1.  One thing we can tell Java programmers that Lisp has they don't
    are macros.  We can tell them that they will forever be stuck
    programming in simple Java statments whereas we Lispers are free to
    build the Lisp language into whatever form we find best allows
    us to write the program we wish to write.
    This certainly impresses the Java programmer who then asks; "please
    show me some examples form your code repositiories of how you've
    use this powerful macro facility to build on the Lisp language."
    At this point you must reply, "well...err.. we've decided that
    it's antisocial to use this feature of Lisp.  We resign ourselves
    to writing only using the forms given in the Common Lisp spec."

    The Java guys says,"so you're actually no better off than us."

    Given the sentiment *against* using the Common Lisp as it was
    designed (as as the Lisps before it were designed), I'm proud
    to be able to put out code that demonstrates the very important
    language extension features of Lisp.  Maybe someone will
    realize "hey, I can do that too" and find Lisp to be a much
    better tool for the application than Java.

2.  I read all this about "publishing code" as being analogous
    to publishing a book and it only convinces me that the writer
    has never published code.
    Books are static things.  They are written, painstakingly
    edited, then printed and they sit on the shelf for years.
    Code on the other hand is often an example of a work in progress.
    The AllegroServe code I publish doesn't go through a
    month long review by an editor before it's put on the ftp site.
    It is simply a snapshot of the current version of the source
    probably less than a week old.  
    It's critical that the code be reliable and I will use every
    tool Lisp has to offer to make it so, including ***macros****.
    I am not going to lower the reliabilty by making it less
    readable to the person doing the development on it (namely me).

  Yes, this is indeed every psychotic's favorite line.  People who need to
  point out the dichotomy between the "real world" and somebody else's line
  of arguments has already established that _they_ believe in the dichotomy
  to begin with.  People who actually share the same reality with everybody
  else know that such a dichotomy is prima facie evidence of a psychosis.
  So when a person invokes the "real world" argument, you know a few things
  about that person: He has _personal_ experience with "non-real worlds"
  _and_ he is either so stupid that he thinks such an argument will hurt
  anyone but himself _or_ he thinks that his audience is so stupid they
  will not see through his pathetic attempt at an insult.  All in all, a
  fantastically _idiotic_ thing to say.

| In my world you can find references and actually prove things.

  Yes, I am quite sure that your world is like that.  This admirable "real
  world" of yours looks like a term paper.  It probably only consists of
  that which can be proven, and that which cannot be proven from "first
  principles", i.e., John Foderaro's personal belief system, does _not_
  exist.  In other words, the "real world" you live in is a figment of your
  imagination because it only consists of things you can prove within it
  from things you believe to be true _without_ evidence.  This desire for
  "proving things" is _also_ quite pathological.  Lots of nutcases have
  become that way because they can prove all _sorts_ of weird things.

  The set of truths that cannot be "proved" is vastly more interesting than
  those that can.  The desire to "prove" certain claims is simply a desire
  to move the point of trust to something else, a process that terminates
  at something that people agree to take for granted.  However, they do not
  agree to a whole lot of things when push comes to shove, and most people
  are generally unaware of their thinking processes to such an extent that
  they do not recognize fairly obvious idiocy.  Some are even so goddamn
  stupid that they think invoking the "real world" argument helps them.  In
  our particular case, my several years of philosophy studies will beat you
  into a pulp before we get to these first principles, because you are so
  unaware of yourself that your desire for proof and evidence looks lika a
  joke you play on people for effect, if it is not evidence of arrested
  development, but I am generous today and do not think so.  I mean, people
  who are not trained in philosophical thinking will probably regard your
  statement above as pretty clever.  To "prove things" has such high merit
  in our scientific society that many people tend to think of it as an
  unconditional value.  However, human _understanding_ does not go by way
  of proofs, but by way of things making _sense_.  Only a very small number
  of fields are subject to lines of argumentation that can look like they
  "prove things".  In fact, the biggest problem we have is that the most
  important fields of human endeavor are _not_ subject to such proofs, like
  what and how we _value_.  If I understand your previous rantings and
  ravings correctly, you consider such things to be "religion".  This is,
  again, an _amazingly_ stupid attitude.

