
this would rule out salvation to (at least) a large number of
people. This implication would not make sense if salvation for the
rich were merely difficult. Therefore, either the "eye of the needle"
gateway was so small as to make it impossible for a camel to pass
through it, or the reference was to a literal needle.
In either case, the main point of impossibility is the same.
> Is has to be noted that the reaction of his followers to this
> statement was amazement and disbelief, as it was thought that the rich
> and prosperous were favoured by god (how else would they get rich and
> prosperous?).
That also seems to be the viewpoint of many "Christian" Churches that
have been labeled "fundamentalist". They must have a really neat
rationalisation up their sleeves, I guess. Probably something like,
"it only matters what my attitude to my riches is," I suppose. ;-)
>
> The _desire_ for wealth, and not the wealth itself, is the actual
> problem (which is similar to what you state).
Perhaps it seems similar. It goes further, though, than desire for
wealth or attachment to wealth. In other words, it goes further than
Buddhist teaching. The accumulation of wealth in the face of other
people's poverty and need shows a fundamental immorality of character,
which the rich often justify through the rationalisation that goes
like this: "I have to have wealth and resources first before I can
help others." Most have probably really convinced themselves of this,
too. Hence, the impossibility of salvation (speaking, of course, in
relation to the powers of people, not of God).
>
> Viva L'Anarchia.
Viva la liberta' e la pace sulla faccia della terra.
>
> PS- I am not Christian/Jew nor Atheist, and i hope i did not offend
> any group with my interpretations/ideas.
Honesty subverts.
Bye for now.
David
--
David Trudgett
http://www.zeta.org.au/~wpower/
History says, Don't hope
On this side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime
The longed-for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up
And hope and history rhyme.
So hope for a great sea-change
On the far side of revenge.
Believe that a further shore
Is reachable from here.
Believe in miracles
And cures and healing wells.
-- Seamus Heaney, "The Cure at Troy"
David Trudgett <······@zeta.org.au.nospamplease> writes:
> I can only assume that he was not in principle opposed to the use of
> violence in implementing his revolutionary ideas. On the contrary,
> he seems to have been of the belief that, at a minimum, an organised
> and violent revolution would be necessary on account of his other
> belief that the ruling class would not give up their position of
> privilege voluntarily.
You are mistaken. Marx was not a revolutionary, and saw no reason to
implement his revolutionary ideas. What the Russians misunderstood was
that Marx was a Hegelian teleologist. The central point of dialectical
materialism is that the revolution would come about as an inevitable
stage in the historical process. Speeding it up, a la Lenin, could not
work. As it turned out, Lenin's revolution ended in (irony of
ironies), Stalinist state capitalism.
Of course, a double irony is that the technological lead of the United
States was achieved by a command economy. The ideological
animadversions of 'libertarians' aside, it can be noted that most
technology has its roots in state-funded military-industrial research,
freed from the profit motive.
When you submit technology to the profit motive, you get Microsoft.
--
Tiarn�n
Hi there!
········@yahoo.com (Tiarn�n � Corr�in) writes:
> David Trudgett <······@zeta.org.au.nospamplease> writes:
>
>> I can only assume that he was not in principle opposed to the use of
>> violence in implementing his revolutionary ideas. On the contrary,
>> he seems to have been of the belief that, at a minimum, an organised
>> and violent revolution would be necessary on account of his other
>> belief that the ruling class would not give up their position of
>> privilege voluntarily.
>
> You are mistaken. Marx was not a revolutionary, and saw no reason to
> implement his revolutionary ideas. What the Russians misunderstood was
> that Marx was a Hegelian teleologist. The central point of dialectical
> materialism is that the revolution would come about as an inevitable
> stage in the historical process. Speeding it up, a la Lenin, could not
> work. As it turned out, Lenin's revolution ended in (irony of
> ironies), Stalinist state capitalism.
Well, you could be right about Marx, which is why I said that Marx
"seems to have been of the belief" etc. Life is short, and I have not
yet had the opportunity to read Marx's original works, but only other
people's summaries and interpretations of them. If you refer to
Wikipedia, for instance, you will see that Marx is characterised as a
revolutionary, and that he advocated violent revolution.
