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is lisp a general purpose lang?

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Fred Stihler

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Mar 30, 2002, 4:54:26 PM3/30/02
to
Hi,

I was looking for some info on what would be a good lang for general
purpose programming. What I mean it: is it fast? is it good for
database systems? is it good for GUI programmin (on ms windows
mostly)? Well, I know that I would know better if I go and read all
about it. But the problem is that there is too many langs out there
and too many books about it. I would spend several years just to
decide what lang would be the better choice to star learning.
I readed that lisp is such a powerfull lang, so I thought that it
would be a good Idea to ask you guys if it would be good to use Lisp
for general purpose programmin. I need to work with database systems
and to make friendly user apps. Everybody here uses Delphi, but I dont
like it. What do you guys think about this? Can I generate fast Lisp
apps to run on windows system?


Thank you

Bulent Murtezaoglu

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Mar 30, 2002, 5:29:56 PM3/30/02
to
>>>>> "FS" == Fred Stihler <lab.s...@unidavi.edu.br> writes:

FS> Hi, I was looking for some info on what would be a good lang
FS> for general purpose programming.

You've come to the right place to get a "yes" answer.

FS> What I mean it: is it fast?

It is fast enough for most purposes. You'll see figures like about %50 of
speed of C quoted, but that's mostly a vague and useless figure. If you
are doing something truly time critical you'll find that your vondor is
a lot more helpful than the regular C++ shrink-wrapped compiler vendor.
To see how _one_ implementation fares in some microbechmarks go to

http://www.bagley.org/~doug/shootout/craps.shtml

You might also want to google for obvious keywords to see the previous
threads on "is lisp fast."

FS> is it good for database systems?

Sure. I am assuming you mean client glue/logic for accessing databases.

FS> is it good for GUI programmin
FS> (on ms windows mostly)?

This depends on what implementation you buy. GUI toolkits are left
outside the CL standard (as it is a language standard). CLIM is
supported by many vendors on many platforms but might take some
getting used to. Outside of CLIM, the two major vendors that support
Windows (franz and xanalys) give you their own toolkits. There are
people here you have produced free-standing exe's with GUIs using
lispworks (www.xanalys.com) that are or used to be freely
downloadable. Maybe they'll chime in and provide pointers.

All major vendors for your platform have free downloads of the
evaluation version of their products. Check www.lisp.org for the
urls.


---I am not sure of what I write below:

For free implementations on MS Windows you will not find a GUI system
polished enough to be both good and usable out of the box by a novice.
(Folks: flame me if I am not right.) If you know how to program GUIs
under Windows, Corman (www.corman.net) gives you full access to the
windows api but doesn't wrap a lispy toolkit on top of it AFAIK.

---back to my regular level of ingorance

FS> Well, I know that I would know better
FS> if I go and read all about it. But the problem is that there
FS> is too many langs out there and too many books about it. I
FS> would spend several years just to decide what lang would be
FS> the better choice to star learning.

Lisp is worth learning even if you don't end up using it. There's an
Eric Raymond quote to that effect that I agree with but cannot be bothered
to look up right now.

FS> I readed that lisp is
FS> such a powerfull lang, so I thought that it would be a good
FS> Idea to ask you guys if it would be good to use Lisp for
FS> general purpose programmin.

Sure.

FS> I need to work with database
FS> systems and to make friendly user apps. Everybody here uses
FS> Delphi, but I dont like it. What do you guys think about this?

Are you in a position to choose what you use? Not that this should matter
for learning, but it might matter for learning on company time.

FS> Can I generate fast Lisp apps to run on windows system?

If you told us where exactly you need speed, maybe experienced people
could tell you what their experiences are. That is, where do your
programs spend their time? Doing IO or detabase lookups? Or do you
have heavy computation going on? If you are just putting up windows
and forms, any decent implementaion of any language will be fast
enough on today's hardware. If, say, you are doing advanced animation
you'll need to profile/fine tune or even drop into assembler. But the
vague answer is "yes."

cheers,

BM

Siegfried Gonzi

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Mar 30, 2002, 6:08:35 PM3/30/02
to
Fred Stihler wrote:


> I readed that lisp is such a powerfull lang, so I thought that it
> would be a good Idea to ask you guys if it would be good to use Lisp
> for general purpose programmin. I need to work with database systems
> and to make friendly user apps. Everybody here uses Delphi, but I dont
> like it. What do you guys think about this? Can I generate fast Lisp
> apps to run on windows system?


You can do this all! Especially: Lisp does (at least the commercial
versions) scale very well for large projects (okay, object oriented
programming in Common Lisp is not really a joy). The
performance/execution speed is okay. But you will encounter some problems:

a) If you do not want to develop on Unix (there you get CMUCL for free)
you will face the following:

b) The price of Allegro Common Lisp is quite high (above USD 4000.- for
the personal edition; and a little bit a lot higher for the enterprise
edition; the last information was: USD 10000.-). Though, there is a free
evaluation copy available but in the long run this is not the solution.
And they even charge (in addition) for every copy of your program you
sell to a customer.

c) LispWorks from Xanalys has competive prices. They even have got a
free copy of their version for private users; but do not fall for to
believe you can use it on a daily basis. The evaluation copy has got
very limited heap sizes and it is only intented for training purposes
(maybe a Lisp course in high school).


Everything else will not meet your requirement: execution speed of your
application. But you should scrutinize this for yourself (especially
your database stuff)


You should take into account to have a look at Python. Maybe you should
formulate your specific question in comp.lang.python. Python is very
well suited for gluing together applications. In the meantime I use it
exclusively for my data evaluation. Especially, because Common Lisp is
sometimes nice but you are cought in your own environment. In Python it
is easy (in combination with the Matlab/IDL like numerical library and
the very sophisticated plotting library DISLIN) for example to read
binary datas. In this respect: Python has a lot more (way more) to
offer. And in my personal view: longer functions are better structured
in Python than in Lisp (but this is maybe only superficialy the case).

I am not sure how great your disdain for Delphi actually is. Python
resembles -- superficialy -- sometimes Pascal. Therefore evaluate also
Perl for you feasibility-study.


S. Gonzi

Adam Tissa

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Mar 30, 2002, 10:47:19 PM3/30/02
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Siegfried Gonzi <siegfri...@kfunigraz.ac.at> wrote:


>You should take into account to have a look at Python. Maybe you should
>formulate your specific question in comp.lang.python. Python is very
>well suited for gluing together applications. In the meantime I use it
>exclusively for my data evaluation.

Ocaml is another option.
It certainly is blazingly fast.

Adam Tissa

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Mar 30, 2002, 10:47:39 PM3/30/02
to
Siegfried Gonzi <siegfri...@kfunigraz.ac.at> wrote:


>You should take into account to have a look at Python. Maybe you should
>formulate your specific question in comp.lang.python. Python is very
>well suited for gluing together applications. In the meantime I use it
>exclusively for my data evaluation.

Ocaml is another option.


It certainly is blazingly fast.

/ \ ASCII ribbon campaign
\ / against HTML mail
X and postings.
/ \
\ /

Kenny Tilton

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Mar 31, 2002, 7:07:30 AM3/31/02
to

Siegfried Gonzi wrote:
> (okay, object oriented
> programming in Common Lisp is not really a joy).

Wow. CLOS is the best OO implementation out there. Anyone who does not
like OO in CL does not like OO.

--

kenny tilton
clinisys, inc
---------------------------------------------------------------
"Harvey has overcome not only time and space but any objections."
Elwood P. Dowd

Siegfried Gonzi

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Mar 31, 2002, 10:37:34 AM3/31/02
to
Kenny Tilton wrote:

> > Wow. CLOS is the best OO implementation out there. Anyone who does
> > not
> > like OO in CL does not like OO.


Admittedly, my only exposure to CLOS is based on the book from Winston
and Horn. And there: I find the explanation of object oriented
programming not understandable.
Even under torture I would be not capable of writing the simpplest
OO-program in Lisp (also the accompanied manual to CLisp -- which deals
with CLOS -- does not improve the situation).

I have some basic understanding of C++ and can follow most of the
examples in the book "Teach C++ in 21 days" (the "21 days" is
ridiculous; but the book itself is not that bad).

I have to underline that I use Common Lisp in a similar fashion as

I used Clean; maybe it is my fault to project my Clean experience to

Lisp programming.


My interest to programming started one year ago. Before, I just only had

experience with IDL/Matlab/Maple/Fortran (as most of my colleagues in a
natural

science department: there is not really a requirement that one should
become interested in software engineering or programming paradigms;
everybody expects that one gets aquainted with programming by his own
training). Maybe computer science students would feel more intimate with
CLOS.

But I think I am not alone with my perception that CLOS is not the
panacea. I can remember that I red some critique in the XEmacs manuals:

Citation from the XEmacs FAQ:

"Some Common Lisp features have been omitted from this package for
various reasons:

* Some features are too complex or bulky relative to their benefit
to Emacs Lisp programmers. CLOS and Common Lisp streams are fine
examples of this group."

Surely, they write it in the light or perspective of XEmacs. And XEmacs
does not pretend to be a proxy for a real Lisp environment. Maybe the
above FAQ is only a consequence of this.


S. Gonzi


Nils Goesche

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Mar 31, 2002, 10:59:44 AM3/31/02
to
Siegfried Gonzi <siegfri...@kfunigraz.ac.at> writes:

> Kenny Tilton wrote:
>
> > Wow. CLOS is the best OO implementation out there. Anyone who
> > does not like OO in CL does not like OO.
>
> Admittedly, my only exposure to CLOS is based on the book from Winston
> and Horn. And there: I find the explanation of object oriented
> programming not understandable.

But that's not reason enough to go around telling people that OO
programming in CL is ``not really a joy'', is it?

> Even under torture I would be not capable of writing the simpplest
> OO-program in Lisp (also the accompanied manual to CLisp -- which deals
> with CLOS -- does not improve the situation).

It is actually very easy. Read

``Object-Oriented Programming in Common Lisp: A Programmer's
Guide to CLOS''

by Sonya E. Keene to find out for yourself. Add

``The Art of the Metaobject Protocol'' by Gregor Kiczales et al.
to learn about OO stuff you can't do in other languages.

> But I think I am not alone with my perception that CLOS is not the
> panacea. I can remember that I red some critique in the XEmacs manuals:
>
> Citation from the XEmacs FAQ:
>
> "Some Common Lisp features have been omitted from this package for
> various reasons:
>
> * Some features are too complex or bulky relative to their benefit
> to Emacs Lisp programmers. CLOS and Common Lisp streams are fine
> examples of this group."
>
> Surely, they write it in the light or perspective of XEmacs. And XEmacs
> does not pretend to be a proxy for a real Lisp environment. Maybe the
> above FAQ is only a consequence of this.

That doesn't sound like a ``critique'' to me. They omitted CLOS
and streams, and numerous other things, to keep Emacs Lisp
small. That doesn't mean there is anything wrong with them.

Regards,
--
Nils Goesche
Ask not for whom the <CONTROL-G> tolls.

PGP key ID 0xC66D6E6F

ozan s yigit

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Mar 31, 2002, 10:55:50 AM3/31/02
to
Kenny Tilton <kti...@nyc.rr.com> writes:

> Wow. CLOS is the best OO implementation out there. Anyone who does not
> like OO in CL does not like OO.

hmm, i think eiffel people would take exception to that statement. :)

oz
---
Progurammu no Tetsujin


Greg Menke

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Mar 31, 2002, 11:07:11 AM3/31/02
to

> > (okay, object oriented
> > programming in Common Lisp is not really a joy).
>
> Wow. CLOS is the best OO implementation out there. Anyone who does not
> like OO in CL does not like OO.

Coming from a C++ perspective, I can sort of see what might be meant.
Lisp's OO is quite different and not at all conducive to a C++
approach. I found Lisp's OO uncomfortable for a while until I gained
a little experience with it.

Gregm

Friedrich Dominicus

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Mar 31, 2002, 10:07:09 AM3/31/02
to

"Siegfried Gonzi" <siegfri...@kfunigraz.ac.at> schrieb im
Newsbeitrag news:3CA72D3E...@kfunigraz.ac.at...

> Kenny Tilton wrote:
>
> > > Wow. CLOS is the best OO implementation out there. Anyone who
does
> > > not
> > > like OO in CL does not like OO.
>
>
> Admittedly, my only exposure to CLOS is based on the book from Winston
> and Horn. And there: I find the explanation of object oriented
> programming not understandable.

I don't know that book but you should try to get your hands on Objekt
oriented programming in Common Lisp from Sonya Keene. It is really a
good book about that topic.