  Only a nutcase will think reducing _everything_ to the point where
  proving things is of value in a _discussion_.  Now, can I _prove_ this?
  Or is it sufficient to argue for it so people believe it makes sense?  To
  most intelligent people, proving things like that means showing that it
  follows from more fundamental findings and principles.  The problem is
  that those are usually _more_ contentious than the conclusion, because
  the people who are into this kind of stuff are _professional_ quibblers
  and this stuff is actually tremendously hard.  There is no point at all
  in formalizing the process.  It is _only_ used by people who think that
  they will not be exposed as nutcases for "requiring" proof of everything,
  but instead succeed in bullying people into shutting up if the cannot
  cough up the "proof".  The way to deal with such nutcases is to point out
  that a proof means exactly _nothing_, and lacking a proof means exactly
  as much, in a debate, that is.  Reducing a particular argument to its
  most fundamental premises is a useful exercise, but it has absolutely
  nothing to do on a USENET newsgroup.  This is evidenced by the fact that
  Mr. Proof himself, John Foderaro, never proves anything of importance,
  and especially not why proving things is so valuable -- that is just
  taken for granted.  Well, I disagree, so where does that leave us?  Oh,
  John Foderaro has the answer: Either I am "religious" or I do not live in
  the "real world" or something like that.  Only nutcases argue that way.

| In the past I've asked you to back up statements you've claimed I've made
| and each and every time you have failed to do so (because you couldn't do
| so).

  But curiously, you are not backing up your own statements.  This claim is
  in fact false -- and people do remember it.  It is fascinating that you
  set yourself up to be shot down so easily by using one of the incompetent
  rethorician's favorite words: "every".  A single counter-example, and you
  are _dead_ as far as your "proofs" and arguments go.  The counter-example
  is when you claimed that I had said that you could not use if*.  I have
  pointed out that I had in fact asked _Franz_Inc_ not to _publish_ code
  with if*.  You go find it, who are so good at googling.

  Incidentally, there are a number of really wacky people out there.  They
  read google like the Devil reads the Bible, and love every minute of it:
  If you are sufficiently insane, you can "prove" anything by picking news
  articles.  One of the most interesting things about people who argue with
  other people is that if they actually are able to learn from the debates
  they engage in, they will change their views.  Amazingly, to the google-
  lovers, this is considered "proof" that they are inconsistent!  Can you
  even _imagine_ a worse abuse of logic than this?  The whole _purpose_ of
  a discussion is to change people's minds, to impart information to people
  who use it to form and reform their opinions and conclusions.  The only
  reason someone does _not_ change their views is if they do not _listen_.
  _This_ is the hallmark of the nutcases: Their minds are closed, fixed,
  frozen.  Now, add to this point how difficult it is to "prove things".
  For something to be proven, you have to have a solid chain of arguments
  that each are proven valid and true _all_ the way down.  If you change
  your mind, that means your previous conclusions were wrong, because your
  previous conclusions were not fuzzy opinions that could be "uncertain",
  but _proven_.  To revise an opinion thus proven means that something far
  more important must be revised, and that has serious repercussions for a
  lot of other things, so "proof people" are much harder to convince than
  people who argue by the seat of their pants, as it were.  A person who
  lives by proofs, will die by proofs.  The more you prove, the less
  freedom you have to be wrong.  The less freedom you have to be wrong, the
  less you can hold in limbo and allow to be _uncertain_ and "for further
  study", yet still treat as valid enough to base hypotheses on that can be
  tested.  The problem for people who think that "to prove things" is a
  value is that _if_ they are wrong, it has far-reaching consequences for
  their belief systems.  Therefore, a person who believes that "to prove
  things" in an open discussion is a value is a person who is willing to
  _bet_ a very large part of his belief system on being right.  This is
  dangerous, because whatever you _have_ believed in the past was based on
  what you knew then.  The more you know, the less likely it it that your
  old conclusions will continue to hold.  It should be obvious that this
  translates to a psychological dilemma: Shut down your brain and protect
  your sanity, or keep accepting new information from the outside world and
  see your proofs crumble and need to be rebuilt over and over, going
  insane sooner or later.  The most common solution to this problem is not
  what you would expect: To drop the silly notion that everything be proved
  or at least provable, but to deny new information that challenges one's
  existing conclusions.  At one point or another, "proof people" will make
  the mistake of valuing past conclusions higher than future conclusions.