On the other hand, I cannot see any reason to ascribe pacifism to
Marx, nor any reason to believe that he was philosophically or
pragmatically opposed to violence. Marx did not live in a pacifist,
nonviolent society, and so if Marx did not specifically caution
against the use of violence to implement his ideas, then by default he
blessed such use.
What does teleology have to do with this, anyway? Does history have a
purpose or end in mind? And does this rule out violent revolution?
<confused>
>
> Of course, a double irony is that the technological lead of the United
> States was achieved by a command economy. The ideological
> animadversions of 'libertarians' aside, it can be noted that most
> technology has its roots in state-funded military-industrial research,
> freed from the profit motive.
>
> When you submit technology to the profit motive, you get Microsoft.
It would be funny if it weren't true. ;-)
Cheers,
David
--
David Trudgett
http://www.zeta.org.au/~wpower/
As for those who profit by the privileges gained by previous acts of
violence, they often forget and like to forget how these privileges
were obtained. But one need only recall the facts of history, not the
history of the exploits of different dynasties of rulers, but real
history, the history of the oppression of the majority by a small
number of men, to see that all the advantages the rich have over the
poor are based on nothing but flogging, imprisonment, and murder.
-- Leo Tolstoy, "The Kingdom of God is Within You"
David Trudgett <······@zeta.org.au.nospamplease> writes:
> Hi there!
Hello.
> If you refer to Wikipedia, for instance, you will see that Marx is
> characterised as a revolutionary, and that he advocated violent
> revolution.
Please do not take anything written in Wikipedia seriously.
> Marx did not live in a pacifist, nonviolent society, and so if Marx
> did not specifically caution against the use of violence to
> implement his ideas, then by default he blessed such use.
My point was that Marx saw no need to implement anything, since the
class war was inevitable. Therefore there was no need for a revolution
to bring about Marx's ideas. It was Lenin (or perhaps Trotsky) who
originated the concept of the revolutionary 'vanguard'. This
'socialism by compulsion' is repugnant to Marx's concept of a
historical process.
Of course, the class war would be violent, but that is different from
a revolution to bring about socialism.
> What does teleology have to do with this, anyway? Does history have a
> purpose or end in mind? And does this rule out violent revolution?
> <confused>
Dialectical materialism, Marx's modification of Hegel, means that
history moves inevitably towards the rule of the proletariat, after
which the state melts away and we are left in a kind of social
nirvana. So yes, baldly, history has a purpose.
For an example of an unbelievably wrong-headed adaption of Marx
(though his disciples are amusingly unaware of it), see Francis
Fukayama's "The End of History and the Last Man", where he proposes
liberal democratic capitalism as the historial telos.
--
Tiarn�n
In article <··············@rr.trudgett>,
David Trudgett <······@zeta.org.au.nospamplease> wrote:
> > Of course, a double irony is that the technological lead of the United
> > States was achieved by a command economy.
I agree that the US was largely run as a command economy during the 70
years war, and that it is showing few signs of recovery from that. And
I find that very scary.
> > The ideological animadversions of 'libertarians' aside, it can be
> > noted that most technology has its roots in state-funded
> > military-industrial research, freed from the profit motive.
There's plenty of profit motive in competing for government contracts
althogh the machanism is political rather than market.
> > When you submit technology to the profit motive, you get Microsoft.
>
> It would be funny if it weren't true. ;-)
It's true in one sense, but it's also untrue in that Microsoft wouldn't
be where they are today had they been held accountable for their lying
and cheating and bullying business practises.
--
Bruce | 41.1670S | \ spoken | -+-
Hoult | 174.8263E | /\ here. | ----------O----------
Gidday across the Tasman, Bruce,
Bruce Hoult <·····@hoult.org> writes:
> In article <··············@rr.trudgett>,
> David Trudgett <······@zeta.org.au.nospamplease> wrote:
>> > When you submit technology to the profit motive, you get Microsoft.
>>
>> It would be funny if it weren't true. ;-)
>
> It's true in one sense, but it's also untrue in that Microsoft wouldn't
> be where they are today had they been held accountable for their lying
> and cheating and bullying business practises.