> Even under torture I would be not capable of writing the simpplest
> OO-program in Lisp (also the accompanied manual to CLisp -- which
deals
> with CLOS -- does not improve the situation).

Search for successfull Lisp and try if that helps.


>
> I have some basic understanding of C++ and can follow most of the
> examples in the book "Teach C++ in 21 days" (the "21 days" is
> ridiculous; but the book itself is not that bad).
>
> I have to underline that I use Common Lisp in a similar fashion as
>
> I used Clean; maybe it is my fault to project my Clean experience to
>
> Lisp programming.
>
>
> My interest to programming started one year ago. Before, I just only
had
>
> experience with IDL/Matlab/Maple/Fortran (as most of my colleagues in
a
> natural

OO has to be learned and *applied*. People say it's more "natural" or
"easier" than
"normal" programming, Well if you have learned it you can maybe judge
by yourself.

>
> science department: there is not really a requirement that one should
> become interested in software engineering or programming paradigms;
> everybody expects that one gets aquainted with programming by his own
> training). Maybe computer science students would feel more intimate
with
> CLOS.
>
> But I think I am not alone with my perception that CLOS is not the
> panacea. I can remember that I red some critique in the XEmacs
manuals:
>
> Citation from the XEmacs FAQ:
>
> "Some Common Lisp features have been omitted from this package for
> various reasons:
>
> * Some features are too complex or bulky relative to their benefit
> to Emacs Lisp programmers. CLOS and Common Lisp streams are
fine
> examples of this group."

Nevertheless does exist eieio a CLOS for Emacs and it runs on XEmacs
too. CLOS is anyway different from "usual" OO in some areas, but I would
not dare to judge it beeing more difficult or easier.

I would simply invite you to check out CLOS, try to write some classes
and do the same
in a language you know a bit better.

Regards
Friedrich


Paolo Amoroso

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Mar 31, 2002, 11:59:15 AM3/31/02
to
On Sat, 30 Mar 2002 23:08:35 +0000, Siegfried Gonzi
<siegfri...@kfunigraz.ac.at> wrote:

> versions) scale very well for large projects (okay, object oriented
> programming in Common Lisp is not really a joy). The

Why?


Paolo
--
EncyCMUCLopedia * Extensive collection of CMU Common Lisp documentation
http://www.paoloamoroso.it/ency/README
[http://cvs2.cons.org:8000/cmucl/doc/EncyCMUCLopedia/]

Kenny Tilton

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Mar 31, 2002, 12:47:21 PM3/31/02
to

ozan s yigit wrote:
>
> Kenny Tilton <kti...@nyc.rr.com> writes:
>
> > Wow. CLOS is the best OO implementation out there. Anyone who does not
> > like OO in CL does not like OO.
>
> hmm, i think eiffel people would take exception to that statement. :)

by definition. :)

but I have proof! someone somewhere once offered that CLOS was the only
OO-implementation that met all the requirements specified by some
language-independent OO group. anybody know what i am talking about?

Kenny Tilton

unread,
Mar 31, 2002, 1:36:40 PM3/31/02
to

Siegfried Gonzi wrote:
>
> Kenny Tilton wrote:
>
> > > Wow. CLOS is the best OO implementation out there. Anyone who does
> > > not
> > > like OO in CL does not like OO.
>
> Admittedly, my only exposure to CLOS is based on the book from Winston
> and Horn.

OK.

> I have some basic understanding of C++ and can follow most of the

> examples in the book "Teach C++ in 21 days" ...

So you are Ok on OO now? Have you gone back to re-read Horn and see if
it makes more sense now?

>
> maybe it is my fault to project my Clean experience to
> Lisp programming.

OK

>
> My interest to programming started one year ago.

OK

> Maybe computer science students would feel more intimate with
> CLOS.

Nah, no one learns anything in school.

>
> But I think I am not alone with my perception that CLOS is not the
> panacea.

Different question. But yes, the consensus is that OO /in general/ is no
silver bullet.

> Surely, they write it in the light or perspective of XEmacs. And XEmacs
> does not pretend to be a proxy for a real Lisp environment. Maybe the
> above FAQ is only a consequence of this.

Bingo.

Siegfried Gonzi

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Mar 31, 2002, 1:58:29 PM3/31/02
to
Paolo Amoroso wrote:

> On Sat, 30 Mar 2002 23:08:35 +0000, Siegfried Gonzi
> <siegfri...@kfunigraz.ac.at> wrote:
>
>
>>versions) scale very well for large projects (okay, object oriented
>>programming in Common Lisp is not really a joy). The


I am not going to split hairs here: sorry for my misleading post; I
thought it is clear the proposition is only due to the irrelevant Gonzi.

But there remains a critique from my side.

It is not the first time that I have red that Common Lisp is one of the
most powerful object oriented programming languages on earth. I do not
want to ask: "Is this true", because the former sentence itself doesn't
make sense.

I acknowledge, when a C++ programmer says: "Hold me back before I
program in C++ again and let me program in Common Lisp instead". But
that doesn't mean Common Lisp is a better object oriented language than
C++. The latter assertion is even supported (in the forword) by the
Franz Inc. tutorial (author: Cooper, Jr. ):

Citation: "Basic Lisp techniques", by Cooper, Jr. (the foreword is
authored by Franz Inc):

"Other languages have tried to mimic CL, with limited success. Perl,
Python, Java,C++,C#, -- they all incorporate some of the features that
give Lisp its power, but their implementations tend to be brittle".


Sorry, but the above sentence is ridiculous!


Every day one is confronted with claims: "X is better than Y". My last
experience has been: "According to computer scientists functional
programming rocks; let us make the shift and abandon the desease called
C++/Eiffel/Smalltalk/Java/.....".

Most will agree on that as long as one does not get the aha experience
he cannot/will not acknowledge functional programming. And after this
experience one is in heaven with the most powerful paradigm. Maybe one
can even say this from CLOS.

But after my Clean experience I assure you, I am not any longer
impressed by such claims. I got my aha event but in the opposite direction.

Digression:

Functional advocates believe imperative style is devilish. But often you
do exactly this: simulating imperative loops:

fill_up_array:: !*{*{Real}}!Real -> !*{*{Real}}
fill_up_array array el = fill_up_i 0 array el
where
fill_up_i:: !Int !*{*{Real}} !Real -> !*{*{Real}}
fill_up_i i array el
| i == (size array.[0]) = array
= fill_up_j (i+1) 0 array el
where
fill_up_j:: !Int !Int !*{*{Real}} !Real
| j == (size array) = array
= fill_up_j i (j+1) {array & [i,j] = el } el

The function passes a 2 dimensional array and fills it up with a
specific value. The above is exactly what you would do in an imperative
language (2 foor loops). Surely, there are other ways to accomplish the
above. The latter function should only exemplify the imperative style.
One can go and see: for example Thorsten Z.'s linear algebra Clean
library (Clean homepage) is just an imperative style one.


And I see the affair CLOS in a similar fashion. There are strong points
with CLOS but there are also weak points (no chance to fix me here:
please read it again and hopefully make your conclusion that I am not a
CLOS expert and cannot deliver you much on evidence for my theory!). And
CLOS is just only a different Hollywood-diet.

But everybody should enjoy CLOS programming if he likes.


S. Gonzi


>

Paolo Amoroso

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Mar 31, 2002, 2:09:47 PM3/31/02
to
On 31 Mar 2002 11:07:11 -0500, Greg Menke <gregm...@mindspring.com>
wrote:

> Lisp's OO is quite different and not at all conducive to a C++
> approach. I found Lisp's OO uncomfortable for a while until I gained

This is actually a feature :)

Nils Goesche

unread,
Mar 31, 2002, 2:26:11 PM3/31/02
to
Siegfried Gonzi <siegfri...@kfunigraz.ac.at> writes:

> Paolo Amoroso wrote:
>
> > On Sat, 30 Mar 2002 23:08:35 +0000, Siegfried Gonzi
> > <siegfri...@kfunigraz.ac.at> wrote:
> >
> >> versions) scale very well for large projects (okay, object
> >> oriented programming in Common Lisp is not really a joy). The
>
> I am not going to split hairs here: sorry for my misleading post; I
> thought it is clear the proposition is only due to the irrelevant
> Gonzi.

How is Mr. Stihler supposed to know this? :-)

> But there remains a critique from my side.
>
> It is not the first time that I have red that Common Lisp is one of
> the most powerful object oriented programming languages on earth. I do
> not want to ask: "Is this true", because the former sentence itself
> doesn't make sense.

As I enjoy repeating it myself to everybody who want to hear it
and even more to everybody who don't want to hear it, I would
really like to know why it doesn't make sense...

> I acknowledge, when a C++ programmer says: "Hold me back before I
> program in C++ again and let me program in Common Lisp instead". But
> that doesn't mean Common Lisp is a better object oriented language
> than C++.

I am not sure what you mean, but the opinion of a C++ programmer
doesn't interest me very much when judging the merits of certain
CL programming techniques.

> The latter assertion is even supported (in the forword) by the
> Franz Inc. tutorial (author: Cooper, Jr. ):
>
> Citation: "Basic Lisp techniques", by Cooper, Jr. (the foreword is
> authored by Franz Inc):
>
> "Other languages have tried to mimic CL, with limited success. Perl,
> Python, Java,C++,C#, -- they all incorporate some of the features that
> give Lisp its power, but their implementations tend to be brittle".
>
>
> Sorry, but the above sentence is ridiculous!

I think it's perfectly fine. What's so ridiculous?

> Every day one is confronted with claims: "X is better than Y".

Yes, and most such claims are wrong. But that doesn't imply that
/all of them/ are wrong.

> My last experience has been: "According to computer scientists
> functional programming rocks; let us make the shift and abandon
> the desease called C++/Eiffel/Smalltalk/Java/.....".
>
> Most will agree on that as long as one does not get the aha experience
> he cannot/will not acknowledge functional programming. And after this
> experience one is in heaven with the most powerful paradigm. Maybe one
> can even say this from CLOS.
>
> But after my Clean experience I assure you, I am not any longer
> impressed by such claims. I got my aha event but in the opposite
> direction.

I am not sure what you are talking about, here.

> Digression:
>
> Functional advocates believe imperative style is devilish. But often
> you do exactly this: simulating imperative loops:

[snip Clean code]

> The function passes a 2 dimensional array and fills it up with a
> specific value. The above is exactly what you would do in an
> imperative language (2 foor loops). Surely, there are other ways to
> accomplish the above. The latter function should only exemplify the
> imperative style. One can go and see: for example Thorsten Z.'s linear
> algebra Clean library (Clean homepage) is just an imperative style
> one.

So?

> And I see the affair CLOS in a similar fashion. There are strong
> points with CLOS but there are also weak points (no chance to fix me
> here: please read it again and hopefully make your conclusion that I
> am not a CLOS expert and cannot deliver you much on evidence for my
> theory!). And CLOS is just only a different Hollywood-diet.

Why don't you say more about those ``weak points''? Err, didn't
you just say in the other post that you've been programming
for... one year? And you think you are qualified enough to spot
``weak points'' in CLOS? You must be a pretty fast learner. I
haven't got so far in 20 years.

> But everybody should enjoy CLOS programming if he likes.

Thanks, I will :-)

Coby Beck

unread,
Mar 31, 2002, 3:48:49 PM3/31/02
to

"Siegfried Gonzi" <siegfri...@kfunigraz.ac.at> wrote in message
news:3CA75C5...@kfunigraz.ac.at...

> Paolo Amoroso wrote:
>
> > On Sat, 30 Mar 2002 23:08:35 +0000, Siegfried Gonzi
> > <siegfri...@kfunigraz.ac.at> wrote:
> >
> >
> >>versions) scale very well for large projects (okay, object oriented
> >>programming in Common Lisp is not really a joy). The
>
>
> I am not going to split hairs here: sorry for my misleading post; I
> thought it is clear the proposition is only due to the irrelevant Gonzi.
>
> But there remains a critique from my side.
>
> It is not the first time that I have red that Common Lisp is one of the
> most powerful object oriented programming languages on earth. I do not
> want to ask: "Is this true", because the former sentence itself doesn't
> make sense.
>
> I acknowledge, when a C++ programmer says: "Hold me back before I
> program in C++ again and let me program in Common Lisp instead". But
> that doesn't mean Common Lisp is a better object oriented language than
> C++. The latter assertion is even supported (in the forword) by the
> Franz Inc. tutorial (author: Cooper, Jr. ):
>
> Citation: "Basic Lisp techniques", by Cooper, Jr. (the foreword is
> authored by Franz Inc):
>
> "Other languages have tried to mimic CL, with limited success. Perl,
> Python, Java,C++,C#, -- they all incorporate some of the features that
> give Lisp its power, but their implementations tend to be brittle".
>
>
> Sorry, but the above sentence is ridiculous!
>

You make such bold and sweeping claims for one who in the same post
acknowledges you have no evidence or experience to back up your opinion!

