g...@google.com (Erann Gat) writes: > On the other hand, if I'm right, then my grim picture just might > motivate some people to take some constructive action to help fix the > situation (like publish more Lisp success stories).
My intuition is that it is more likely that you will simply piss people off.
I have no really good evidence of this (unless you count the responses you've had so far, but usenet is a strange beast where 90% of the readers never post anything anyway, so we can probably justify not regarding them too seriously) but in the few short years I have lived on this earth, I have found that it doesn't work for me; only very rarely have people wanted to do things that would please me when I laid into them with this kind of confrontational attitude.
> I also like the way you blunder blindly around this arena from time to > time, charging at any red rag you can find. I know your triggers, > Frido. The words "free software" and "popularity" are enough to set > you running full tilt, and almost always at the wrong target.
Really. Well I would like to know why I should have anything against free software and why I'm against populrity. What drives me nuts is the saying. If that and that were there all would be fine. I aske you to provide what you thinki is missing and you start such a p... poor flame story
> But to > be perfectly honest with you, I don't feel anywhere near enough malice > to want it any other way. Just keep doing what you do best, and best > of luck to you.
Well I can't say the same about you. And if you come back from you prejudices and crying we probably can talk about Common Lisp again
> > Well, I've got news for you, Erik Naggum: there is only one Lisp > > vendor left. All the others are out of business.
> Which one? Franz? Call me crazy, but I can think of several: > Xanalys, Digitool, Corman.
Actually, if you use the update frequency of the home pages of Franz, Digitool and Xanalys as an indicator, you might think there's a "new spring of lisp" right now. Digitool has managed to get out their version 4.3.1 and has announced that they're testing their Mac OS X version, Xanalys has put "lisp" predominately on their front page again(!), and the Franz page is as frequently maintained as always.
> I preached the gospel of Lisp for many years on pretty much those > terms. The wall I always ran up against was the question: "Who uses > it?" The answer to that question for C++, Java and Perl is: everyone. > What's the answer for Lisp? A recent query to this newsgroup asking > people what they used Lisp for garnered only a *single* response. > Why? It's certainly not for lack of participation in the newsgroup as > a whole.
Maybe we're too busy writing Lisp programs to take silly polls?
I use Common Lisp to do my income taxes. This year I had work under way to automatically fill out the IRS pdf forms, but then I saw how much I owed and lost interest.
Erik Naggum <e...@naggum.net> wrote in message <news:3208449338101282@naggum.net>... > * Erann Gat > > Why do you think that you are _not_ part of the problem?
> Because, unlike you, I do not obsess about my role and person. Get help, > Erann Gat. Get over the fact that you lost the fight you picked with me.
So it would seem.
I'd just like to point out one thing before I go. For about the last five or so articles in this thread I didn't write the text you attribute to me. I copied it from old postings of yours. It's been amusing watching you argue with yourself.
Lieven Marchand <m...@wyrd.be> writes: > But CL is already fine for simple problems. I do a lot of simple > things for people in the listener. It's a nice problem > exploration/data exploration tool. You get someone to export their > data in something vaguely lisp friendly, read it in and you can start > working with their stuff in ways Excel etc. don't allow.
Sure. I tried to be polite and start using Excel 5 years ago, but after noticing that Windows and Excel would arbitrarily crash after putting them to _real_ test, I went back to doing this kind of stuff in lisp again.
BUT I still think the "simple interaction with the OS" argument is valid. It's still less painful to use perl for a lot of these tasks, and that's a real shame. -- (espen)
In article <99fb3972.0109021429.71ff8...@posting.google.com>,
Erann Gat wrote: > > Couldn't you stop drawing a grim picture??
> Of course I could, but let's think about this for a minute. Suppose > my grim picture is wrong and everything is just hunky-dory is Lisp > land. Your request for me to stop drawing a grim picture is based on > the premise that I have the power to destroy what is in fact at the > moment a robust and vibrant industry simply by saying that it isn't > robust and vibrant. God, if that were only true. Then I could get > rid of Java and C++ simply by painting a grim picture of them. (And > believe me, I've tried. It doesn't work.)
You are arguing for the argument sake. I think it fruitless to point out what is wrong in your reasoning while knowing that you are well aware the flaw in your reasoning.