  In our case, we have a certifiable nutcase who invokes the "real world"
  and who calls those who disagree with him "religious", who also needs to
  "prove things", but who does not _accept_ any of the proof he receives.
  We have a person who is in deep denial of his own wrongdoing, of the fact
  that he really _is_ a very, very bad guy, and of the fact that if he
  really is concerned about good behavior, he has a lot of cleaning up to
  do at home before he can dole out credible advice about it.

| I have no interest in learning about the world inside your head.  It
| looks like a very dark place.

  You obviously speak from personal experience, but listen to people close
  to you who tell you that your experience is not usable for extrapolation
  about any other person without further justification.  Just because you
  experienced it does not mean it was not _because_ of you and therefore
  not valid for anyone else -- that part has to be established separately
  and independently, especially if you are serious about "proving things".

| I'm sure that everyone on this newsgroup is sick of this 'discussion'
| between you and me.

Soon you too shall be called Erik Naggum.  

[some krap removed]

marc

  It is not his fault that you keep replying, you dork.  Just shut up if
  you think that is what you should have been doing.  I happen to agree
  violently, but do not let that stop you.  The world does not become any
  better just because you feel you need to post something.  It does in fact
  become a lot worse when you keep posting your drivel.  _My_ drivel is of
  course so valuable to mankind that it will be included in future editions
  of the Encyclopaedia Galactica.  All of it.  But nono of yours.  Hint.¹

| This is *your* opinion and based on the feedback I've gotten it's
| thankfully a small minority opinion.

  Every lunatic on USENET uses the volume of received e-mail to establish
  his popularity or that of his views.  It has become the most used proof
  of popularity, sanity, whatever: It matters a great deal what people you
  have no idea who might be have said in e-mail you have not seen.  Of
  course it does, come one!  Random customer endorsement on TV works, so
  why not on USENET, too?  Really!

  Why would _anyone_ subject themselves to mailing you any form of
  critical, insightful comments about your moronic macro?  Just look at
  what you do to people who try to make you _think_ in this newsgroup!
  Man, for someone who makes a moronic point about "proving things", you
  sure lack the basics in thinking skills when it comes to evaluating the
  evidence.  I wonder if the huge volume of positive feedback is what keeps
  you going.  I wonder if those who mailed you positive feedback feel a
  little responsible for what you keep doing and now regret it vehemently.

  Oh, _I_ got a wonderful letter from an author whose book I recommended on
  USENET not too long ago, and the auhtor said I understood the book.
  Woohoo!  Am I great or what?  Of course, I could be lying.  In fact, you
  have _no_ way to know if this is true or not.  As such, it has absolutely
  _no_ value as an argument or even supporting evidence for anything
  whatsoever -- the author could be misled by the way I expressed myself
  and it just looked like I had understood the book, or the author could
  just be overly happy that _somebody_ looked like they understood the book
  and entice me to into a discussion.  But suppose I take it at face value,
  and suppose it is true, does it have _anything_ but strictly personal
  value for me?  No.  Had the author gone public with the comment, it could
  have.  Am I now entitled to speak for the author?  No.  Can I drop names
  and impress people with it?  No.  It has _no_ public value whatsoever.
  That is the nature of an undisclosed personal mail.  Even referring to
  personal mail must be considered unethical because it carries absolutely
  _no_ weight in a public forum, but some unthinking people may not see
  that what such an argument says is _only_ that he who utters it is a jerk
  with an ego problem.

  Instead of being remembered as the "prove things" guy, John Foderaro is
  on his way to becoming known as the "backfire" guy.  No wonder he wants
  this to be over.  But did that work?  No.  This time, it was not _his_
  fault that he was "brought back in".  Other people will "keep bringing
  him back in" all the time.  Never will he grasp that _he_ needs to sit
  still and take the abuse like he wants other people to do.  But it will
  be fun, for a couple days or so, to see if he needs to "defend" himself.