>
> Every day one is confronted with claims: "X is better than Y". My last

Yes, and until you take the time to learn X and Y well, you should hesitate
to publicly proclaim one over the other. Well, I shouldn't tell you what
you should do or not (at least you are not being belligerent about it :)
For myself, I would not hold a strong opinion about something I am ignorant
of.

> And I see the affair CLOS in a similar fashion. There are strong points
> with CLOS but there are also weak points (no chance to fix me here:
> please read it again and hopefully make your conclusion that I am not a
> CLOS expert and cannot deliver you much on evidence for my theory!).

Then why on earth are you so convinced of your opinion?

> CLOS is just only a different Hollywood-diet.
>
> But everybody should enjoy CLOS programming if he likes.
>

It's great!

--
Coby Beck
(remove #\Space "coby 101 @ bigpond . com")


cr88192

unread,
Mar 31, 2002, 6:34:19 PM3/31/02
to
>
> Why don't you say more about those ``weak points''? Err, didn't
> you just say in the other post that you've been programming
> for... one year? And you think you are qualified enough to spot
> ``weak points'' in CLOS? You must be a pretty fast learner. I
> haven't got so far in 20 years.
>
I have been programming lisp (actually: scheme) for... 2 months...
I still do most of my work in c as one can't really use lisp so much for os
programming...
don't take me wrong, I learn cl also...
personally for my aims I like scheme a little more. I don't really see a
reason why a system couldn't support both, or setup scheme to emulate cl;
but since I am limited in knowlege of either one there may be details in
the way...
maybe I should finish reading r5rs...

Rahul Jain

unread,
Mar 31, 2002, 10:19:43 PM3/31/02
to
"Friedrich Dominicus" <fr...@q-software-solutions.com> writes:

> Nevertheless does exist eieio a CLOS for Emacs and it runs on XEmacs
> too. CLOS is anyway different from "usual" OO in some areas, but I would
> not dare to judge it beeing more difficult or easier.

EIEIO is no where near CLOS. It's more like Java, in that there is no
multiple-dispatch and I don't think there are any
method-combinations. I don't know about multiple inheritance, but
there is definitely no MOP in EIEIO.

--
-> -/ - Rahul Jain - \- <-
-> -\ http://linux.rice.edu/~rahul -=- mailto:rj...@techie.com /- <-
-> -/ "Structure is nothing if it is all you got. Skeletons spook \- <-
-> -\ people if [they] try to walk around on their own. I really /- <-
-> -/ wonder why XML does not." -- Erik Naggum, comp.lang.lisp \- <-
|--|--------|--------------|----|-------------|------|---------|-----|-|
(c)1996-2002, All rights reserved. Disclaimer available upon request.

Nils Goesche

unread,
Mar 31, 2002, 10:52:54 PM3/31/02
to
cr88192 <cr8...@hotmail.com> writes:

> personally for my aims I like scheme a little more. I don't really see a
> reason why a system couldn't support both, or setup scheme to emulate cl;
> but since I am limited in knowlege of either one there may be details in
> the way...
> maybe I should finish reading r5rs...

Maybe you should get a balance. Put a printout of R5RS onto one
side and a printout of ANSI X3.226-1994 onto the other. Then
think again about which to use to emulate which. Don't sue me if
the balance gets broken.

cr88192

unread,
Mar 31, 2002, 9:04:29 PM3/31/02
to
>
> Maybe you should get a balance. Put a printout of R5RS onto one
> side and a printout of ANSI X3.226-1994 onto the other. Then
> think again about which to use to emulate which. Don't sue me if
> the balance gets broken.
>
I got a copy of the ansi spec, and am almost intimidated by the size...
hopefully I really don't have to read that much...

I see emphasis placed on 1100 pages... r5rs is 50...
sorry if this is a problem...

really I want to implement the one that is hopefully simpler and hopefully
have an underlying system flexible enough to include both.

when I was younger I used to use big books for bragging rights (I would
say: I read this, and point to a 1000 to 1500 page book, but really I don't
want to read that much...).

luckily the spec I got claims to be a simplified version, I do hope so...

oh yeah, I have no access to a real lisp machine so info about how one is
put together might be helpful. my design is basically making an
interpretter the secondary "core" of the os, the first "core" holds all the
basic system stuff (mm, ints, timing...). drivers are located outside
either core. the idea is that programs will sit on top of the cores and
drivers (collectivly known as the kernel).
is this concept design good?
as of yet the real line between parts is a little less clear...

Friedrich Dominicus

unread,
Apr 1, 2002, 1:35:49 AM4/1/02
to

"Kenny Tilton" <kti...@nyc.rr.com> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:3CA74CDB...@nyc.rr.com...

>
>
> ozan s yigit wrote:
> >
> > Kenny Tilton <kti...@nyc.rr.com> writes:
> >
> > > Wow. CLOS is the best OO implementation out there. Anyone who does
not
> > > like OO in CL does not like OO.
> >
> > hmm, i think eiffel people would take exception to that statement.
:)
>
> by definition. :)
no it's by contract ;-)
Regards
Friedrich

Kent M Pitman

unread,
Apr 1, 2002, 3:03:32 AM4/1/02
to
cr88192 <cr8...@hotmail.com> writes:

> really I want to implement the one that is hopefully simpler and hopefully
> have an underlying system flexible enough to include both.

I find it curious when people toss around general purpose words like
"simple" and "flexible" as if they can just bend to conform to any
use. The uses here do not look scientific and look to imply some
weird conclusions that may not be appropriate.

It sort of reminds me of how, lately, people lately talk about wanting
the US being the freest and safest country in the world, without
examining the meanings of those words enough to understand that "free"
almost necessarily implies "less safe". It's always easier to make
something safe if you take away "freedom".

Similarly, "simple" may not imply "flexible". For example, it may be
"simple" to start with the Scheme notion of variable value, that any
identifier has only one binding at any given time, but it is not a
subset of the Common Lisp meaning. It is far easier to arrange that
every time you assign a variable, you put it in both the function and
value cell [which is what PseudoScheme does, see below], than it is to
arrange for there to be a new place to put function cells when you haven't
primitively arranged for them. The problem is that "smaller" does not
imply "subset". Smaller things that are subsets can be quite handy, but
smaller things that are not subsets can lock you onto a collision course
toward confronting conflicts in incompatible goals long after you should
have considered them.

I'm not really sure why it would follow that the smaller would include
both, unless by "flexible" you mean "blank slate". After all,
assembly language is generally flexible to implement both but it isn't
most people's choice of how to get started with a large implementation
task.

Before you begin, I recommend you try a small subtask of more
manageable size just to understand what you are up against: implement
just the CL symbol datatype in Scheme, and the Scheme datatype in CL.

For example, Lisp symbols subsume Scheme symbols.

In Lisp, all you have to do is make a package called SCHEME and you
can put your the Scheme language into it, still compatibly having the
rest of Common Lisp available to you in other packages if you need it.

In Scheme, by contrast, implementing the CL symbol datatype will be
quite painful because you won't be able to use the Scheme symbol
datastructure directly without a lot of work. It is a requirement of
CL that you be able to have two symbols both named FOO in different
"packages". Scheme, not having packages, will force you to make
distinct symbols for these. You might as well just call them SYMBOL1,
SYMBOL2, SYMBOL3, etc. because you are going to be able to use them
only for identity. You will have to make a hash table to associate
the Common Lisp name and package with them. You won't, then, be able
to share code in any straightforward way because the same-named
symbols in Lisp and Scheme will be utterly separated in terms of
representation. So if you observe that CL:CONS does what you want for
Scheme's CONS, you'll still have to make a SYMBOL47 which has "CONS"
as its name in one of the hash tables that you use to associate Common
Lisp names with SYMBOL47, and you'll have to put Scheme's CONS
function in a different hash table that holds the function, and so on.

By the way, a compatibility package for most of Scheme (except call/cc)
already exists (see PseudoScheme by Rees at
http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/Groups/AI/html/faqs/lang/scheme/part2/faq-doc-1.html
). I don't know of a CL compatibility package for Scheme, but that
doesn't mean that one doesn't exist. I'll be surprised and interested
if someone cites one.

Then again, if all you want is a compatibility package suitable to
implement your own code, where you can constrain yourself not to use
any of the interestingly different features of CL, the problem is much
easier. But keep in mind, that probably means you aren't using any of
the features that really make CL different than Scheme. And that would
mean you aren't really experiencing CL. Because CL _is_ different than
Scheme. I like the comment of Prof. Amar Bose, founder of the Bose
Corporation: "better implies different". If you are using a subset
of Lisp and Scheme in which there is no difference, you are using a part
of each language that is no better in either language. That may be ample
to your application's needs, but as a statement about the two languages,
it does a disservice to both. There are substantial reasons the two
are different.

cr88192

unread,
Apr 1, 2002, 12:53:34 AM4/1/02
to
Kent M Pitman wrote:

> cr88192 <cr8...@hotmail.com> writes:
>
>> really I want to implement the one that is hopefully simpler and
>> hopefully have an underlying system flexible enough to include both.
>
> I find it curious when people toss around general purpose words like
> "simple" and "flexible" as if they can just bend to conform to any
> use. The uses here do not look scientific and look to imply some
> weird conclusions that may not be appropriate.
>

maybe it has to do with that I don't really know much about what I am
trying to make... so I just hope it is enough of either one to make things
not a major pain.

>
> I'm not really sure why it would follow that the smaller would include
> both, unless by "flexible" you mean "blank slate". After all,
> assembly language is generally flexible to implement both but it isn't
> most people's choice of how to get started with a large implementation
> task.
>

actually, I sort of did mean "blank slate". the idea will be to have the
object system, it itself for example would have seperate spots for
functions and data (or whatever else were designed). on top of that either
a scheme or cl interpretter would be built (the nutorious c space for which
I "am" fammiliar).

>
> In Lisp, all you have to do is make a package called SCHEME and you
> can put your the Scheme language into it, still compatibly having the
> rest of Common Lisp available to you in other packages if you need it.
>
> In Scheme, by contrast, implementing the CL symbol datatype will be
> quite painful because you won't be able to use the Scheme symbol
> datastructure directly without a lot of work. It is a requirement of
> CL that you be able to have two symbols both named FOO in different
> "packages". Scheme, not having packages, will force you to make
> distinct symbols for these. You might as well just call them SYMBOL1,
> SYMBOL2, SYMBOL3, etc. because you are going to be able to use them
> only for identity. You will have to make a hash table to associate
> the Common Lisp name and package with them. You won't, then, be able
> to share code in any straightforward way because the same-named
> symbols in Lisp and Scheme will be utterly separated in terms of
> representation. So if you observe that CL:CONS does what you want for
> Scheme's CONS, you'll still have to make a SYMBOL47 which has "CONS"
> as its name in one of the hash tables that you use to associate Common
> Lisp names with SYMBOL47, and you'll have to put Scheme's CONS
> function in a different hash table that holds the function, and so on.
>

point taken...
probably not so much of a mess as the lisp/c interaction though...
it is my experience that differing systems tend "not" to be representable
to each other, and the idea that they could seems mildly new to me...

> By the way, a compatibility package for most of Scheme (except call/cc)
> already exists (see PseudoScheme by Rees at
>
http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/Groups/AI/html/faqs/lang/scheme/part2/faq-doc-1.html
> ). I don't know of a CL compatibility package for Scheme, but that
> doesn't mean that one doesn't exist. I'll be surprised and interested
> if someone cites one.
>

I don't know what I am doing, that is why progress is slow...
scheme seems like it will be easy to implement, so that is what I will try
to create...
maybe at a later date one could alter a scheme interpretter into a cl
interpretter, I don't know... or maybe just strip off and replace it...
scheme seems good enough for now...

for me all of this is new domain (but I try anyways)...
if all else fails I could try to hack scm on top of my kernel (though scm
is a mess I would like to avoid...).

sorry if this is not good enough...

Erik Naggum

unread,
Apr 1, 2002, 4:06:13 AM4/1/02
to
* cr88192 <cr8...@hotmail.com>

| I got a copy of the ansi spec, and am almost intimidated by the size...
| hopefully I really don't have to read that much...