Oh, yes, there is that. Of course, when you mix mega-corporations and
government, you can expect no other outcome, and nothing but show
trials.
>
> --
> Bruce | 41.1670S | \ spoken | -+-
> Hoult | 174.8263E | /\ here. | ----------O----------
North of Wellington?
Bye for now,
David
--
David Trudgett
http://www.zeta.org.au/~wpower/
"Nasty, tricksy parenthesises. We hates them!"
-- Sampo Smolander
<Majorinc>; "Kazimir" <·····@email.com> wrote in message
·······························@news.carnet.hr...
> In article <··································@4ax.com>, ···@nospam.com
> says...
>> That makes me sad, since I like Lisp, but I have to admit that I agree
>> with all three points. Am I missing some compelling counter-argument?
>
> I think that Lisp has same problems like communism, christianity or
> sport; they were built around good idea, but with time it turned that
> people around these ideas prefer power over solidarity, salvation over
> love, glory over healthy mind in the healthy body.
sigh. Doesn't Tim Bradshaw send out his Black Helicopters anymore....?
> macro's were big miss
...
> code=data is the most important idea of Lisp
I find it hard to reconcile these two statements. Oh, well.
--
Coby Beck
(remove #\Space "coby 101 @ bigpond . com")
"Coby Beck" <·····@mercury.bc.ca> writes:
> <Majorinc>; "Kazimir" <·····@email.com> wrote in message
> ·······························@news.carnet.hr...
> > In article <··································@4ax.com>, ···@nospam.com
> > says...
> >> That makes me sad, since I like Lisp, but I have to admit that I agree
> >> with all three points. Am I missing some compelling counter-argument?
> >
> > I think that Lisp has same problems like communism, christianity or
> > sport; they were built around good idea, but with time it turned that
> > people around these ideas prefer power over solidarity, salvation over
> > love, glory over healthy mind in the healthy body.
>
> sigh. Doesn't Tim Bradshaw send out his Black Helicopters anymore....?
>
Didn't you get the memo? They're tied up dealing with XML at the moment
and no end in sight... Which is probably more important than dealing
with wanking about Lisp syntax for the 10 millionth time.
;)
Greg
In article <·····················@edtnps90>,
·····@mercury.bc.ca says...
> <Majorinc>; "Kazimir" <·····@email.com> wrote in message
> ·······························@news.carnet.hr...
> > In article <··································@4ax.com>, ···@nospam.com
> > says...
> >> That makes me sad, since I like Lisp, but I have to admit that I agree
> >> with all three points. Am I missing some compelling counter-argument?
> >
> > I think that Lisp has same problems like communism, christianity or
> > sport; they were built around good idea, but with time it turned that
> > people around these ideas prefer power over solidarity, salvation over
> > love, glory over healthy mind in the healthy body.
>
> sigh. Doesn't Tim Bradshaw send out his Black Helicopters anymore....?
Another asshole. Oh well ...
Majorinc, Kazimir <·······@chem.pmf.hr> writes:
> In article <·····················@edtnps90>,
> ·····@mercury.bc.ca says...
>> <Majorinc>; "Kazimir" <·····@email.com> wrote in message
>> ·······························@news.carnet.hr...
>> > In article <··································@4ax.com>, ···@nospam.com
>> > says...
>> >> That makes me sad, since I like Lisp, but I have to admit that I agree
>> >> with all three points. Am I missing some compelling counter-argument?
>> >
>> > I think that Lisp has same problems like communism, christianity or
>> > sport; they were built around good idea, but with time it turned that
>> > people around these ideas prefer power over solidarity, salvation over
>> > love, glory over healthy mind in the healthy body.
>>
>> sigh. Doesn't Tim Bradshaw send out his Black Helicopters anymore....?
>
> Another asshole. Oh well ...
I know a game just like the one you're playing. My grandson and
granddaughter play it together, almost any chance they get; whenever
they are either in a car or on the street, and they see a newer
style Volkswagon go by, they shout "Slug Bug!" as fast as possible -
the first one to recognize this Bug-that-looks-like-a-slug wins
that round and adds to points accumulated.