> On the other hand, if I'm right, then my grim picture just might > motivate some people to take some constructive action to help fix the > situation (like publish more Lisp success stories).
There were some discussion a while back at info-mcl mailing list about Digitool needing more marketing and they and/or users should do this or that. I say they were mostly constructive. If you propose that Digitool should reestablish info-mcl<-->usenet relay, I might agree. Maybe someone should post a monthly-reminder or something to comp.lang.lisp.mcl. If you still care about MCL and its future, please come back to info-mcl and make a constructive suggestions or two instead of giving false impression that Digitool is out of business or will be anytime soon. I don't think Digitool/MCL is in "hunky-dory" state, so, I think the negative comment from someone like you could actually be harmful. If you don't care about MCL anymore, just leave this precious gem alone for the good.
> Either way I don't see how Lisp gains from my silence.
You can write CL code or write more "success stories" silently instead of engaging in a devastating flame war.
g...@google.com (Erann Gat) writes: > k...@ma.ccom (Takehiko Abe) wrote in message <news:keke-0309010301060001@solg4.keke.org>... [...] > > > So it would not be unreasonable to suppose that the newsgroup would > > > contain any messges sent to the list.
> > It would not be unreasonalble unless you subscribe to the list. > > Since you do, you must know that news<->info-mcl link has been > > broken/stopped for some time now.
> I subscribed a relatively short time ago just to see if there was more > activity there than on the newsgroup. Since I subscribed there has > been no traffic on the mailing list.
[...]
Strange, I have a number of recent messages in my mailbox from that mailing list. Your lurking period must have been very short indeed.
Digitool employees frequently answer users questions on the list, and have done so recently. I've always gotten good support there.
t...@apocalypse.OCF.Berkeley.EDU (Thomas F. Burdick) writes:
> I'm curious, what other languages do people feel at home it?
I used to feel even more at home with prolog, but I got tired of how awkward it was to do the trivial parts of my programs with it. I used to feel at home with perl, but I got tired of how ugly larger programs tend to be, and even more tired when the language started to become a moving target with each 0.001 version increment. -- (espen)
> I'd just like to point out one thing before I go. For about the last > five or so articles in this thread I didn't write the text you attribute > to me. I copied it from old postings of yours. It's been amusing > watching you argue with yourself.
Huh? I argued against myself because you copied my words? Geez. Just how stupid are you? Just who _do_ you think you are fooling with this?
But this is just the kind deception and evil we have come to expect from you. You only surprise in its magnitude, not at all in its character. You are such an idiot, Erann Gat. Get some professional help to get over your personal problems. And please take the prescribed medication before you post again, whether you cut and paste from newspapers or whatever else you need to copy from to pretend that you are not really speaking, yourself. I feel so much pity for you and your problems that I cannot even be angry at such a pathetic excuse for a person.
> Enough is enough. You used to be a sharp guy so I've cut you a lot of > slack despite the fact that you've been unrelentingly misrepresenting my > views in every post in which you mention my name.
Really?
> Your insistence that people knowledgeable about Common Lisp pretend that > the langauge has no flaws means you want us to appear to be stupid or > liars.
And this is even remotely connected to what I actually say?
Pot. Kettle. Black. Idiot.
Do you have respect for the standard, John Foderaro? Do you have respect for the standardization process, John Foderaro? What do you call the people who argue for adhering to it? What do you call the people who want upper-case symbol names? Let us hear your very own words!
> EN> ... it is a language _defined_ independently of > EN> operating systems -- Perl was married to its operating systems > EN> (Unix) from the start, and only managed to make a more > EN> abstract interface late in its development, such that it can > EN> be used under Windows), the obvious solution is to figure out > EN> what Perl did right in this department and provide similar > EN> operating system interfaces.
> Whatever they did right wrt. Unix syscalls probably did not carry over > to Windows, so they needed things like perlfork and friends so the > code could have a chance of porting. I am no perl hacker but I do > know from experience that if you know what the Unix syscall does, you > can help a perl guy as the perl layer over it is thin. Is this the > level this community wants to operate in? I vaguely remember several > respectable members explicitly NOT wanting to deal with the low level > raw OS calls but higher level abstractions.
Sometimes, I suspect that dealing with the lower-level OS calls becomes necessary, no matter how good the abstractions. However, by their nature, it would seem silly to standardize on an interface given that to at least some extent there's a moving target.