Excuse me? You hope you do not have to read a thousand pages? Why? Are
you illiterate or very hard of reading or something? I have not kept
record of how much I read every year, but it must be at least 12 000
pages of nonfiction alone. For the past 25 years or so, I have set aside
2 hours a day to study or just read about something _unrelated_ to what I
need to learn or work with, and probably spend even more on work-related
reading. This is in my view not a lot. Learning to read and type fast,
efficiently, and accurately is a requirement in modern society.

With only two hours a day, the Common Lisp standard should take you no
more than a month, with plenty of time to think about what you read, take
notes, including deferring stuff for a later pass. That is not, again in
my view, not a lot to require of someone who wants to become a serious
user of a programming language. 30 years of wisdom and insight in the
Lisp community is made available in only 30 days. Of course, it will
take much longer to make use of all this, but at least you have been
through it and have thought about it and provided a large number of
"hook" on which you can hang various information you get when you ask
people, and you can make connections that people who simply lack the
knowledge cannot.

| I see emphasis placed on 1100 pages... r5rs is 50... sorry if this is a
| problem...

It means that R5RS is a short story you might chuckle or shudder at
before you forget it while ANSI X3.226-1994 is a novel that enriches your
character.

| really I want to implement the one that is hopefully simpler and
| hopefully have an underlying system flexible enough to include both.

Why the hell do you want to implement it?

| when I was younger I used to use big books for bragging rights (I would
| say: I read this, and point to a 1000 to 1500 page book, but really I
| don't want to read that much...).

Oh, so _that_ is the reason these idiot books were printed on cardboard
with 36-point type. Idiot bragging rights! Good thing I never even
thought of buying any of those. My >1000-volume personal library seems
to average about 400 pages to a volume, and a _large_ fraction of my
books are more than 1000 pages thick, but they are printed on thin, high
quality paper, not recycled cardboard, with fairly small print, not at
all suitable for the fourth-grade reading level of most "computer" books.

| luckily the spec I got claims to be a simplified version, I do hope so...

No, it is not, the HyperSpec (ANSI standard) is a standard. Maybe Common
Lisp is just not for you.

| oh yeah, I have no access to a real lisp machine so info about how one is
| put together might be helpful.

Maybe you just need a Common Lisp environment that has already been built
for you?

///
--
In a fight against something, the fight has value, victory has none.
In a fight for something, the fight is a loss, victory merely relief.

Kent M Pitman

unread,
Apr 1, 2002, 4:33:54 AM4/1/02
to
cr88192 <cr8...@hotmail.com> writes:

> maybe at a later date one could alter a scheme interpretter into a cl
> interpretter, I don't know.

maybe at a later date one could alter an esperanto understander into an
english understander, too. certainly it's simpler to start with esperanto.
i just don't see the point.

> for me all of this is new domain (but I try anyways)...

just learn the languages separately and use them for a while on their
own terms. you don't do yourself a service by pretending that java is
c++ nor vice versa. nor will you learn much about either language by
staying in the subset that both support, if any.

cl and scheme are similarly related.

i think you are taking the long, difficult road to understanding.
but you're welcome to try.

Fernando Rodríguez

unread,
Apr 1, 2002, 5:33:33 AM4/1/02
to
On 30 Mar 2002 13:54:26 -0800, lab.s...@unidavi.edu.br (Fred Stihler)
wrote:


>I was looking for some info on what would be a good lang for general
>purpose programming. What I mean it: is it fast? is it good for
>database systems? is it good for GUI programmin (on ms windows
>mostly)? Well, I know that I would know better if I go and read all
>about it. But the problem is that there is too many langs out there
>and too many books about it. I would spend several years just to
>decide what lang would be the better choice to star learning.

You want to learn programming? If you are a total beginner, I think it's a
better idea to start with scheme instead of common lisp. It's a simpler lisp
dialect that has been designed for teaching. Besides, there are _great_ (and
I mean _great_) books that use it to teach programming.

Try any of these books:
In order of increasing difficulty

"The Schemer's Guide" (Available at www.schemers.com)
"How to design programs"
"Scheme and the art of programming"
"Concrete abstractions"
"Structure and intepretation of computer programs" (Esse é foda ;-)

Don't worry about GUI and database stuff right now. That's trivial, and as
soon as you master basic concepts such as data and procedure abstraction, or
common program design techniques, learning those things will be very easy.

Read this article, it might help you:
http://www.fernando-rodriguez.com/high-school-computing.html

Vai fundo! ;-)


-----------------------
Fernando Rodriguez

Erik Naggum

unread,
Apr 1, 2002, 7:09:26 AM4/1/02
to
* Fernando Rodríguez

| You want to learn programming? If you are a total beginner, I think it's
| a better idea to start with scheme instead of common lisp. It's a
| simpler lisp dialect that has been designed for teaching.

I strongly disagree. Scheme destroys the minds of programmers much more
and much worse than BASIC is rumored to do. In order to learn to use any
other programming language, a Scheme-trained programmer has to forget all
of Scheme and relearn everything from scratch. This is doable, but such
a horribly inefficient way of doing things.

| "How to design programs"

I have to admit, though, this looks like a _great_ book.

| "Structure and intepretation of computer programs" (Esse é foda ;-)

I no longer think this is a great book. It teaches differences where no
basis for comparison has been laid.

Nils Goesche

unread,
Apr 1, 2002, 7:23:58 AM4/1/02
to
cr88192 <cr8...@hotmail.com> writes:

> I don't know what I am doing, that is why progress is slow...
> scheme seems like it will be easy to implement, so that is what I will try
> to create...
> maybe at a later date one could alter a scheme interpretter into a cl
> interpretter, I don't know... or maybe just strip off and replace it...
> scheme seems good enough for now...

There is a book that shows how to express one language in terms
of the other, you might find it useful to get a feeling for the task:

``Lisp in Small Pieces'' by Christian Queinnec

Joe Marshall

unread,
Mar 30, 2002, 7:00:09 PM3/30/02
to

"Bulent Murtezaoglu" <b...@acm.org> wrote in message
news:87zo0pb...@nkapi.internal...
> >>>>> "FS" == Fred Stihler <lab.s...@unidavi.edu.br> writes:
>
> FS> is it good for GUI programmin
> FS> (on ms windows mostly)?
>
> This depends on what implementation you buy.
>
> For free implementations on MS Windows you will not find a GUI system
> polished enough to be both good and usable out of the box by a novice.
> (Folks: flame me if I am not right.) If you know how to program GUIs
> under Windows, Corman (www.corman.net) gives you full access to the
> windows api but doesn't wrap a lispy toolkit on top of it AFAIK.

As much as I'd *love* to increase the level of vitriol in this group, I'll
refrain from flaming you.

It so happens that I've been programming a little game in Corman Lisp
with my daughter. It is true that Corman Lisp does not provide an API
like CLIM. It does, however, come with some code that wraps the
windows message pump with some CLOS classes so you can simply
write some methods and let the generic function dispatch handle the
details. This is much easier than interfacing to the raw windows API.

So if you have some familiarity with how windows programs work
(vis-a-vis messages, windows, device contexts, etc.) the Corman lisp
API will work just fine.

As far as performance goes, it's more than adequate. The little breakout
game I've been helping my daughter with runs at a refresh rate of 30
frames per second and is only consuming 2% or so of the processor.
(The lisp is yielding its timeslice when it finishes a frame.) GC pauses
are almost unnoticable.


Joe Marshall

unread,
Mar 30, 2002, 7:02:25 PM3/30/02
to

"Siegfried Gonzi" <siegfri...@kfunigraz.ac.at> wrote in message
news:3CA64573...@kfunigraz.ac.at...
>
> b) The price of Allegro Common Lisp is quite high (above USD 4000.- for
> the personal edition; and a little bit a lot higher for the enterprise
> edition; the last information was: USD 10000.-). Though, there is a free
> evaluation copy available but in the long run this is not the solution.
> And they even charge (in addition) for every copy of your program you
> sell to a customer.
>
> c) LispWorks from Xanalys has competive prices. They even have got a
> free copy of their version for private users; but do not fall for to
> believe you can use it on a daily basis. The evaluation copy has got
> very limited heap sizes and it is only intented for training purposes
> (maybe a Lisp course in high school).

Corman Common Lisp is priced quite reasonably, too.

Joe Marshall

unread,
Mar 31, 2002, 5:06:33 PM3/31/02
to

"Siegfried Gonzi" <siegfri...@kfunigraz.ac.at> wrote in message
news:3CA75C5...@kfunigraz.ac.at...

>
> Citation: "Basic Lisp techniques", by Cooper, Jr. (the foreword is
> authored by Franz Inc):
>
> "Other languages have tried to mimic CL, with limited success. Perl,
> Python, Java,C++,C#, -- they all incorporate some of the features that
> give Lisp its power, but their implementations tend to be brittle".
>
> Sorry, but the above sentence is ridiculous!

Looks ok to me.

Perhaps you think other languages have not tried to mimic CL?
Or perhaps they had unlimited success?
Or maybe that Perl, Python, C++, C# don't incorporate any of
the features that give Lisp its power?
Or that their implementations aren't brittle?

No, wait, I've got it. There's actually TWO sentences there.
You're objecting to the period at the end. Well, I suppose
a semicolon might be better.

Paolo Amoroso

unread,
Apr 1, 2002, 10:44:19 AM4/1/02
to
On Sun, 31 Mar 2002 21:04:29 -0500, cr88192 <cr8...@hotmail.com> wrote:

> I got a copy of the ansi spec, and am almost intimidated by the size...
> hopefully I really don't have to read that much...

Understanding why the HyperSpec is not intimidating is part of the learning
process of Common Lisp. Hint: Common Lisp is not a toy, it was created by
experienced designers to solve large and complex problems in industry and
research. This is not a "for dummies" or "teach yourself in 21 days"
language.

Paolo Amoroso

unread,
Apr 1, 2002, 10:44:18 AM4/1/02
to
On Sun, 31 Mar 2002 18:34:19 -0500, cr88192 <cr8...@hotmail.com> wrote:

> I have been programming lisp (actually: scheme) for... 2 months...
> I still do most of my work in c as one can't really use lisp so much for os
> programming...

This is really funny. If by "os" you mean "operating system", then you are
wrong. Lisp was also used to write some of the most powerful operating
systems in the history of computing.


> but since I am limited in knowlege of either one there may be details in
> the way...
> maybe I should finish reading r5rs...

You may want to expand your reading list a bit.

Julian Stecklina

unread,
Apr 1, 2002, 11:44:07 AM4/1/02
to
cr88192 <cr8...@hotmail.com> writes:

> oh yeah, I have no access to a real lisp machine so info about how one is
> put together might be helpful. my design is basically making an
> interpretter the secondary "core" of the os, the first "core" holds all the
> basic system stuff (mm, ints, timing...). drivers are located outside
> either core. the idea is that programs will sit on top of the cores and
> drivers (collectivly known as the kernel).
> is this concept design good?
> as of yet the real line between parts is a little less clear...

OS coders in comp.lang.lisp. I actually got a little bit tired of
wannabe OS codes in de.comp.lang.assembler.x86 and I only wanted to
tell you that planning is more important than anything else. It will
be especially unimportant whether your design is "good", if you fail
in implementation. I do *not* have as much programming experience as
most posters here (perhaps 3 years hobby programming), but this is a
lesson I often had to learn.

I even once self belonged to the doomed group of people believing to
be able to produce an perhaps useful mini operating system. I still
believe one man is able to produce something like this, but not
without having spent some time with planning.

Regards,
Julian
--
Meine Hompage: http://julian.re6.de

Ich suche eine PCMCIA v1.x type I/II/III Netzwerkkarte.
Ich biete als Tauschobjekt eine v2 100MBit Karte in OVP.

ozan s yigit

unread,
Apr 1, 2002, 11:41:33 AM4/1/02
to
Nils Goesche:

> There is a book that shows how to express one language in terms
> of the other, you might find it useful to get a feeling for the task:
>
> ``Lisp in Small Pieces'' by Christian Queinnec

i second this recommendation, it is a wonderful, but a demanding book;
in my view it is the true heir to "anatomy of lisp" but it may be too
scheme-centric for some.

oz
--
www.cs.yorku.ca/~oz | if you couldn't find any weirdness, maybe
york u. computer science | we'll just have to make some! -- hobbes

Thomas Bushnell, BSG

unread,
Apr 1, 2002, 12:00:00 PM4/1/02
to
Erik Naggum <er...@naggum.net> writes:

> In order to learn to use any other programming language, a
> Scheme-trained programmer has to forget all of Scheme and relearn
> everything from scratch.