So now, you're doing very well at your own recognition game - it seems
you are winning with no effort at all. But wait - perhaps the game
is rigged, and you are winning because everybody is mooning you?
Yes, I have one as well...
--
Duane Rettig ·····@franz.com Franz Inc. http://www.franz.com/
555 12th St., Suite 1450 http://www.555citycenter.com/
Oakland, Ca. 94607 Phone: (510) 452-2000; Fax: (510) 452-0182
In article <··············@franz.com>, ·····@franz.com says...
> I know a game just like the one you're playing. My grandson and
> granddaughter play it together, almost any chance they get; whenever
> they are either in a car or on the street, and they see a newer
> style Volkswagon go by, they shout "Slug Bug!" as fast as possible -
> the first one to recognize this Bug-that-looks-like-a-slug wins
> that round and adds to points accumulated.
Nice game.
>
> So now, you're doing very well at your own recognition game - it seems
> you are winning with no effort at all. But wait - perhaps the game
> is rigged, and you are winning because everybody is mooning you?
>
> Yes, I have one as well...
:) I actually know exactly what happens here - it is much more
complicated than it looks like, but it would be way too long
and off topic for this newsgroup.
Majorinc wrote:
> Another asshole. Oh well ...
In case you haven't noticed. ALL of us on c.l.lisp are utterly evil and
rotten to the core. We hate all newbies, especially you, and we try to
be the worst assholes we can be to have some elitist peace.
Just so you are prepared and don't encounter any nasty surprises the
next months...
--
The problems of the real world are primarily those you are left with
when you refuse to apply their effective solutions.
Edsger W. Dijkstra
On Mon, 16 Jan 2006 21:56:19 +0100, Majorinc, Kazimir <·····@email.com> wrote:
> In article <··································@4ax.com>, ···@nospam.com says...
>> That makes me sad, since I like Lisp, but I have to admit that I agree
>> with all three points. Am I missing some compelling counter-argument?
>
> The result is that Lisp does not progress any more. C gone from
> #include to STL in last 25 years. Lisp? It goes nowhere.
C doesn't have "STL". You are obviously mixing up C with C++.
Moreover, the fact that C++ has STL, has nothing to do with the
progress of Lisp; if only for the fact that Lisp doesn't need
"templates" or other trickery like this to implement generic
functions that work for multiple data types :)
Adam Connor wrote:
> Just a post I saw that I thought was interesting:
> http://blogs.msdn.com/sriram/archive/2006/01/15/lisp_is_sin.aspx
Thx for the heads up. Wow, the Lisp mindshare is going throught the
roof. Well, we knew that, the programming community has been in a frenzy
since Python, frantically trying to throw the bit of strong static
typing. They have the attention span of a two year-old now.
There is no such thing as bad publicity. Microsoft (for the third time,
if you have been paying attention) explaining why Lisp sucks. The cow
protests too much, methinks.
>
> Thinking about my response to this essay (and many others I've seen in
> the last year or so), I would put it this way: Lisp has convinced many
> people of its beauty and power, but has convinced few of its
> practicality ...
yeah, what the hell can anyone accomplish with beauty and power?
Did you attend the Robert Maas School of Terminal Depression? No, you
are just addicted to all the attention you get by screaming that the sky
is falling. "My name is Adam, and I have a problem."
Look, we told Dussud (sp?) of Microsoft to take a hike at ILC 2005, now
this. Just keep laughing at them and they will deprecate .Net and roll
out Microsoft Common Lisp. Enjoy the deliberate deviations from the
standard and patents on list processing.
kenny
Kenny Tilton wrote:
> Did you attend the Robert Maas School of Terminal Depression? No, you
> are just addicted to all the attention you get by screaming that the sky
> is falling. "My name is Adam, and I have a problem."
Responses like this go a long way toward explaining the perception that
the Lisp community is not that friendly. I'm not complaining, since
I've read this newsgroup for a while and had some idea of what to
expect.But it takes a thick skin to interact with this community.