However, what would make me feel good is to see (public) debate on what a current interface would be like, just so that I (and others) can see what has been considered and rejected, and so that where there are good ideas others can use them.
I would like to see both low- and high-level interfaces to OS features; preferably without subtle bugs. As a case in point, I'll talk a little about RUN-UNIX-PROGRAM, a hypothetical function that runs a unix program.
There are several approaches that can be taken here. One is as a wrapper to exec() and friends, so that its signature would look something like:
Another approach could be to use system() (or /bin/sh -c); then run-unix-program would be like:
run-unix-program (string)
So far, so non-controversial. However, there's a certain amount of pain and suffering involved if you are porting between implementations; in particular, if you've used the first form and are trying to implement it in an implementation with only the second.
The problem arises, of course, because these two things are very different; one invokes another interpreter, with another layer of magic; so spaces have to be quoted, metacharacters escaped, and all sorts of hairy nonsense. A first cut might be
The point I'm trying to make is that a certain amount of public discussion on these non-standard features (not just OS interaction) might be beneficial, both for implementors and users, even if it's only to the level of making some suggestions for differences to expect between :unix and :windows on the *features* list.
g...@flownet.com (Erann Gat) writes: > But while you mold this newsgroup into your perfect little cadre of > Erik Naggum sycophants the language you claim to love so much is > withering and dieing, and you don't even notice. You talk about "the > Lisp vendors." Well, I've got news for you, Erik Naggum: there is > only one Lisp vendor left. All the others are out of business.
> Xanalys is the resurrection a bankrupt Harlequin, which was acquired > not for its Lisp technolgy, but for its electronic publishing > technology. The Lisp product just sort of came along for the ride, > and many of the key Lisp people (you included) aren't working there > any more. That would give me pause in betting on Xanalys as a stable > long-term provider even *before* reading what Franz has to say about > them.
Kent has already pointed out the factual errors in this. I'd like to just give an anecdote.
I have a copy of lispworks. The other month I found a *really* obscure and low-level bug: I forget the details but I think it was something to do with the stack getting smashed if you tried to do something strange in the condition system. It was not a bug that I'd expect would get exercised in real life (the code that produced it was deliberately strange). I mailed Xanalys support because I though they might be interested, with a note saying I didn't really need a fix. I got a fix within two days. So, I don't know who is at Xanalys, but I'm pretty sure that they understand their Lisp system rather well.
> I do. I subscribe to that list. I also know that the digitool site > says:
> Usenet News related to MCL > news: comp.lang.lisp.mcl > The MCL newsgroup is relayed bidirectionally to the Info-MCL mailing > list.
> So it would not be unreasonable to suppose that the newsgroup would > contain any messges sent to the list.
Um. Just a minute, You subscribe to the mailing list, so you know it gets trafic. You also know that c.l.l.m does *not* get traffic. So you *know* that the gateway is broken. And yet you post an article stating that your perception of digitool as not a healthy company is supported by the lack of traffic on the newsgroup. This is very strange indeed.
Please apologize for a commercal side step in the middle of this "bush fire".
Being a vendor in this market is not an easy business as the demand for Lisp IDEs is not even close to more "common" languages as everyone here knows for sure.
Kent is right if he points out that Xanalys is much more focused than Harlequin.
Our core business is software development for the intelligence market and we write most of this in LispWorks. This is why LispWorks is not the *public* product we put the most - please stop laughing, I know it is slightly below zero right now - marketing money into.
That does not mean that we are not working on it. Those dealing with us know this - regardless if some web browser handles JavaScripts or not ;-)
We do see a rising interest in LispWorks over the last 12 month so we will definitely come up with new releases and show more presence in the market.
Besides the love for the language all activities of any vendor must backed up by economical reasons and return of investment. Sad but true if you want to stay in business.
Kent M Pitman wrote: > g...@flownet.com (Erann Gat) writes:
> > Xanalys is the resurrection a bankrupt Harlequin, which was acquired > > not for its Lisp technolgy, but for its electronic publishing > > technology.
> Not quite right, actually.
> Xanalys does NOT due the electronic publishing thing. Harlequin still > exists and does. Xanalys is the spin-off that does SPECIFICALLY the > Lisp-based and layered Information technologies. See their web site. > The original purchase by Global Graphics may have been as you say, but > Xanalys is itself a financially distinct concern with its own concern > that directly and indirectly addresses the Lisp products.