This is directly contradicted by the experience of those universities
that use Scheme to teach elementary programming--MIT, Oberlin, Rice,
and others. There is no particular difficulty in moving on to other
languages and other styles of programming.

Thomas

Nils Goesche

unread,
Apr 1, 2002, 12:15:09 PM4/1/02
to

Look up the thread ``one small function'' or so. Seems to be not
so easy...

Regards,
--
Nils Goesche
Ask not for whom the <CONTROL-G> tolls.

PGP key ID #xC66D6E6F

cr88192

unread,
Apr 1, 2002, 9:46:32 AM4/1/02
to
I can read well enough, I just don't really read fast and I don't like
reading mass amounts of stuff. I rather like things to be hopefully concise.

please don't call me illeterate.

by "simplified" I had meant: not massivly long...
I have before read long books, ie: my sql book was about that long, but I
took about 2 months...

I like smaller time frames, ie: a few hours...

in my mind one can blame english more than text, as it is the mass of
english like semantics that I don't like...

Erik Naggum

unread,
Apr 1, 2002, 1:12:21 PM4/1/02
to
* Erik Naggum

> In order to learn to use any other programming language, a Scheme-trained
> programmer has to forget all of Scheme and relearn everything from
> scratch.

* Thomas Bushnell, BSG


| This is directly contradicted by the experience of those universities
| that use Scheme to teach elementary programming--MIT, Oberlin, Rice, and
| others.

My education is from the University of Oslo, Informatics Department,
which brags that its senior staff invented Simula and object-oriented
programming. They thought, for many years, that their students were not
hampered by, indeed benefited from, learning Simula in their introductory
courses. Industry, students, etc, disagreed strongly. Now they teach
Java. At the University of Bergen, the same story played out.

For some reason, I do not generally trust people who would be seriously
financially or prestigeously damaged if the argument they make turned out
to be untrue, which is why I tend to push the prestige button on people
to see if their stake is personal. Some, like you, tend to take this
very deeply personally, but prove to be untrustworthy because of it.

| There is no particular difficulty in moving on to other languages and
| other styles of programming.

There is ample evidence here and elsewhere to the contrary. That you say
something does not make it true. When you jump out to contradict me,
there is reason to believe it not even true to begin with. All this crap
about writing your advisors and now your department proves that you lack
the integrity and intellectual honesty that would have made you useful
int his forum. However, as long as you can be seriously hurt by being a
retarded prick in your department, it is likely that you manage to fake a
reasonably conforming student and obey those rules that are necessary to
get your degree, but none others, just like that line about your boss
that you claim people misunderstood. So when you say something that
simply contradicts something I have said, we have reason to believe that
(1) you would be hurt if the truth I have spoken came out, and (2) your
inability to deal with arguments leads you to attack the person and want
to ambarrass and make unpleasant noises devoid of contents. Instead,
just provide valid and useful counter-information. I do not think you
can do that any more than ozan s yigit can, but feel free to change my
mind -- I will if you provide different facts. That is the difference
between the two of us.

Christopher Browne

unread,
Apr 1, 2002, 1:15:12 PM4/1/02
to

Take a look at Peter Norvig's essay:

<http://www.norvig.com/21-days.html>
_Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years_

Pretending that you can learn anything meaningful in an hour's worth
of reading is just silly.

A university degree requires committing on the order of four years,
and it's easy enough to conclude "That wasn't enough; I need the
MSc/Ph.D" and find that the process takes on the order of ten years.
--
(reverse (concatenate 'string "moc.adanac@" "enworbbc"))
http://www.ntlug.org/~cbbrowne/linux.html
Rules of the Evil Overlord #81. "If I am fighting with the hero atop a
moving platform, have disarmed him, and am about to finish him off and
he glances behind me and drops flat, I too will drop flat instead of
quizzically turning around to find out what he saw."
<http://www.eviloverlord.com/>

cr88192

unread,
Apr 1, 2002, 10:55:29 AM4/1/02
to
> Take a look at Peter Norvig's essay:
>
> <http://www.norvig.com/21-days.html>
> _Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years_
>
point taken...

> Pretending that you can learn anything meaningful in an hour's worth
> of reading is just silly.
>

it is funny sometimes how long advancing generally takes... sometimes I
wonder why I can't just seem to cram large amounts of information and just
start making stuff...
I guess that is life...

> A university degree requires committing on the order of four years,
> and it's easy enough to conclude "That wasn't enough; I need the
> MSc/Ph.D" and find that the process takes on the order of ten years.

mostly I just think: if it takes that long to explain it, how much longer
would it take to implement...
scheme seems as if it would be easier to implement, just under the idea
that it is minimalist.
or have I been missing something?

ok, I could drop the idea of trying to support both, and maybe think about
it later.

for now I think I will continue with what I was doing before: reading r5rs
and fiddling with my kernel...
I don't know, I may read ansi spec and look at the workings of a few cl
interpreters. I will think.

Erik Naggum

unread,
Apr 1, 2002, 2:15:16 PM4/1/02
to
* cr88192 <cr8...@hotmail.com>

| I can read well enough, I just don't really read fast and I don't like
| reading mass amounts of stuff. I rather like things to be hopefully concise.

Then you are at such a disadvantage in contemporary IT that you should
work really hard to improve your reading speed. Double it, then double
it again. A regular paperback page of prose (say, something by Tom
Clancy or John Grisham) should take no more than 15 seconds to read with
no loss of comprehension, and the ISO standard for Ada should take no
more than 5 minutes per page, on average.

| in my mind one can blame english more than text, as it is the mass of
| english like semantics that I don't like...

As long as you do not like it, that dislike will always stand between you
and mastering it. Make up your mind to like it, work hard to get really
good at it, and you will like it. This applies to all things you want to
learn well. If you cannot like something, leave it behind and find
something else that you can. Life is too long to spend it on things you
do not like or become good at what you have to do.

cr88192

unread,
Apr 1, 2002, 11:41:25 AM4/1/02
to
Erik Naggum wrote:

> * cr88192 <cr8...@hotmail.com>
> | I can read well enough, I just don't really read fast and I don't like
> | reading mass amounts of stuff. I rather like things to be hopefully
> | concise.
>
> Then you are at such a disadvantage in contemporary IT that you should
> work really hard to improve your reading speed. Double it, then double
> it again. A regular paperback page of prose (say, something by Tom
> Clancy or John Grisham) should take no more than 15 seconds to read with
> no loss of comprehension, and the ISO standard for Ada should take no
> more than 5 minutes per page, on average.
>

when I was younger I was supposedly mildly dyslexic, if that has any real
bearing on reading speed.

I really don't like reading fiction books either for similar reasons I
don't like long books... I can just watch movies...

luckily at least I can read code at a much faster rate than I can read
text, I don't really know why.
often when reading code I use page down comparred with scrolling, but text
is the opposite.

a little off topic, I once tried to write a small description of lambda
calculus (where I was trying to explain it in a much more compact way than
a book I was reading, which took a whole chapter...):
{
lambda calculus is a system of substitution. you will have a "lambda
expression" that will perform operations by being applied to expressions.
each will have the symbol lambda followed by some variable, this may be
several levels deep (here I will use L to denote lambda). after this there
is an expression (for which what is being combined with is substituted
into). consider: Lx.x2 , this may be combined with some other expression
by enclosing it in parenthesis, then it is combined with something: say
dog, in which case you have (Lx.x2)dog which converts to dog2 , I will use
-> to indicate this process. this works because dog was substituted in for
x. each lambda term will have an associated variable (which whatever is
substituted in for in the expression). after this the lambda term
disappears (as it was used). these are combined in a left to right order.
if the variable associated with the lambda term does not exist, then
nothing is substituted in. if the variable exists within the expression and
is part of a lambda term then the variable is referred to a being bound
within the expression. variables that are part of a lambda term but do not
exist within the expression are unbound, and ones that are not associated
with a lambda term but are in the expression are referred to as free.
consider: LxLy.x and LxLy.y, in the first y is unbound, and in the second x
is unbound. consider each is combined first with dog and then with cat.
((LxLy.x)dog)cat -> (Ly.dog)cat -> dog, and ((LxLy.y)dog)cat -> (Ly.y)cat
-> cat. when multiple layers of parenthesis are involved the inmost are
evaluated first, then it moves outward. consider if these were used as
true and false (true=LxLy.x, false=LxLy.y), then a statement could be made
if=LaLbLc.(((a)b)c) that could select between terms based on the condition
of a. thus: ((((if)false)dog)cat) would evaluate to cat, and
((((if)true)dog)cat) would be dog. consider: LxLy.xz, in this expression x
is bound, y is unbound, and z is free. free variables are a hairy mess in
my opinion, as it is always possible for the variable to adversely effect
the expression (except if say it were combined with 0, then z would be
irrelevant). lambda calculus can be quite useful.
}
and, like this, the book did not really explain how it can really be used...

I wrote similar for predicate logic as well, but I will not include it...

Erik Naggum

unread,
Apr 1, 2002, 3:51:16 PM4/1/02
to
* cr88192 <cr8...@hotmail.com>

| when I was younger I was supposedly mildly dyslexic, if that has any real
| bearing on reading speed.

So was I. Thosuands of hours of hard work cured it completely. Dyslexia
is the result a persistent problem in how reading and writing is taught,
not a disorder. All students benefit from a very different way to read
and write than the stupid ways that only accidentally produce people who
can spell correctly and read fast. In brief, words are really images
made up of strokes. I consider the individual letter approach to those
strokes vastly superior to the ideographic scripts. If you have not
learned to see words as images, not as individual characters, by the time
you are ten years old, it takes an _enormous_ effort to fix it, but trust
me: it is worth it. Nothing beats the written word's ability to save you
time in learning from somebody else's experiences, skills, and wisdom.
Just make up your mind to like it, then work hard to actually like it.

Chris Jones

unread,
Apr 1, 2002, 4:07:24 PM4/1/02
to
Erik Naggum <er...@naggum.net> writes:

* cr88192 <cr8...@hotmail.com>
| when I was younger I was supposedly mildly dyslexic, if that has any real
| bearing on reading speed.

So was I. Thosuands of hours of hard work cured it completely.

^^
!!
:)

cr88192

unread,
Apr 1, 2002, 1:33:11 PM4/1/02
to
Chris Jones wrote:

> Erik Naggum <er...@naggum.net> writes:
>
> * cr88192 <cr8...@hotmail.com>
> | when I was younger I was supposedly mildly dyslexic, if that has any
> | real bearing on reading speed.
>

cool, dudes...

I read more than I used to at least...

cbbr...@acm.org

unread,
Apr 1, 2002, 4:38:50 PM4/1/02
to
I'm bouncing this back over to comp.lang.lisp, as it's probably more of
"general interest" than of my interest.

On Mon, 01 Apr 2002 20:30:49 GMT, the world broke into rejoicing as
"cr88192 sydney" <cr8...@hotmail.com> said:
> >A really interesting project to take on might be to look at OpenMCL,
> >and consider writing an IA-32 code generator for it that might allow
> >using it on IA-32 platforms.

> from what I have seen of things I think with cl one might try to build
> the underlying os from the lisp standpoint than building lisp from the
> os standpoint, I may be wrong...

Counterargument:

Getting an OS working involves a whole lot of fiddling around figuring
out how to interface with:
a) Disk drives;
b) Graphics cards;
c) Keyboards;
d) Motherboards, CPUs, memory buses

Keeping up with the regular "churn" of hardware changes means you'll be
liable to need to modify details on an annual basis, and you'll have to
very tightly specify what hardware must be used.

After all, if you wrote a nifty display manager for an nVidia RIVA last
year, you'd have found by now that the model you supported isn't
commercially available anymore.

If your goal is to continually struggle with the continual hardware
changes, then that's the nature of your project. OS makers have been
known to "punt" and basically say "Nope; we don't support hardware other
than this tiny limited set."

For instance, you need not bother trying to use Plan 9 on a system with
an Adaptec SCSI controller; they don't support that at all. And it
won't work with nVidia video hardware.

You'll be left with that very sort of challenge, of, on the one hand,
having to pick and choose some tiny set of compatible hardware, and, on
the other, regularly rewriting parts of the system to ensure that
there's _some_ current hardware on which your OS can run.

The alternative: Use Linux or FreeBSD as the OS kernel, and XFree86 as
the graphics "kernel." You can thus avoid writing much if any kernel
code, and can run on the regularly-extended set of hardware that they
support.