I don't think the sky is falling on Lisp; that happened long ago. From
what I can see, things are slowly improving. Apparently those in
comp.lang.lisp are satisfied with the rate of progress (mostly). I
guess that makes sense, since y'all have found ways to work with Lisp
even in its relative unpopularity.
I do think that Lisp faces challenges, and that it is interesting to
look at outsider perceptions. If the Lisp community were a bit more
open-minded it might benefit from those perceptions, but that doesn't
seem to be the prevailing response. Maybe that is also a corollary of
the selection process that weeded down the lisp community to true
believers. (In most "newer" language communities, I see a lot of folks
excited to get involved in an expanding community. Lisp folks seem
resistant to that charm.)
As far as the language itself: I admire the ideas behind Lisp. I do
find some difficulties with libraries. Some of it comes down to Common
Lisp (and its standards) being old. If the standard were more recent,
things like sockets would probably be in it. Some of this comes down to
having multiple lisps, and insufficient standardization for using
libraries. I've been spoiled by Java, where I can almost always just
download the damn jar file, put it in my classpath, and have things
work. Perl and Ruby have good ways of installing packages, too. Ruby
and Perl are single implementation languages. Java isn't, technically,
but in practice it is. The folks in comp.lang.lisp seem happy with the
current situation, but it confuses newbies like me and seems to divide
the Lisp community's energies into supporting different
implementations.
All of these have implications for adopting Lisp in more quotidian
programming shops. The reddit switch to Python suggests that even in
the more rarified air of startups Lisp's library situation has
downsides. I am sure that in some circumstances Lisp's flexibility
makes up for this. The question (for any given shop or independent
practicioner) to consider is whether these cases are common enough to
make Lisp the language of choice. The best way to determine this is to
try Lisp on some "real world" sized project for your shop. For obvious
reasons, it can be hard to commit sufficient resources, so many of us
read books, troll newsgroups, and write very small applications in an
attempt to get a feel for the value proposition.
Sorry if that process is unpleasant for comp.lang.lisp-ers.
"Adam Connor" <·······@gmail.com> writes:
> Kenny Tilton wrote:
> > Did you attend the Robert Maas School of Terminal Depression? No, you
> > are just addicted to all the attention you get by screaming that the sky
> > is falling. "My name is Adam, and I have a problem."
>
> Responses like this go a long way toward explaining the perception that
> the Lisp community is not that friendly .
^
to trolls.
You forgot that bit.
/Jon
--
'j' - a n t h o n y at romeo/charley/november com
"Adam Connor" <·······@gmail.com> writes:
> Kenny Tilton wrote:
> > Did you attend the Robert Maas School of Terminal Depression? No, you
> > are just addicted to all the attention you get by screaming that the sky
> > is falling. "My name is Adam, and I have a problem."
>
> Responses like this go a long way toward explaining the perception that
> the Lisp community is not that friendly. I'm not complaining, since
> I've read this newsgroup for a while and had some idea of what to
> expect.But it takes a thick skin to interact with this community.
Sorry, but this is not the problem. The problem is that a certain
number of people who post here, especially new people, are just
stupid.
By "stupid" I mean "so wedded to their own ideas that they can't learn
anything new."
If you are going to learn Lisp, you have to be willing to let go of
your own ideas for a while. Lisp is different enough from what most
programmers already know that it will go strongly against the grain
for a while. Most of the ways Lisp goes against the grain are
heartily embraced by experienced Lisp programmers. It is simply
annoying to have stupid [see above] people come and tell you that you
don't know what you're doing.
Perhaps we should have some kind of warning that we post periodically,
something like:
WARNING
Lisp is different from what you know. Do not attempt to critique it
until you have done something substantial in the language, perhaps
written at least one substantial program. Even then, you should not
attempt fundamental critiques unless you are a language guru or have
several years of experience with Lisp.
Again, lisp is fundamentally different from what you are used to.
Unless you are willing to deal with this, even embrace it, you will be
seen as a whining ignoramus when you complain about it.