  Now for a scary thought: Maybe he meant all the _positive_ feedback he
  has received here in comp.lang.lisp?  I mean, if he lives in the "real
  world" where he can "prove things", as opposed to the only one the rest
  of us live in, who knows what the public disdain for if* translates to.

  Another scary thought: If people send him positive feedback, does he
  request that they prove it?  If he does _not_ accept negative feedback
  without accompanying evidence and proof and everything, but _does_ accept
  positive feedback without any such thing, somebody could simply mail him
  what looks like positive feedback and just be playing mind games with
  him.  I would do that.  I would rattle off a mail like "Yo, dude, I love
  your if* macro!" and laugh my ass off.  This probably accounts for half
  of the positive messages he has received.

  Yet another scary thought: For a person who has accused other people of
  flaming everybody who disagrees with him, let us look at how he sorts his
  mail: Those who agree with him are considered valuable feedback and are
  carefully counted.  Those who do _not_ agree with him are discarded as
  "that is *your* opinion".  That this arroagnt response does not apply to
  the feedback that supports his demented view is rather alarming.  Of
  course, those who have provided him with "feedback", real or imagined,
  deserve a "that is *your* opinion" and be counted at least as carefully
  as all the Al Gore votes in Florida, like, not.

  Finally, the last scary thought: John Foderaro _actually_ believes that
  it helps his case to refer to "feedback" he has received without proof of
  any kind.  For all we know, it just another stupid tactic by the
  dishonest manipulator to make people who express disagreement with him
  _feel_ bad, for being in a "small minority".  Since he was in a _very_
  "small minority" when the ANSI standard was hammered out and his stupid
  little if* stunt, not to mention the upper-case names issue, was voted
  on, we can visualize the pain he intends to inflict on people who are in
  "small minorities": John Foderaro knows how much it hurts to be alone
  with the world's most brilliant invention, and now it is your turn to
  feel the pain of being _alone_ with *your* opinion.  Ouch, indeed.

To all readers except Erik:

  Wow.  that was some post wasn't it?  Now he's
arguing against proofs, the foundation of science.

 When I asked him for proof of things I wasn't asking
that he turn his messages into some mathematical proof.
I was only asking one simple thing: If he stated
that I said something that he show via a link to
an article on Google where  I did that.   I only made
that request because he started repeatedly telling
you that I said things that I didn't say.
The link in my last message was to the cap of the
thread where I'd made that request for proof of
those quotes, which of course Erik failed to then
come up with since he had invented the whole
thing inside his head.

 I think that all of us say enough things on this
newsgroup to make into an interesting discussion.  There's
no need to invent quotes just to argue against.
It's a great disservice to this newsgroup and
it's pure character assasination to continuously
libel someone.  Erik desperately needs an enemy to
fight against and if he gets his wish and convinces me
to leave this newsgroup then he may well go after one
of you,so don't think you're safe.  

 I was able to shut Erik's liess up a few months
ago when Iasked to to prove that I'd said certain things.
Now like a bacteria that's mutated he is back
in a form that's impervious to my requests for
that he prove the quotes he attributes to me.
Now proofs are worthless.  What he has in his
mind is correct whether it happened or not.

And one more thing I couldn't find the explanation of in the John's
"Coding Standards" page is the use of single semicolon comments. I
once tried to add something to the AServe code, and when I tried to
indent it, all those comments went where they should, not where they
were put; Franz's ELI knows how to indent if*, but these single
semicolon comments are still treated the way I expect it to be, which
is a good thing. Now I keep my additions in seperate files (which use
extended loop when appropriate and only standard conditionals) so as
to not have to edit the code where I have to either update most
comments to the community agreed-upon way (or to place them manually
whenever I reindent the code, what is silly).

I actually once used the if* macro -- but after some time of using it
I found cond a lot more readable.

And if it is not still clear, I think the if* macro is bad exactly for
the reason Erik speaks about -- complete disrespect for community.