The question is then of how deeply to start trying to have the system
"be Lisp."

The "rather deep" choice would involve replacing Unix init with a Lisp
program that basically populates a system that from there on down looks
like Lisp, perhaps with an XFree86 process alongside to provide
graphical services.

> either case either a cl or scheme os would probably be a starting point for
> making a better os...
> also as one can probably guess I work in the create/trash/rewrite process
> (often reusing any good code...).
>
> are there similar projects to mine I can look at?

Certainly there are. See the URL below for links to what largely amount
to failed projects.
--
(reverse (concatenate 'string "gro.mca@" "enworbbc"))
http://www3.sympatico.ca/cbbrowne/lisposes.html
We are Pentium of Borg. Division is futile. You will be approximated.
(seen in someone's .signature)

Erik Naggum

unread,
Apr 1, 2002, 4:43:32 PM4/1/02
to
* Chris Jones <c...@theWorld.com>
| ^^
| !!
| :)

Typos are not caused by dyslexia. Dyslexia is not even about typos.
But I probably type faster than I should, because I try not to waste too
mcuh time on trivial things.

David Golden

unread,
Apr 1, 2002, 5:18:27 PM4/1/02
to
Chris Jones wrote:

It does illustrate a point - Thosuands and Thousands
are very similar "pictures" - and thus such a mistake has
very little bearing on reading speed if you are seeing the words
as pictures, but if you are still stuck at the
sounding-out-words-in-your-mind stage then it could
trip you up.

Personally, I definitely read by perceiving the words as "pictures" -
and have tested reading speed up to something silly, thousands of words per
minute. (I had the occasional bizarre experiment done on me as
a child - some of my classmates and I were once was hooked up to some sort
of scanner and made stare at a checkerboard with a single red dot on it for
what seemed like forever, because someone mentioned we were "good at
reading" to some student...Arrgh...)


--
Don't eat yellow snow.

Pierre R. Mai

unread,
Apr 1, 2002, 6:23:36 PM4/1/02
to
cr88192 <cr8...@hotmail.com> writes:

> mostly I just think: if it takes that long to explain it, how much longer
> would it take to implement...
> scheme seems as if it would be easier to implement, just under the idea
> that it is minimalist.
> or have I been missing something?

It is quite likely that doing a minimalist implementation of Scheme
will take quite a bit less time than doing a full implementation of
ANSI Common Lisp.

But if your goal was to implement something that you can use to do
real-world programming in, your minimalist implementation of Scheme
will not get you at all far. I'd also question if you wouldn't be
better off with one of the existing fully-fledged implementations of
Scheme or ANSI CL for such a purpose.

And if your goal is only to exercise your implementation abilities,
then I'd suggest that implementing an equivalent subset of ANSI CL
will take you not necessarily longer (and might even be quicker), than
doing your Scheme implementation.

And it will offer you a much more graceful and preplanned upgrade
path, by adding pieces of ANSI CL library code to your implementation
as you need/want them. And, given that with CMU CL there is much
public domain library code available to you, you can even skip some of
that work easily.

For such a "kernel" ANSI CL, you'll want to look at the 23 special
operators of ANSI CL, and add all the necessary allocators and
accessors (i.e. stuff like cons/car+cdr, and the package/symbol
stuff).

Regs, Pierre.

--
Pierre R. Mai <pm...@acm.org> http://www.pmsf.de/pmai/
The most likely way for the world to be destroyed, most experts agree,
is by accident. That's where we come in; we're computer professionals.
We cause accidents. -- Nathaniel Borenstein

cr88192

unread,
Apr 1, 2002, 3:49:18 PM4/1/02
to
>
> It is quite likely that doing a minimalist implementation of Scheme
> will take quite a bit less time than doing a full implementation of
> ANSI Common Lisp.
>
> But if your goal was to implement something that you can use to do
> real-world programming in, your minimalist implementation of Scheme
> will not get you at all far. I'd also question if you wouldn't be
> better off with one of the existing fully-fledged implementations of
> Scheme or ANSI CL for such a purpose.
>
> And if your goal is only to exercise your implementation abilities,
> then I'd suggest that implementing an equivalent subset of ANSI CL
> will take you not necessarily longer (and might even be quicker), than
> doing your Scheme implementation.
>
> And it will offer you a much more graceful and preplanned upgrade
> path, by adding pieces of ANSI CL library code to your implementation
> as you need/want them. And, given that with CMU CL there is much
> public domain library code available to you, you can even skip some of
> that work easily.
>
> For such a "kernel" ANSI CL, you'll want to look at the 23 special
> operators of ANSI CL, and add all the necessary allocators and
> accessors (i.e. stuff like cons/car+cdr, and the package/symbol
> stuff).
>
I am coding an os...
I tried the lazy approach of trying to hack a few scheme interpretters (scm
and mzscheme) on top, the problem: both seem to have dependencies on at
least a mildly posix complient system, which mine is not...

I figure (as before) I might have to write my own interpreter...

I could write a basic cl interpreter, maybe...
people keep suggesting compilers but then I would have to figure an
effective way to do code-generation in kernel space...

I may look a little more to see if I can find a usable interpreter...

Kenny Tilton

unread,
Apr 1, 2002, 7:07:01 PM4/1/02
to

cr88192 wrote:
>
> I can read well enough, I just don't really read fast and I don't like
> reading mass amounts of stuff. I rather like things to be hopefully concise.
>

I cannot read technical doc to save my life until I already know how
something works and then I just need a point of information cleared up.
Cantt ype too good, neihter.

> in my mind one can blame english more than text, as it is the mass of
> english like semantics that I don't like...

yeah, english is no piece of cake.

--

kenny tilton
clinisys, inc
---------------------------------------------------------------
"Harvey has overcome not only time and space but any objections."
Elwood P. Dowd

Thomas Bushnell, BSG

unread,
Apr 1, 2002, 9:42:00 PM4/1/02
to
Erik Naggum <er...@naggum.net> writes:

> My education is from the University of Oslo, Informatics Department,
> which brags that its senior staff invented Simula and object-oriented
> programming. They thought, for many years, that their students were not
> hampered by, indeed benefited from, learning Simula in their introductory
> courses. Industry, students, etc, disagreed strongly. Now they teach
> Java. At the University of Bergen, the same story played out.

Oh, we certainly shouldn't look at the faculty to ask whether their
techniques are working, we should look at the reputation the grads end
up with in industry. Even that's not a perfect metric, but I think
it's about the best empirical test there is.

> When you jump out to contradict me,
> there is reason to believe it not even true to begin with. All this crap
> about writing your advisors and now your department proves that you lack
> the integrity and intellectual honesty that would have made you useful
> int his forum.

Huh? So you mean that asking you to put your words in a context where
you might actually have to stand by them is somehow dishonest?

Why are you so scared?

cr88192

unread,
Apr 1, 2002, 9:26:42 PM4/1/02
to
cbbr...@acm.org wrote:

> I'm bouncing this back over to comp.lang.lisp, as it's probably more of
> "general interest" than of my interest.
>
> On Mon, 01 Apr 2002 20:30:49 GMT, the world broke into rejoicing as
> "cr88192 sydney" <cr8...@hotmail.com> said:
>> >A really interesting project to take on might be to look at OpenMCL,
>> >and consider writing an IA-32 code generator for it that might allow
>> >using it on IA-32 platforms.
>
>> from what I have seen of things I think with cl one might try to build
>> the underlying os from the lisp standpoint than building lisp from the
>> os standpoint, I may be wrong...
>
> Counterargument:
>
> Getting an OS working involves a whole lot of fiddling around figuring
> out how to interface with:
> a) Disk drives;
> b) Graphics cards;
> c) Keyboards;
> d) Motherboards, CPUs, memory buses
>

that is the one thing I "can" do... that is what I have done so far...

> Keeping up with the regular "churn" of hardware changes means you'll be
> liable to need to modify details on an annual basis, and you'll have to
> very tightly specify what hardware must be used.
>
> After all, if you wrote a nifty display manager for an nVidia RIVA last
> year, you'd have found by now that the model you supported isn't
> commercially available anymore.
>
> If your goal is to continually struggle with the continual hardware
> changes, then that's the nature of your project. OS makers have been
> known to "punt" and basically say "Nope; we don't support hardware other
> than this tiny limited set."
>
> For instance, you need not bother trying to use Plan 9 on a system with
> an Adaptec SCSI controller; they don't support that at all. And it
> won't work with nVidia video hardware.
>
> You'll be left with that very sort of challenge, of, on the one hand,
> having to pick and choose some tiny set of compatible hardware, and, on
> the other, regularly rewriting parts of the system to ensure that
> there's _some_ current hardware on which your OS can run.
>

the general teqnique: use only hardware that hasn't changed much over
time... just about every modern video card is vga compatible... so mode-x
is an available option... the at style keyboard interface...

> The alternative: Use Linux or FreeBSD as the OS kernel, and XFree86 as
> the graphics "kernel." You can thus avoid writing much if any kernel
> code, and can run on the regularly-extended set of hardware that they
> support.
>

but that is the part I know allready...

> The question is then of how deeply to start trying to have the system
> "be Lisp."
>

I am trying to be "deep"...

> The "rather deep" choice would involve replacing Unix init with a Lisp
> program that basically populates a system that from there on down looks
> like Lisp, perhaps with an XFree86 process alongside to provide
> graphical services.
>

once for fiddling: I used a linux kernel with a few required libs to get a
java vm up and running (more specifically: kaffe).

>> either case either a cl or scheme os would probably be a starting point
>> for making a better os...
>> also as one can probably guess I work in the create/trash/rewrite process
>> (often reusing any good code...).
>>
>> are there similar projects to mine I can look at?
>
> Certainly there are. See the URL below for links to what largely amount
> to failed projects.

ok, I went off and wrote the parser... so now I am thinking of what to do
with the s-expressions...
assuming I use a computation stack I would have to:
evaluate arguments from left to right generating a list (backwards) with
the computed results; evaluate the function; push the list onto the
evaluation stack; and call the function.

I will probably have to look at other implementations (as I don't know
about this...).

Erik Naggum

unread,
Apr 2, 2002, 2:07:00 AM4/2/02
to
* Thomas Bushnell, BSG

| Huh? So you mean that asking you to put your words in a context where
| you might actually have to stand by them is somehow dishonest?

Because they have no business in that context, and I have made this very
clear from the start. You, however, make it their business, and that is
the only transgression relevant to them. What you do on a newsgroup is
not the business of unrelated business partners or colleagues. How you
deal with them is not my concern. If you use your colleagues as a shield
and claim that you can think clearly in comp.lang.lisp because you get
into the graduate program at the Unversity of california at Irvine,
Philosophy Department, I know that you are stark raving mad _here_, but
if you manage to behave well in a different setting, who cares? The
problem only starts when you point to a person outside of the forum and
_make_ him responsible for your behavior or somehow use him to claim that
criticism of your actions here are false. I really wonder what you will
come up with after your advisors/department/whatever line has run out.
Would you challenge me to write your mother? After all, it is far more
likely that she is responsible for your immature behavior and genetic
insufficiencies than your advisors/department/whatever, and even more
likely that you will succeed in using her as a shield instead of just
defending yourself and standing by what you say.

| Why are you so scared?

Huh? Why do you think I am scared? I actually know how harmful what you
want me to do to you would be. I want you to repeat the request so many
times that you cannot defend yourself by claiming that I "misunderstood"
you, and I want you to be very clear in that _you_ implicate these people
in your newsgroup behavior, because I do _not_ want to implicate them.
And the only thing I would do is to write them to ask if they are indeed
responsible for your behavior and have guaranteed that you can think
clearly.

What is becoming quite clear, however, is that you have some _serious_
coping problems and need professional help to get over your personality
disorders and how they pan out in your daily life. No fully rational man
continues to harp on this idiotic line for so long. I do not know what
you think you gain by continuing, but that I am a coward for not going to
people who have no business with your behavior here or that I am scared
are both so ludicrous that I think people will know just how nuts you are
from these stupid attempts at slander alone. But keep going. My intent
is only to make bad people self-destruct. You are well on your way. You
have an option to stop that you constantly refuse to exercise.

Thomas Bushnell, BSG

unread,
Apr 2, 2002, 2:30:54 AM4/2/02
to
Erik Naggum <er...@naggum.net> writes:

> * Thomas Bushnell, BSG
> | Huh? So you mean that asking you to put your words in a context where
> | you might actually have to stand by them is somehow dishonest?
>
> Because they have no business in that context, and I have made this very
> clear from the start.