Do not attempt to critique the syntax of Lisp. While it is different
from what you are used to (see above) it makes sense as it stands and
Lisp programmers like it. If you don't like it, the problem is with
you, not Lisp. There are plenty of other languages out there with
syntax you are used to that you are free to use. Critiquing Lisp for
its syntax is like critiquing a small plane for having wings too long
to fit into your garage.
If something about Lisp doesn't make sense to you, assume it's because
you don't understand something, not because the language is hosed.
The language does have its warts, but most Lisp programmers like it a
lot, and the thing you are complaining about is quite likely to be one
of the things Lisp programmers like.
Do not think that Lisp enthusiasts care whether you use Lisp. Chances
are very great that any contribution you can make to the Lisp
community will be insignificant unless you are willing to dive in and
start writing significant code. Most people who complain about Lisp
will not do that.
If you think that Lisp would be great except that it is missing a few
libraries, go ahead and write them, or improve something that's
already out there. There is a lot of stuff, old and new, out there;
go look for it. People who write libraries for Lisp or who do other
significant Lisp-related projects quickly graduate into the ranks of
those who are taken seriously in comp.lang.lisp. Do not demand that
someone else to do your work for you for free. However, polite
requests for pointers to code and other information will most likely
be answered in a positive way.
The reason most people read comp.lang.lisp is that they like Lisp a
lot. If you post in this newsgroup, keep that in mind and follow
USENET etiquette, and you will do fine.
--
Fred Gilham ······@csl.sri.com
I can see you're going to do just *fine* here in comp.lang.lisp. I'm
rather looking forward to the ritual disembowelling, in particular,
although the bit where we chop your arms and legs off and feed them to
crocodiles is also good. --- Tim Bradshaw
Fred Gilham <······@snapdragon.csl.sri.com> wrote:
+---------------
| "Adam Connor" <·······@gmail.com> writes:
| > But it takes a thick skin to interact with this community.
|
| Sorry, but this is not the problem. The problem is that a certain
| number of people who post here, especially new people, are just stupid.
| By "stupid" I mean "so wedded to their own ideas that they can't learn
| anything new."
+---------------
I think the term you're looking for is "willfully ignorant" or
perhaps "stubbornly ignorant". They're actually too fundamentally
intelligent to be truly stupid, but the intelligence is being
perverted in the service of an active ignorance that seeks
reinforcement of its own preconceptions, rather than being
open to the subtle panic that inevitably arises when learning
something truly new & different.
When this attachment to the already-"known" is exposed, of course,
the most commmon response is to attack the exposer, as we often
see here...
-Rob
-----
Rob Warnock <····@rpw3.org>
627 26th Avenue <URL:http://rpw3.org/>
San Mateo, CA 94403 (650)572-2607
On 2006-01-17 19:37:35 -0500, Fred Gilham <······@snapdragon.csl.sri.com> said:
> Do not think that Lisp enthusiasts care whether you use Lisp. Chances
> are very great that any contribution you can make to the Lisp
> community will be insignificant unless you are willing to dive in and
> start writing significant code. Most people who complain about Lisp
> will not do that.
I have been watching this thread for some time. I can't help but
believe that perhaps this newsgroup is not the best way for new people
to expose themselves to Lisp if they are interested. I cannot imagine a
group of people who would consider themselves advocates of a language
would write a paragraph like the above.
Scheme will always have a great home in academia, but Common Lisp may
not if these are their ambassadors. If people are to contribute to the
community, they must be made to feel comfortable.
Reading this thread, I've come to the conclusion that success on the
Java, C++ or any ol' Algol scale is not what Lisp developers, at least
on this group in this setting, want. I believe they want to be obscure
and take their language with them. Nothing else could explain the
attitude I have seen from the people who have rebutted these honest
questions.
Luckily for Lisp developers, both productive and new, the views of the
people on this message board are limited to this obscure protocol on
obscure servers. Aside from Google Groups, your language and your
attitudes will find no expression, and web-based communities like
common-lisp.net and other places will work with people who wish to
expand their knowledge and welcome them with open arms.
This sad group that hangs out here, who appears to be capable of
posting large amounts of text (probably because Lisp is so damn
productive you can write an entire application and take an hour to
belittle your community members) are the old guard of Lisp.