--
Janis Dzerins

As a publicly available example, in the ICFP2000 contest Ray Tracer
program, viewable at...

   http://berlin.ccc.de/cgi-bin/cvsweb/ICFP2000/src

... we wrote code like this:

define unary-primitive acos(<fp>,
   method(f :: <fp>) rad2deg * acos(f) end) end;
define unary-primitive asin(<fp>,
   method(f :: <fp>) rad2deg * asin(f) end) end;
define unary-primitive cos (<fp>,
   method(f :: <fp>) cos(f * deg2rad) end) end;
define unary-primitive sin (<fp>,
   method(f :: <fp>) sin(f * deg2rad) end) end;

define unary-primitive clampf(<fp>,
   method(f :: <fp>) min(1.0, max(0.0, f)) end) end;
define unary-primitive floor(<fp>) end;
define unary-primitive frac(<fp>,
   method(f :: <fp>) f - f.truncate end method) end;
define unary-primitive real(<integer>,  curry(as, <fp>)) end;
define unary-primitive sqrt(<fp>) end;

Each "define unary-primitive" is a macro that adds three different
methods to two generic functions for compiling and optimizing those
opertions in the compiler for a toy language.  We also had ...

define numeric-binary-primitive add(\+) end;
define numeric-binary-primitive eq(\==) end;
define numeric-binary-primitive less(\<) end;
define numeric-binary-primitive mul(\*) end;
define numeric-binary-primitive sub(\-) end;

... where each line defined both integer and floating-point primitives,
and each of those consisted of five methods added to three different
Generic Functions.

Elsewhere in the same program we used a macro to build a lexer from a
very readable description format.

This was in a contest entry written to a 72-hour deadline.  We didn't
use macros to be funny or clever.  We used them to save us time in
writing the program, understanding it, and debugging it.

I sympathize with the lack of acceptance of your IF* macro, which I
think may well be better than what is standard in CL, but at the same
time I'm not sure that it's *enough* better (or enough different) to
what is already there that it is worth people changing.

-dan

--

1. how many members of the community did you poll for their
opinions before drawing this conclusion in their name?

Shocked,

 1. Does the macro provide something substantial beyond what is
    provided by the operators defined in the ANSI CL standard?

 2. The opposite answer to the question in step 1 is the return value
    of the algorithm.

There can still of course be contention about what "something
substantial" is, but to me it seems quite clear that if* doesn't do
anything the standard conditionals don't already do well enough.

I think I'd prefer to label such macros antisocial rather than
disrespectful, though. It's like saying "I don't want to be a part of
the CL community", which of course is your choice.

The obvious question is this: What if everyone else did what you do?
Reading and sharing CL code would be a _lot_ more
problematic. Neglecting to ask oneself this question and to act on it,
is antisocial in my book.

You also realize that reasonable people will disagree on whether
something is a substantial enhancement or not.   Thus you'll
need an unquestioned leader to make the decision or else
the community will split many ways.  Thus I'll put you
down for wanting a Pope of Common Lisp.

I have the right to express my opinion, haven't I?

(I'll write a real reply not involving a ton of your strategies
tomorrow.)

--
Janis Dzerins

marc

I think it's unreasonable to claim that "slightly improved indenting
in some people's view" is a substantial enhancement for such an
important part of the language.

 So the ANSI spec is out of this.  Now we're down to people
making judgment calls and all the people agreeing to relinquish
their freedom to one supreme leader (or committee) who will tell them
if their code is immoral/disrespectful/unsubstantial.

 Since this kind of judgment is clear to you let me ask you to
pass judgment on three things. You can't hedge. You must make
a judgement, the community is counting on you.

1. suppose I have a macro +$ that puts fixnum declarations around
   everything in a +
    (+$ a b c) => (the fixnum (+ (the fixnum a) (the fixnum b) (the fixnum c)))

   Is   +$  moral/respectful/substantial?

2. suppose I have +% which is simpler and just declares the result
   to be a fixnum

   (+% a b c) => (the fixnum (+ a b c))

   Is   +%  moral/respectful/substantial?