> > The Lisp product just sort of came along for the ride, > > and many of the key Lisp people (you included) aren't working there > > any more.
> The people you know. Their real key people have never had their names > bandied about and several are still there.
> I myself used Lisp a lot but was never directly a Lisp maintainer. > The loss of me had no effect on the Lisp product per se.
> I prefer to be a user / critic rather than a producer. I was working on > the standard itself for a long time, and then on WebMaker (a FrameMaker to > HTML translation tool) while I was there.
> > That would give me pause in betting on Xanalys as a stable > > long-term provider even *before* reading what Franz has to say about > > them.
> Hopefully what I said will give you reason to reconsider both your posture > and the importance of letting a company speak for itself. I'm not a Xanalys > employee and probably even my point of view is not quite right, but I think > it's closer than what you said.
Data Analysis and Lisp Development Tools Software zur Datenanalyse und Lisp Entwicklungsumgebungen ___________________________________________________________________________ _______________
Rolf Mach Business Development & Sales Manager, Europe
An der Schaafhansenwiese 6 D-65428 Ruesselsheim, Germany Phone ++49 +6142 938197 Fax ++49 +6142 938199 rm...@xanalys.com
> A recent query to this newsgroup asking > people what they used Lisp for garnered only a *single* response. > Why? It's certainly not for lack of participation in the newsgroup as > a whole.
I've already posted some real life industrial use of Common Lisp in c.l.l. I think we should have a place to put such description. So I added a page to CLiki for this. Here it is: http://ww.telent.net/cliki/success%20stories
I hope it will be filled soon. I will put links to my industrial products as soon as I have added the relevant pages in my web site (before the end of the month...)
Finally we learn something conclusive in this thread.
Erik has claimed repeatedly that I've been on a compaign to destroy the Common Lisp standard. The implication of this was that I've written numerous postings to this newsgroup on that topic or that I've written a highly referenced article on that subject. He further admitted the my simply writing a web page in which I expressed dislike for loop,if,when and unless was irrelevant.
So I asked Eric to post references to all those anti-standard postings I've made or to any articles I've published on the subject.
He couldn't find a single one. That's because there isn't a single one.
For most people on this newsgroup, even those I disagree with, I at least believe them when they state facts. Eric has repeatedly shown that he will make up things and misrepresent people if it serves his ultimate purpose.
Thus I ask that Eric from now on always include references to any fact he states. If you see him state a fact that you don't know on your own is true, assume it's a lie. An no more paraphrasing of what someone said! Include their actual words from some posting or publication or don't speak for them at all.
> Your insistence that people knowledgeable about Common Lisp pretend that > the langauge has no flaws means you want us to appear to be stupid or > liars.
Excuse the second followup to the same annoyingly untrue bullshit, but do you seriously think you communicate "flaws" in the _language_ when you do nothing more intelligent than call the three conditionals "bogus" and unconditionally call on people to avoid complex loop? Do you think anyone knowledgeable about Common Lisp will consider you the least bit intelligent or constructive when you claim that _that_ constitutes the "flaws" of the language? Come on! Pretending that your idiotic rant about if/when/unless/loop is somehow a useful contribution about the language on par with an intelligent, thoughtful analysis of problems is so self-serving as to make you look even more stupid than you did in the first place. That you _keep_ that idiotic document available on the Net is definitely _not_ to your credit.
> If we Common Lispers don't admit to the problems in the language people > will as Java or C++ fans and they they'll hear a set of damaging and > likely untrue problems that will make Common Lisp seem worse than it > really is.
And what, precisely, _are_ "the problems in the language" with respect to if/when/unless and loop? There is nothing more than _aesthetic_ whining in your rant. Loop has lots of _real_ problems, none of which you touch upon. The document you have posted on "lisp coding standards" is an insult to any thinking person and especially those who like Common Lisp, despite any wants and flaws.
If I understand you correctly, you think that by preempting the Java/C++ crowd in denouncing Common Lisp as "flawed" for some fantastically stupid aesthetic reasons, you will make it look better that it would have been if the Java/C++ people were allowed to do it? Geez. How stupid is this? Who do you think will _fall_ for this fantastically irrational line of argument?