It is necessary for this beautiful and thinking language that people
who so desperately needs a clique find no larger expression outside
these server walls.
--
Brandon Werner
http://www.brandonwerner.com
Brandon Werner wrote:
>
> I have been watching this thread for some time.
[unasked for advice and commentary snipped]
>
> This sad group that hangs out here, who appears to be capable of
> posting large amounts of text (probably because Lisp is so damn
> productive you can write an entire application and take an hour to
> belittle your community members) are the old guard of Lisp.
>
> It is necessary for this beautiful and thinking language that people
> who so desperately needs a clique find no larger expression outside
> these server walls.
Damn. If we had only known earlier.
Brandon Werner wrote:
> On 2006-01-17 19:37:35 -0500, Fred Gilham
> <······@snapdragon.csl.sri.com> said:
>
>> Do not think that Lisp enthusiasts care whether you use Lisp. Chances
>> are very great that any contribution you can make to the Lisp
>> community will be insignificant unless you are willing to dive in and
>> start writing significant code. Most people who complain about Lisp
>> will not do that.
>
>
> I have been watching this thread for some time.
Which is why it took you more than two weeks to respond to this? chya.
> I can't help but believe
> that perhaps this newsgroup is not the best way for new people to expose
> themselves to Lisp if they are interested.
No, if you are going to expose yourself we would just as soon miss that.
It would just be a distraction to all the folks getting and giving good
help with programming in Lisp.
> I cannot imagine a group of
> people who would consider themselves advocates of a language would write
> a paragraph like the above.
We are like Buddhists. Happy with our world-view whether others share it
or not (and no need to get them to) but happy to share if someone is
interested (or observed grenspunning).
>
> Scheme will always have a great home in academia, but Common Lisp may
> not if these are their ambassadors. If people are to contribute to the
> community, they must be made to feel comfortable.
>
> Reading this thread, I've come to the conclusion that success on the
> Java, C++ or any ol' Algol scale is not what Lisp developers, at least
> on this group in this setting, want.
Wrong. Vendors of Lisp tools are here, as are many forced to use Other
Languages at work. Never mind that the world will run better once Lisp
takes over.
> I believe they want to be obscure
> and take their language with them. Nothing else could explain the
> attitude I have seen from the people who have rebutted these honest
> questions.
Wow, a troll honoring trolls. (Don't respond, you are in my killfile
already.)
>
> Luckily for Lisp developers, both productive and new, the views of the
> people on this message board are limited to this obscure protocol on
> obscure servers. Aside from Google Groups, your language and your
> attitudes will find no expression, and web-based communities like
> common-lisp.net and other places will work with people who wish to
> expand their knowledge and welcome them with open arms.
>
> This sad group that hangs out here, who appears to be capable of posting
> large amounts of text (probably because Lisp is so damn productive you
> can write an entire application and take an hour to belittle your
> community members) are the old guard of Lisp.
>
> It is necessary for this beautiful and thinking language that people who
> so desperately needs a clique find no larger expression outside these
> server walls.
Oh, my, this one is really in love with the sound of his own voice. Talk
about chewing the scenery.
Let's see, two weeks late you jump on a dead thread and post things
which will clearly and obviously produce a flamewar from the "sad
group". Posing as the voice of reason and maturity. Hmmmm...
kenny
"Adam Connor" <·······@gmail.com> writes:
> what I can see, things are slowly improving. Apparently those in
> comp.lang.lisp are satisfied with the rate of progress (mostly). I
The existence of this project:
CL Gardeners - Tending the Common Lisp garden
http://www.lispniks.com/cl-gardeners/
is a hint that a significant number of active Lispers are working to
increase the rate of progress.
> I do think that Lisp faces challenges, and that it is interesting to
> look at outsider perceptions. If the Lisp community were a bit more
> open-minded it might benefit from those perceptions, but that doesn't
> seem to be the prevailing response. Maybe that is also a corollary of
Outsider perceptions and feedback are useful. But the problem is that
we now have plenty--truckloads--of that. What we miss is someone who,
based on those perceptions and feedback, actually does something--anything.