3. regression testing is important to find bugs and ensure they
   come back in.  One question you always have about your test suites
   is "how much of my code is really being tested?"
   One way to measure test coverage is to put meters at all
   branch points in the code and count how many times each branch
   was taken while the test suites were run. If the count is zero
   for any branch you should investigate why you aren't testing that
   branch.
   Suppose I modify if* so that it if a certain switch is set
   when code using it is compiled. it puts meters at the
   beginning of all the 'then' clauses (each if* can have multiple
   then clauses).   This will give an approximate idea of the
   test coverage (only approximate since there are other
   ways of doing branching than if*)
   however it will point out all of the branches within an if*
   that were *not* taken and that's useful information.

   So we've got an if* that normally works as it does now but can go
   into test mode and insert metering.

I think that people don't really like complicated
macros for some reason.  If the macro is doing mere
visual rearranging, of a template sort, they
don't seem to mind, but if it involves keeping track of
the macro's subforms in an accumulative fashion,
something defensive goes off.  It's almost as if you
gave someone a Pushtu-to-English dictionary and a
grammar of the Pushtu language in English, proceeded to
speak Pushtu, and then claimed you were really only
speaking English because the dictionary and the grammar
constitute a macro.  

Why this judgment call (for CL, not for English) I
don't know.  I seem to share in this feeling that a
non-template-esque macro somehow changes the language
in a non grata way.  But I recognize it's just a
feeling and not something solider.  

  Thank you for _proving_ that you had _no_ intention of ceasing your
  posting.  I knew that, everybody else knew that, but now you know it,
  too.  But do you remember this paragraph in the article you reply to?

    By replying to this post, you acknowledge that you are mentally ill and
    have a severe need for self-affirmation that you do not get from anyone
    around you because you regard yourself as the single most brilliant
    person to inhabit the entire West coast of the United States.

  Thank you for following up and acknowledging this.  I am happy that I was
  right about you, once again.

  But, geez, pathetic intimidation actually _is_ part of your psyche.  I
  actually expect to get a "wuz I talkin to you?" back, now.

| Now he's arguing against proofs, the foundation of science.

  USENET is a branch of science?  *LAUGH*  I am arguing against the
  applicability of proofs to "win" arguments on USENET, you idiot.  That
  "technique" is only used for intimidation by the _really_ insane, here.

| I don't care what Erik thinks.

  Oh, you pathetic liar.

| I haven't cared for a long time but I've made the mistake of trying to
| reason with him since I thought that I could get through to him.

  How is it possible to reason with someone you do not care what thinks?
  How would you _know_ if you got through to anyone if you do not care what
  they think?  _Why_ would you try to reason with someone you do not care
  what thinks?  This is _so_ stupid and pathetic.

| With each message he gets further and further away from reality so that
| was a bad strategy.

  Yup, John Foderaro is the judge of what reality is and not.  The insane
  have a strong tendency to want to monopolize what can be considered
  "reality".  Their _only_ claim to living in reality is that they are able
  to create it all on their own.  Congratulations, John.  Good work.

| I was only asking one simple thing: If he stated that I said something
| that he show via a link to an article on Google where I did that.

  This is a pretty fascinating request for a person who does not even cite
  which news articles he is responding to.

  When you do get such references, you just shut up for a while.  Everybody
  here knows that.  It is very, very annoying.

  Incidentally, the way we do references on USENET is with message-IDs.

| I only made that request because he started repeatedly telling you that I
| said things that I didn't say.

  Really?  Where are all the references to articles where I did that?
  Should you not have provided a lengthy list of message-IDs that shows all
  of this, yet proves absolutely nothing because you are known to omit all
  the evidence that goes against your arguments.

| The link in my last message was to the cap of the thread where I'd made
| that request for proof of those quotes, which of course Erik failed to
| then come up with since he had invented the whole thing inside his head.