> I look forward to seeing replies from you that are adult and thus don't > contain personal attacks against me or anyone else.
Your passive-aggressive style of confrontation pisses me off more than anything else you do, John Foderaro. In fact, it makes you appear so far from sincere as you can possibly get. Your sincerity has been questioned by more people than myself, too. I no longer trust you in any capacity, neither your code nor your statements -- when push comes to shove and you really have to defend yourself or something you say, you are the most _dishonest_ person I have ever had the displeasure of dealing with, even topping Erann Gat.
I just want to add my support to this posting as a new Lisp possible user. I have come lately to both Lisp and Python and although coming to Lisp has been like a coming home. This is a really amazing language, so much power, elegance, and readable code. It is amazing to me that I could go into the source files of clisp and not only understand the code, but feel confident enough to make changes that worked.!!!
I am not a very experienced programmer but coming from a philosophy background things like elegance are important to me, and I have never run into a language that pretty much forces you into good development habits, instead of getting lost in layers and layers of implementation details. The ability to wade through source code with confidence after only two weeks of learning the language (so having a very incomplete knowledge) make changes to reflect my computer's environment and have the whole thing work is amazing to me.
I have been coming from a web application development background, and have been using scripting languages a lot, appreciating their useability, but frustrated with their limitations and speed costs, so Lisp has been like a dream come true having more power than anything out there, making exponential leaps in development times, and a runtime speed comparable than compiled languages.
We have entered into a new era of development one where memory and hardware are cheap but code development and maintenance is very expensive, and here is a community sitting on the answer to the complaints out there, Lisp is ready to take over the programming world. One of the fastest growing languages out there Python is unashamedly based on many of the principles of Lisp, so Lisp should be becoming more popular than ever before. For someone who has been looking at the possibilities out there for rapid development, and ease of code maintenance, adding functionality and all the main challenges facing developers today I have made the discovery of both Python and Lisp. Lisp does everything that Python does plus macros and is much faster. Personally I prefer the Lisp syntax now that I am used to it, which took a surprisingly short time.
HOWEVER.. I have also been looking at the communities and I have to say that the one thing Lisp does not offer is the enthusiasm that is found in Python, and there seems to have been a massive loss of sense of humour. All the literature I have been reading on Lisp the authors have had this enthusiasm and humour, and I find this in abundance in the Python newsgroups, but what has happened in the Lisp community? There is everything in Lisp to celebrate, especially now that lisp holds the recipe to solve a lot of the problems facing large scale developement today, and yet all I see is identity crisis, slagging of the standards that I don't see elsewhere. I have discovered Corman Lisp that seems to have that enthusiasm still, there are people ganging together to get the CL implementation covered and CLOS, apologising for not having these things covered rather than saying too bad for you and a community is developing to make these things happen. I applaud the effort being made by Corman and those in the community as they are producing a professional grade lisp implementation without the mind-numbing price demands I have run into elsewhere, and more than anything there is the enthusiasm, spirit of excitement within their mailing list, with users and developers helping each other out and getting things that are not up to standard up to standard as quickly as possible.
As an outsider looking in I see an amazing tool and language that is not supported by much of its users which to me makes no sense. If you don't like it why do you use it? And I hope the sparks that are there do start to grow and become a fire. Personally when I know enough about the language enough I am going to be doing all I can to improve the libraries out there where I can, I have never been so caught by a language and I would consider it a major tragedy that it disappeared due to lack of support.
I'm not the one who made the big deal of that document on if*, you are. You took it as an attack on the Common Lisp standard. In fact it is just the opposite. It shows that Common Lisp gives you the flexibility to define forms that make your code easier for you to read. Java doesn't allow that. C and C++ give you a very weak macro extension language.
Failure to do your bidding does not constitute admitting to whatever you want to invent about people.
Disrespect for people smart enough to see through your charades runs deep in your personality, does it not? You think are so much smarter than those you are trying to fool that you actually think you can get away with this crap, right? Such arrogance simply amazes me.
> Eric has repeatedly shown that he will make up things and misrepresent > people if it serves his ultimate purpose.
I thought you would appreciate that, considering your own track record. Why is it wrong for me, but not wrong for you? Several people here have arrested you for misrepresenting me. None other than you sorry self have accused me of mispresenting you. Maybe you should grow a clue from this?