Paolo
--
Why Lisp? http://wiki.alu.org/RtL%20Highlight%20Film
The Common Lisp Directory: http://www.cl-user.net
Adam Connor wrote:
> Just a post I saw that I thought was interesting:
> http://blogs.msdn.com/sriram/archive/2006/01/15/lisp_is_sin.aspx
Something I noted is that he praises Scheme for having a large library
in the form of the SRFIs, but at the same time praises Scheme for having
such a short specification.
The R5RS and SRFIs combined are, uncompressed, about half the size of
the Common Lisp HyperSpec. Considering that much of the pages of the
HyperSpec contain duplicated matter that wouldn't be present in the
printed version, I compressed them to remove as much of the duplicated
material as possible.
After compression, the HyperSpec is only 11% larger than the 'full'
specification for Scheme. So it isn't at all clear to me that Scheme's
reputation as a 'small' language is entirely justified, if Common Lisp
is to be considered a hulking monstrosity.
> 1) it appears to be easier for average developers to get started in
> Ruby
I'd agree that it's probably easier for an 'average developer' (by
which, I assume, you mean an 'average C++/Java developer') to get
started in Ruby.
But is that relevant?
If your non-profit institution is in the business (so to speak) of
taking in average C++/Java developers and turning them into either
skilled Lisp developers or skilled Ruby developers, then it would make
sense to opt for Ruby.
Contrariwise, if your non-profit institution is in the business of
making and/or using software, then it would make sense to opt for Lisp.
Why? Because skilled Lisp developers are more productive than skilled
Ruby developers.
Yes, this is a broad generalisation. As broad as yours? I would say no.
> 2) the price is right; as a non-profit institution, commercial Lisps
> seem kind of expensive.
This is patent nonsense.
Unless you are compelled to pay for your software when it could be
obtained for free -- which would be a curious policy indeed for a
non-profit institution -- you can simply use a free Lisp.
This is like complaining that Evian is expensive when you have a well in
your back garden.
I have heard that non-free Lisps do a much better job of optimisation
than free Lisps, I have neither the funds nor the inclination to test
the claim, so I'll just assume it's true. But that doesn't matter for
several reasons.
1. I know from experience that free lisps are 'fast enough' for all but
the most special of cases.
2. I consider it unlikely that you wouldn't be able to afford a non-free
Lisp if you really _need_ the performance boost it offers. If the task
is mission-critical, I can't imagine people wouldn't be willing to pay.
3. I consider it unlikely that you'd be considering Ruby as an
alternative if performance was an issue.
Non-free Lisps likely have better guaranteed support (in that they have
it at all) and probably have better documentation. Of course support
isn't _that_ much of a problem unless you are of the opinion that the
Common Lisp community is unfriendly and unlikely to offer constructive help.
> 3) the general consensus is that the Ruby community is friendlier and
> more likely to offer constructive help.
The general consensus amongst whom? I don't know the Ruby community, so
I can't comment on them, but I don't find that the Common Lisp community
is unfriendly and unlikely to offer constructive help.
Certainly the more.. prominent.. members of the Common Lisp community
are quite vocal about people who want Common Lisp to be a different
language. This is pretty much inevitable because Common Lisp, almost
unlike any other language, can be a different language for you if you
want it to be.
People who know that tend to get annoyed at people who don't. Those who
are used to static languages like C or Java often can't quite grasp that
what, to them, seems like a huge fundamental change in the nature of the
language (like wanting new special syntax for array member access) is
quite mundane and commonplace in Common Lisp, and doesn't require that
the specification be changed.
Apart from berating people who don't yet grok the tao of Lisp, I can't
say I've noticed the community being particularly hostile. Certainly no
more hostile than any other group of language advocates.
> That makes me sad, since I like Lisp, but I have to admit that I agree
> with all three points. Am I missing some compelling counter-argument?
I think you are. Of course, your mileage may vary. If my poorly thought
out counter-arguments don't give you pause, then perhaps they simply
don't apply to you, and Ruby would be the correct choice.
> All roads may lead to Lisp, but maybe not any existing Lisp.
> --
> adamnospamaustin.rr.com
> s/nospam/c\./