  I would like some references and some proof of this, please.  Can you
  _prove_ that it was invented inside my head?  If not, it is not only some
  false crap, it is a disingenious lie, right?  And you wanted proof that
  you were lying.  So now you can either prove what you claim, or accept
  that lack of proof means you lie.  Because that is what you think a lack
  of "proof" means, is it not?  Even though this is astonishingly stupid
  and anti-scientific, I think it is fun demonstrating that you are not
  able to meet the demands you make of others.

| I think that all of us say enough things on this newsgroup to make into
| an interesting discussion.  There's no need to invent quotes just to
| argue against.

  Then why do you do it?  You made a large number of claims that I said
  things that I did in fact not say.  What was that?  For instanace, you
  said that I said _you_ could not use the if* stupidity, but what I have
  actually and repeatedly said is that publishing code is done not by you,
  but by your company.  You never replied to that, did you?  Just as you
  never reply to anything that demonstrates you are wrong.

| It's a great disservice to this newsgroup and it's pure character
| assasination to continuously libel someone.  Erik desperately needs an
| enemy to fight against and if he gets his wish and convinces me to leave
| this newsgroup then he may well go after one of you, so don't think
| you're safe.

  Funny you should talk about character assasination in that paragraph.  I
  am beginning to think you are actually so incredibly unconscious that you
  fail to understand what you are doing.

| I was able to shut Erik's liess up a few months ago when I asked to to
| prove that I'd said certain things.

  You were?  Can we have the message-IDs and some other references for
  this?  And are you sure _you_ were able to do anything at all?  You ask
  people to prove things all the time, and nobody does, because it is such
  a pathetic stunt, but just like an overly mystical person who prays to
  his pet rock every night, whatever he prays for has to come true some
  day, but there is no causal link.  Taking credit for something like that
  without proof is so _unscientific_.  And USENET is a science, right?

| Now like a bacteria that's mutated he is back in a form that's impervious
| to my requests for that he prove the quotes he attributes to me.

  Yes, I am sure you are the only person on the planet who can use Google.
  But we do not engage in such childish behavior on USENET, you moron.  The
  reason you do not get a response to your intimidation is that it is so
  fucking stupid that people look at you and wonder what you are made of.
  You see, your style of intimidation is incredibly _unintelligent_.  It
  would be self-destructive for anyone to take you seriously.  That is what
  you want, obviously, but you are not the lone genius you think you are.
  You are in fact quite stupid and considering that you do not figure even
  the simplest things out until it is too late, probably not particularly
  intelligent, either, just the smartest among those you could intimidate.
  Considering that you are unable to read code that uses when and unless
  and loop and normal if, people are free to think you have a very limited
  intellect, and that the if* stunt is a necessary counter-measure so you
  can deal with code not in the _only_ style you can handle.  Everybody
  else is able to read and deal with code in a variety of styles, but you
  are not.  What do you think this says about you?  You have never thought
  about it, have you?

| What he has in his mind is correct whether it happened or not.

  No, that is only yourself, John Foderaro.  Other people are not like you.

| So all I'm asking is that you realize that what he states are fact may
| well be false (and if the facts are about me there's a 99% chance that
| they are false and simply a rhetorical device he'll use to draw some
| crazy conclusion).

  No, that is only yourself, John Foderaro.  Other people are not like you.

  Thank you again for proving that you had no intention of quitting unless
  you could pretend to be on top of things.  It is quite amusing to watch
  how you lie about wanting to quit.  "Let's call it over" is a direct
  quote from you, in an article where you, as always, begin by attempting
  to insult me.  What, precisely, did you _mean_ by "let's call it over"?
  I think it means "Let's let the pathetic loser John Foderaro win, pretty
  please!".

  Now, please let us see you back up your claims with references and
  proofs.  If you recognize, as I think you actually do, that this is an
  intimidation technique and nothing else, which you will acknowledge by
  not providing _any_ message-IDs, the time has come to "out" John Foderaro
  as a person who is unable to follow his own advice, simply because it is
  not advice, it is _only_ his incredibly stupid bullying.

  So let's call it over, John.  Do not reply to this message.  OK?  Good.

For example, someone recently asked here why he couldn't specialize
the equal function for his own user-defined type. Suppose he decided
it would be really nice to be able to do this, and he added his own
generic function "test" that he'd consistently use in place of
equal. I'd advice against this on pretty much the same grounds I'd
advice against using if*.