Ah, so you want to call me an idiot, intellectually dishonest, unable
to think, and an evil person, and when you do this, it's not
attacking, and it's not something you're willing to say in a forum
where you could be held accountable for it.

> Huh? Why do you think I am scared? I actually know how harmful what you
> want me to do to you would be. I want you to repeat the request so many
> times that you cannot defend yourself by claiming that I "misunderstood"
> you, and I want you to be very clear in that _you_ implicate these people
> in your newsgroup behavior, because I do _not_ want to implicate
> them.

I don't think they are "implicated", as if they have anything to do
with what I post. I've never said they somehow have warranted or
agreed with anything I say. Merely that if I'm the horrible person
you think I am--if that's more than rhetorical bullying--then you
would have the courage to say it in some context where you'd have to
account for it with your wallet.

I want you to make your statements in print, in a way that is clearly
legally actionable, that's all. I chose them, because that's an
easier lawsuit to prosecute, and it wouldn't cost you more than a
stamp to send the letter.

An ad in a US newspaper would do as well.

> What is becoming quite clear, however, is that you have some _serious_
> coping problems and need professional help to get over your personality
> disorders and how they pan out in your daily life.

Ah, again, that's legally actionable, but slander is miserably
difficult to prosecute, which is why I wonder if you have the courage
to repeat what you say in a forum where it would clearly fall under
the libel statutes.

I suspect not.

Thomas

Erik Naggum

unread,
Apr 2, 2002, 5:21:46 AM4/2/02
to
* Thomas Bushnell, BSG

| Ah, so you want to call me an idiot, intellectually dishonest, unable to
| think, and an evil person, and when you do this, it's not attacking, and
| it's not something you're willing to say in a forum where you could be
| held accountable for it.

You have made it abundantly clear that these are statements of fact. As
such, they are not libelous in any form.

The _only_ reason that I supposedly cannot be held accountable for what I
write here is that you would be held accountable for what you write here,
too, and that would just kill you. I enjoy this implicit admission of
guilt from you. But my god, you are _so_ stupid and childish.

| Merely that if I'm the horrible person you think I am--if that's more
| than rhetorical bullying--then you would have the courage to say it in
| some context where you'd have to account for it with your wallet.

But what concern is it to people who do not actually have to deal with
you that you are a horribly evil person? They figure out soon enough,
just as we have here.

You see, this whole thing is tied directly to a personality disorder on
your end. You are actually _unable_ to deal with people other than in a
personal manner. The sheer lack of professionalism is a red flag to
anyone who would ever consider employing you. You have argued in favor
of disloyality to your superiors previously, and that was what told me
that you were a bad person. I would never hire someone who has spent a
huge amount of time attacking someone and not relenting, but just gets
worse over time, like you do. You do that, but you are too blind to your
own evil that you do not even recognize your own behavior. I mean you
actually had the gall to post this:

Do I engage in massive flame wars everywhere I go? Nope.

Your inability to accept responsibility for your own actions speaks
volumes about your personality. Clearly, you hide behind the falsehood
that you are not held accountable for what you write here, but you are.
You will discover in time. Would that I could be there when it happens.

| I want you to make your statements in print, in a way that is clearly
| legally actionable, that's all.

Again, the _only_ reason you do not pursue this from the USENET angle is
that you know that you would lose, big time if you even tried it. I
think you have gone whining and wimpering to a lawyer and this lawyer
asked to try to provke me to do something that was pursuable, but you are
such a fucking moron that you did not understand that I am in the clear
as it is. Your idiotic attempts to move this to a different forum is so
goddamn retarded and so insufferably _lame_ that anything I say about you
would be provable in court. Your lawyer should have told you that what
_you_ keep doing has made it possible for me to say just about anything
about you, yet you continue, you escalate the animosity and you do not
think clearly. This is quite fascinating. You are _clearly_ insane.

| I chose them, because that's an easier lawsuit to prosecute, and it
| wouldn't cost you more than a stamp to send the letter.

Well, just tell me the name and the address of the people you want me to
write to, and I shall consider it. But you would not post their names
and addresses because you have somehow figured out that you would be the
perpetrator if you did. I marvel at the magnitude of your insanity. I
also marvel at the ability of whichever lawyer you talked to who could
actually get you into believing that such a move would not backfire. You
are such a retarded bastard, Thomas Bushnell, it is _tragic_ to watch.

| An ad in a US newspaper would do as well.

Unlike you, I am concerned with your behavior _here_. You, and this S
Campion/Adam Tissa/Israel Ray Thomas character, take out ads all the time
to denounce me as a person, but I respond only to your actions. You will
in all likelihood never figure out the difference. This is what makes
you evil. This is what makes it impossible for you to even sue for libel
based on the interaction in this forum. You are so _stupid_!

| Ah, again, that's legally actionable, but slander is miserably difficult
| to prosecute, which is why I wonder if you have the courage to repeat
| what you say in a forum where it would clearly fall under the libel
| statutes.

This forum clearly falls under the libel statutes, already. However, an
independent scrutiny of what you have said here gives me the _right_ to
express the opinions of your character that I have expressed. You know
this, you miserable chickenshit, which is why you have to try to pretend
that I am after hurting you. I am not. You will never figure this out,
either, because you are the kind of person who are after people. This is
why I have said that you need to stop projection yourself onto me, which
you seem unable to do, so it must be outside your sphere of control.

You need _serious_ professional help, Thomas Bushnell, BCG. Seek help
before it is too late. People like you make such a mess when they figure
out what they are made of.

MSCHAEF.COM

unread,
Apr 2, 2002, 12:09:50 PM4/2/02
to
In article <32266773...@naggum.net>, Erik Naggum <er...@naggum.net> wrote:
>* cr88192 <cr8...@hotmail.com>
>| I can read well enough, I just don't really read fast and I don't like
>| reading mass amounts of stuff. I rather like things to be hopefully concise.
>
> Then you are at such a disadvantage in contemporary IT that you should
> work really hard to improve your reading speed. Double it, then double
> it again. A regular paperback page of prose (say, something by Tom
> Clancy or John Grisham) should take no more than 15 seconds to read with
> no loss of comprehension,

How did you get to this speed? I can read such books at approx 30-40
seconds/page, but any faster and I start to have issues with
comprehension. Are there any standard approaches to increasing reading
speed?

Thanks,
Mike

--
http://www.mschaef.com

Nils Goesche

unread,
Apr 2, 2002, 12:21:51 PM4/2/02
to

Have you tried to increase speed? I consciously did a few years ago
and found it quite doable. For one thing, don't imagine a voice
speaking the words you're reading. And don't try to read one word
after the other, but rather try to get several words, maybe sentences
at once. But I wouldn't recommend reading poetry that way :-)

Regards,
--
Nils Goesche
"Don't ask for whom the <CTRL-G> tolls."

PGP key ID 0x42B32FC9

Thomas Bushnell, BSG

unread,
Apr 2, 2002, 12:28:54 PM4/2/02
to
Erik Naggum <er...@naggum.net> writes:

> You have made it abundantly clear that these are statements of fact. As
> such, they are not libelous in any form.

Ok, we'll let a jury decide.

> The _only_ reason that I supposedly cannot be held accountable for what I
> write here is that you would be held accountable for what you write here,
> too, and that would just kill you. I enjoy this implicit admission of
> guilt from you. But my god, you are _so_ stupid and childish.

No, it's because it's not clear that Usenet is covered by the libel
statutes, and slander is much harder to deal with. Coward.

Thomas

Chris Jones

unread,
Apr 2, 2002, 12:50:12 PM4/2/02
to
David Golden <qnivq....@bprnaserr.arg> writes:

Chris Jones wrote:

> Erik Naggum <er...@naggum.net> writes:
>
> * cr88192 <cr8...@hotmail.com>
> | when I was younger I was supposedly mildly dyslexic, if that has any
> | real bearing on reading speed.
>
> So was I. Thosuands of hours of hard work cured it completely.
>
> ^^
> !!
> :)
>

It does illustrate a point - Thosuands and Thousands
are very similar "pictures" - and thus such a mistake has
very little bearing on reading speed if you are seeing the words
as pictures, but if you are still stuck at the
sounding-out-words-in-your-mind stage then it could
trip you up.

One thing I did in my posting was use only "pictures", not words. It
seems the meaning (a small joke on April Fools Day) got through. Of
course I know that typos aren't equivalent to lysdexia, and spoonerisms
are a different kettle of fish.

Kent M Pitman

unread,
Apr 2, 2002, 12:50:36 PM4/2/02
to
tb+u...@becket.net (Thomas Bushnell, BSG) writes:

Dudes, dudes...

My understanding of recent case law in newsgroup type things is that
all conversation is pretty much enclosed in a "my opinion is..."
quotation and that these charges are hard to carry though.

If you do want to make the charges, Thomas, please do it in court.
They have people employed to read and care.

I'm not a lawyer but my armchair opinion (offered free of charge, not
because I support "free law" but because the advice I'm offering may
well be worth what I'm charging) is that you will find the same
problem as Falwell's mother had in going after Larry Flynt for the
arguably slanderous statements made in Penthouse magazine. In order
to make your case of damage, you will have to first show that anyone
in their right mind would have believed Erik in the first place. But,
ironically, the only way to show that is to show that what he's saying
has an element of truth... If what he's saying is outlandish on its
face, it isn't injuring you. If it's not outlandish, that is, if it's
something a reasonable person having seen and observed you firsthand
here might still believe, it's not slander because truth is (in many
venues, at least) a defense.

The practical fact is that no one is listening or caring. All anyone
sees is "blah blah blah blah. not over yet. blah blah blah. this won't
be my last message. blah blah blah." So it's hard for them to form an
opinion other than the obvious opinion that this isn't about Lisp.

Please, everyone, just save the breath and just stand down. There are
more than enough Lisp things to spar over. And the great thing is, in
talking on-topic, it doesn't matter if you're a person of good
character or not. It only matters whether what you say is relevant to
the topic on the floor.

Each of us in our hearts out here has an opinion about what's really
going on, and more verbiage isn't likely to change it. It is likely to
give the forum a "cluttered" look.

Erik Naggum

unread,
Apr 2, 2002, 1:38:45 PM4/2/02
to
* msc...@io.com (MSCHAEF.COM)

| How did you get to this speed? I can read such books at approx 30-40
| seconds/page, but any faster and I start to have issues with
| comprehension. Are there any standard approaches to increasing reading
| speed?

There are many ways to learn to read (much) faster, but the first step is
generally to acquire the motor skills and to learn to move your eyes and
refocus at a very quick and steady pace. This takes quite some time,
because, naturally, comprehension will suffer during this training, but
the key is to focus on the speed and let comprehension follow, not to
believe that missing something is so fundamental that you have to go back
and re-read it or slow down. Then, learn to see a larger area of the
line -- most people read in an area on the paper only a quarter of an
inch wide, but you can expand this to at least one and a half inch,
sometimes two. Reading glasses that correct for astigmatism is necessary
to make this work well, as even a slight case of astigmatism may produce
blurry vision and cause a strain to recognize words unless they are dead
center in your focus area. It follows that you can read at a greater
distance from the screen/paper and using smaller fonts the better your
corrective lenses are. This effect should not be underestimated.

Also, approach reading as you approach other sensory input: increase your
observational skills by learning to soak up as much as possible as it
flows by. Nature has no rewiding button -- treat reading the same way.
This is generally a question of concentration and reading with a definite
purpose to understand or visualize what is presented to you. In this
sense, reading faster is just a case of increasing your internal clock
speed. Most people can do this with no problem, but few people make a
habit of it, because it does require more mental energy to be spent both
in increasing and maintaining concentration. I believe it is a question
of whether you can also "listen" to a text instead of wanting to make
sense of it or make it fit your preconceptions of what it "should" say.

Some people seem to approach the world with a prescriptive attitude -- or
forcing the world they deal with to conform to their current thinking --
while others never stop observing it in order to form their current
thinking. Most of the former are unable to understand that the latter
type even exists because they are guided by their preconceptions, not
their observations. In any case, those who are able to observe the flow
of information thet they are subjected to, can also learn to read fast
mechanically and decide to focus more or less on what they read, somewhat
like having CNN or some news-only radio station run in the background.
The sensory input to which we are naturally prepared to be subjected is
truly vast, and so much more than reading a page or a screen offers, yet
the amount of information that becomes the subject of conscious awareness
if quite limited -- unless one concentrates on absorbing first and
selecting afterwards.