> Thus I ask that Eric from now on always include references to any fact he > states. If you see him state a fact that you don't know on your own is > true, assume it's a lie. An no more paraphrasing of what someone said! > Include their actual words from some posting or publication or don't > speak for them at all.
I am not sure what would constitute sufficiency in doing your bidding. Would you please explain how you arrived at "He couldn't find a single one" so I can see what kind of proof you require? I would also like to see you find the actual references for the following statement:
> Your insistence that people knowledgeable about Common Lisp pretend that > the langauge has no flaws means you want us to appear to be stupid or > liars.
I think I need to understand what your rather peculiar requirements are, because it sure looks like you demand from others what you cannot and have not been willing to do yourself. Why is this ethical of you? Why does this ridiculous hypocritical stance of yours make you a person that somebody should believe in any respect at all? Have you not demonstrated that _you_ are a liar much more than you have demonstrated that I am? According to your _own_ standards, we should assume that everything you have said about me is a lie. I think that is frighteningly accurate of you, but still it amazes me that you fail to understand the criticism you must have read here about _your_ misrepresenting me. Oh, you probably need references to be able to deal with facts. Dream on, hypocrite.
In article <3208515900839...@naggum.net>, e...@naggum.net says...
> I am not sure what would constitute sufficiency in doing your bidding. > Would you please explain how you arrived at "He couldn't find a single > one" so I can see what kind of proof you require?
Sure. here's what I wrote in the message you replied to:
From now on please don't tell people what you *think* I said:
John Foderaro expresses a very strong hatred for the standard as such, and the standardization process in particular.
Instead go to http://groups.google.com and find the exact message I sent and post the exact text I wrote along with a link to the article so everyone else can see the context. You can start with the message from which you derived the above statement.
So I'm asking that you produce postings or writings by me that would backup your statement that I've been out trying to get people to disregard the standard.
> I would also like to > see you find the actual references for the following statement:
> > Your insistence that people knowledgeable about Common Lisp pretend that > > the langauge has no flaws means you want us to appear to be stupid or > > liars.
That's fair. In this case there's lots of quotes to choose from but for simplicity let's go to your original message that started this thread. You classify people as sane or insane based simply on whether they agree with you on what you like in the language: erik: Now, when I approach a Common Lisp vendor, I fully _expect_ him to share my enthusiasm for the technology I want to purchase from him and probably to exceed mine because he created something great for a great language and since I have discovered both the great language, the great product, and the great vendor, we should be able to share a _lot_ of enthusiasm. If the vendor does not share my enthusiasm, there is something _wrong_ with him. If the vendor insults what I think is great, he is insane -- no two ways about that.
In other words you want vendors to mindlessly echo back your enthusiasm. You don't want to hear what the vendor may have learned through years of experience about what could potentially be a problem for you using the language in your project. You don't want the truth. You can't handle the truth.
> > A large number of strongly negative comments about Common Lisp that I can > > see absolutely no reason for.
> I find that the paper makes a good points here and there, but overall > it is irrational, sometimes to the point of being ridiculous.
If you follow his arguments, APL should have taken the world by storm.
-- Lieven Marchand <m...@wyrd.be> She says, "Honey, you're a Bastard of great proportion." He says, "Darling, I plead guilty to that sin." Cowboy Junkies -- A few simple words
Tim Moore <mo...@herschel.bricoworks.com> writes: > On 2 Sep 2001, Erann Gat wrote:
> > I preached the gospel of Lisp for many years on pretty much those > > terms. The wall I always ran up against was the question: "Who uses > > it?" The answer to that question for C++, Java and Perl is: everyone. > > What's the answer for Lisp? A recent query to this newsgroup asking > > people what they used Lisp for garnered only a *single* response. > > Why? It's certainly not for lack of participation in the newsgroup as > > a whole.
> Maybe we're too busy writing Lisp programs to take silly polls?
> I use Common Lisp to do my income taxes. This year I had work under way > to automatically fill out the IRS pdf forms, but then I saw how much I > owed and lost interest.
Hey,
I was wondering: how would you go about filling a PDF from Lisp? Would you use a library like the one used by gv or xpdf or is there a simpler way?
Thanks, -- Jordan Katz <k...@underlevel.net> | Mind the gap