I agree with you that there may be borderline cases as to what is
important and basic functionality, and what is substantial
enhancement. But if* is just not a borderline case, in my opinion.

People would think it misleading to merely say "I've written an
ANSI-compliant library that draws pie charts".  I think you have to
add "and it's written in CLIM [or CAPI or GOMMON-GRAPHICS or
whatever]" or else you are being, at best, highly misleading.  And
people *do* routinely make such disclaimers/disclosures.

  | 1.5.2 Conforming Programs
  |
  | Code conforming with the requirements of this standard shall adhere
  | to the following:
  |
  | Conforming code shall use only those features of the language syntax
  | and semantics that are either specified in this standard or defined
  | using the extension mechanisms specified in the standard.

Note that this does nto say "possible to define" but "defined".

Certainly nothing precludes such definition

  | Conforming code may use implementation-dependent features and
  | values, but shall not rely upon any particular interpretation of
  | these features and values other than those that are discovered by
  | the execution of code.

I think this allows you to do things like
#-Franz (load "franz-if")
*if* (pardon the abuse of if and *'s here) you provide the franz-if
library as part of or in conjunction with the program.  If you simply
observe its existence, I think you're on shakier grounds for a conformance
claim unless you advertise that you have a program whose conformance
is contingent on the consumer of your product doing this.

  | Conforming code shall not depend on the consequences of undefined or
  | unspecified situations.
  |
  | Conforming code does not use any constructions that are prohibited
  | by the standard.
  |
  | Conforming code does not depend on extensions included in an
  | implementation.

I think this says that conformance does not happen by accident.
It happens by careful design to assure that the dependencies you create
are not left to be resolved by accidental use of a particular implementation
that agrees with your discretion, but are resolved by intentional and
explicit use of conforming code that bridges the gap between any (not just
a selected) processor and the program in question.

Certainly nothing precludes the packaging of this into separate libraries.
But if A is conforming and B depends on A to be conforming, then these are
conforming:  A, B+A; and these are not, a priori, conforming:  B.

====

Of further relevance is the following, from the Better Business Bureau's
"BBB Code of Advertising", which all members of the Better Business Bureau
(don't know if that's you)

  | 20. Unassembled Merchandise

[By this, I assume they mean source code that has not been through a
 compiler and assembler.  Heh... No, really, I think source code *does*
 count as a product that requires assembly in the classical business
 sense.  It does not work out of the box without special setup actions
 required by the user. -kmp]

  | When advertised merchandise requires partial or complete assembly by
  | the purchaser, the advertising should disclose that fact, e.g.,
  | "unassembled," "partial assembly required."

This is only a "for example" list, and I personally infer it to mean
"parts obtained from other sources required".  I'd be VERY surprised
if the BBB complaint resolution division would think otherwise.
This follows from item 3 of their basic principles:

  | 3. An advertisement as a whole may be misleading although every
  |    sentence separately considered is literally
  |    true. Misrepresentation may result not only from direct
  |    statements but by omitting or obscuring a material fact.

On the other hand, one can make judgements of taste about macros and
programming style in general.  I personally disagree with just about
everything Foderaro has to say about Lisp style, and wouldn't touch if*
with a 10 foot pole, but that's OK.  I find other macro constructs, such as introducing
magic variables, even more distasteful.  Equating morality and taste
never does any good.

I think this whole flame is serving as a kind of proxy for resentment of
Franz' success, its power in the Lisp community, and anxiety over its actions and
perceived arrogance.  Indeed, the nature of Franz' open source contributions is a little
ambiguous; the license is cool, but "open source" these days carries, for better or
worse, a notion of "compile and install anywhere."  The Franz code is not
like that, mostly because it does unportable things like going to the
network.  Foderaro has equated supplying the source to if* with supplying
the source to all the unportable features of ACL; but I don't buy that.
if* can obviously be implemented in portable Common Lisp without a lot of
effort.  I encourage and applaud making the source to if* easily
available.  Perhaps the source to if* can go in CLOCC or CCLAN and we can be
done with this flame.