Strangely, many who start to read faster observe that they get much
better reading comprehension from reading mechanically faster and
"letting go" of their need to comprehend fully at all times, because they
allow more of the comprehension to proceed less linearly. This also
relaes to how we deal with speed. One of the major reasons that older
people drive more slowly than younger people is that their processing
speed is so much slower that sensory overload incurs below 40 mph, while
a younger person who has been trained to speed up his cognition can
easily drive more safely at 100 mph. Things like talking to another
person in the car, listening to the radio (with varying focus) or talking
on a cellular phone (handsfree or not does not make any difference) eats
away at the concentration and require reduced speed. The same goes for
reading, although the ability to block out annoyances has no safety risk
associated with them.

In a nutshell, this is all about concentration.

MSCHAEF.COM

unread,
Apr 2, 2002, 2:51:08 PM4/2/02
to
In article <a8cpbf$rb4mh$1...@ID-125440.news.dfncis.de>,

Nils Goesche <car...@cartan.de> wrote:
>In article <yBlq8.6913$TG6.1...@bin5.nnrp.aus1.giganews.com>,
>MSCHAEF.COM wrote:
>> In article <32266773...@naggum.net>, Erik Naggum
><er...@naggum.net> wrote:
>>>* cr88192 <cr8...@hotmail.com>
>>>| I can read well enough, I just don't really read fast and I don't like
>>>| reading mass amounts of stuff. I rather like things to be hopefully
>concise.
>>>
>>> Then you are at such a disadvantage in contemporary IT that you should
>>> work really hard to improve your reading speed. Double it, then double
>>> it again. A regular paperback page of prose (say, something by Tom
>>> Clancy or John Grisham) should take no more than 15 seconds to read with
>>> no loss of comprehension,
>>
>> How did you get to this speed? I can read such books at approx 30-40
>> seconds/page, but any faster and I start to have issues with
>> comprehension. Are there any standard approaches to increasing reading
>> speed?
>
>Have you tried to increase speed?

Halfheartedly.

> I consciously did a few years ago
>and found it quite doable. For one thing, don't imagine a voice
>speaking the words you're reading. And don't try to read one word
>after the other, but rather try to get several words, maybe sentences
>at once.

I'll give it a shot. Thanks for the advice.

-Mike

--
http://www.mschaef.com

cr88192

unread,
Apr 2, 2002, 12:42:47 PM4/2/02
to
Erik Naggum wrote:

> * msc...@io.com (MSCHAEF.COM)
> | How did you get to this speed? I can read such books at approx 30-40
> | seconds/page, but any faster and I start to have issues with
> | comprehension. Are there any standard approaches to increasing reading
> | speed?
>
> There are many ways to learn to read (much) faster, but the first step
> is generally to acquire the motor skills and to learn to move your eyes
> and
> refocus at a very quick and steady pace. This takes quite some time,
> because, naturally, comprehension will suffer during this training, but
> the key is to focus on the speed and let comprehension follow, not to
> believe that missing something is so fundamental that you have to go
> back
> and re-read it or slow down. Then, learn to see a larger area of the
> line -- most people read in an area on the paper only a quarter of an
> inch wide, but you can expand this to at least one and a half inch,
> sometimes two. Reading glasses that correct for astigmatism is
> necessary to make this work well, as even a slight case of astigmatism
> may produce blurry vision and cause a strain to recognize words unless
> they are dead
> center in your focus area. It follows that you can read at a greater
> distance from the screen/paper and using smaller fonts the better your
> corrective lenses are. This effect should not be underestimated.
>

interesting tip...

> Also, approach reading as you approach other sensory input: increase
> your observational skills by learning to soak up as much as possible as
> it
> flows by. Nature has no rewiding button -- treat reading the same way.
> This is generally a question of concentration and reading with a
> definite
> purpose to understand or visualize what is presented to you. In this
> sense, reading faster is just a case of increasing your internal clock
> speed. Most people can do this with no problem, but few people make a
> habit of it, because it does require more mental energy to be spent both
> in increasing and maintaining concentration. I believe it is a question
> of whether you can also "listen" to a text instead of wanting to make
> sense of it or make it fit your preconceptions of what it "should" say.
>

I am sort of on/off in this respect...

> Some people seem to approach the world with a prescriptive attitude --
> or forcing the world they deal with to conform to their current thinking
> -- while others never stop observing it in order to form their current
> thinking. Most of the former are unable to understand that the latter
> type even exists because they are guided by their preconceptions, not
> their observations. In any case, those who are able to observe the flow
> of information thet they are subjected to, can also learn to read fast
> mechanically and decide to focus more or less on what they read,
> somewhat like having CNN or some news-only radio station run in the
> background. The sensory input to which we are naturally prepared to be
> subjected is truly vast, and so much more than reading a page or a
> screen offers, yet the amount of information that becomes the subject of
> conscious awareness if quite limited -- unless one concentrates on
> absorbing first and selecting afterwards.
>

oddly this brings up partial emotional thoughts...
my world is allways changing...

sometimes I am annoyed by those who cannot see change, to realize that the
past was not like now and the future will not be like now... or for them to
realize that they might be wrong...

> Strangely, many who start to read faster observe that they get much
> better reading comprehension from reading mechanically faster and
> "letting go" of their need to comprehend fully at all times, because
> they
> allow more of the comprehension to proceed less linearly. This also
> relaes to how we deal with speed. One of the major reasons that older
> people drive more slowly than younger people is that their processing
> speed is so much slower that sensory overload incurs below 40 mph, while
> a younger person who has been trained to speed up his cognition can
> easily drive more safely at 100 mph. Things like talking to another
> person in the car, listening to the radio (with varying focus) or
> talking on a cellular phone (handsfree or not does not make any
> difference) eats
> away at the concentration and require reduced speed. The same goes for
> reading, although the ability to block out annoyances has no safety risk
> associated with them.
>
> In a nutshell, this is all about concentration.
>

funny, much of my thought tends to occure in the background... especially
about programming. I try to hammer in a bunch of info at once and see what
goes on in my head.

my problem is that I still read slow (measures of between 80 and 140 wpm).
but often when I am tested after reading a section of text I make very few
(if any) mistakes. in this mode however I do process stuff immediatly.

I can also "skim" (if I understand the concept right) which consists of
reading fast but doing little immediate processing (this however does not
seem to work on tests, as when I get to the test fragment the info is not
fully processed). I have not been tested in this mode...
oddly I can more quickly skim code than I can written text...

in dealing with code my mind does get to recognize shapes (mostly in c):
token token; //variable
token token(token token,...) //function
... and tends to process structure more on indenting than on braces...

Julian Stecklina

unread,
Apr 2, 2002, 9:55:42 PM4/2/02
to
Nils Goesche <car...@cartan.de> writes:

[reading speed]


> Have you tried to increase speed? I consciously did a few years ago
> and found it quite doable. For one thing, don't imagine a voice
> speaking the words you're reading. And don't try to read one word
> after the other, but rather try to get several words, maybe sentences
> at once. But I wouldn't recommend reading poetry that way :-)

Ok, you can read this way, but it destroys all the pleasure of
reading. Reading is some kind of work then. And you have to
concentrate to really understand what you have read.


Regards,
Julian
--
Meine Hompage: http://julian.re6.de

Ich suche eine PCMCIA v1.x type I/II/III Netzwerkkarte.
Ich biete als Tauschobjekt eine v2 100MBit Karte in OVP.

Geoffrey Summerhayes

unread,
Apr 3, 2002, 1:16:58 AM4/3/02
to

"Julian Stecklina" <der_j...@web.de> wrote in message
news:876639w...@blitz.comp.com...

> Nils Goesche <car...@cartan.de> writes:
>
> [reading speed]
> > Have you tried to increase speed? I consciously did a few years ago
> > and found it quite doable. For one thing, don't imagine a voice
> > speaking the words you're reading. And don't try to read one word
> > after the other, but rather try to get several words, maybe sentences
> > at once. But I wouldn't recommend reading poetry that way :-)
>
> Ok, you can read this way, but it destroys all the pleasure of
> reading. Reading is some kind of work then. And you have to
> concentrate to really understand what you have read.
>

Nonsense. First, comprehension and retention increase
with practice. Second, a lot depends on the work, I
found the amount of time required to read "Needful
Things" by King to be less than Clavell's Shogun by a
factor of ten. Last, there is nothing to stop you
from slowing down when you want to savour what you
are reading or need additional time to digest a
difficult passage,it's speeding up that takes work.

I love reading and I personally find the ability to
set my pace over a large range increases my enjoyment.
Not to mention I can read MORE...

hehe, YMMV :-)

-----------
Geoff

Nils Goesche

unread,
Apr 3, 2002, 6:28:26 AM4/3/02
to
In article <v7xq8.15175$un4.2...@news20.bellglobal.com>, Geoffrey Summerhayes wrote:
>
> "Julian Stecklina" <der_j...@web.de> wrote in message
> news:876639w...@blitz.comp.com...
>> Nils Goesche <car...@cartan.de> writes:
>>
>> [reading speed]
>> > at once. But I wouldn't recommend reading poetry that way :-)
>>
>> Ok, you can read this way, but it destroys all the pleasure of
>> reading. Reading is some kind of work then. And you have to
>> concentrate to really understand what you have read.

That's why I said ``don't do it with poetry'' :-)

> Nonsense. First, comprehension and retention increase
> with practice. Second, a lot depends on the work, I
> found the amount of time required to read "Needful
> Things" by King to be less than Clavell's Shogun by a
> factor of ten. Last, there is nothing to stop you
> from slowing down when you want to savour what you
> are reading or need additional time to digest a
> difficult passage,it's speeding up that takes work.

It's not only about difficulty. I slow myself deliberately down
whenever I read something written in very beautiful language; if
the language has some inner ``tone'', ``melody'', or ``rhythm''.
That would be lost if all you're after if is ``content''.

> I love reading and I personally find the ability to
> set my pace over a large range increases my enjoyment.
> Not to mention I can read MORE...

Yeah, but OTOH, I'd think you missed something if you told me
``Hey, I just read 723 Goethe poems last night!'' :-)

Immanuel Litzroth

unread,
Apr 3, 2002, 7:41:01 AM4/3/02
to
>>>>> "Nils" == Nils Goesche <car...@cartan.de> writes:

Nils> Yeah, but OTOH, I'd think you missed something if you told
Nils> me ``Hey, I just read 723 Goethe poems last night!'' :-)

As Woody Allen puts it:
I took a speed reading course and read War and Peace in 20 minutes.
It involves Russia.

Immanuel

Marc Battyani

unread,
Apr 3, 2002, 8:02:01 AM4/3/02
to

"Erik Naggum" <er...@naggum.net> wrote

> * msc...@io.com (MSCHAEF.COM)
> | How did you get to this speed? I can read such books at approx 30-40
> | seconds/page, but any faster and I start to have issues with
> | comprehension. Are there any standard approaches to increasing reading
> | speed?
>
> There are many ways to learn to read (much) faster, but the first step
is
> generally to acquire the motor skills and to learn to move your eyes and
> refocus at a very quick and steady pace. This takes quite some time,
> because, naturally, comprehension will suffer during this training, but
> the key is to focus on the speed and let comprehension follow, not to
> believe that missing something is so fundamental that you have to go
back
> and re-read it or slow down. Then, learn to see a larger area of the
> line -- most people read in an area on the paper only a quarter of an
> inch wide, but you can expand this to at least one and a half inch,
> sometimes two. Reading glasses that correct for astigmatism is
necessary
> to make this work well, as even a slight case of astigmatism may produce
> blurry vision and cause a strain to recognize words unless they are dead
> center in your focus area. It follows that you can read at a greater
> distance from the screen/paper and using smaller fonts the better your
> corrective lenses are. This effect should not be underestimated.

Improving motor and focusing skills is a very good start. But they are still
the limiting factor. To go even faster, you have to use various techniques
like bi-directional reading, 2 lines at time reading, etc. The theory is
that the processing power of the brain can compensate for the limited input
speed and for putting stuff back into the proper order.
I attended a "fast reading" seminar some years ago. At the beginning of this
seminar, the speaker projected small sentences for a very short time and
then asked people to tell what they read. The interesting point was that the
sentences were correctly given even when the words were permuted. This
allows to grab chunks of text not only lines and let the brain put it back
in order. It seems strange at first but it works. I was a natural rather
fast reader at 700 to 800 words/min but at the end of the seminar I was at
1200 to 1400 w/min
A quick google search for "fast reading" or "speed reading" give lots of
material on the subject and I invite people interested in this to try to
improve their reading skills.

> Also, approach reading as you approach other sensory input: increase
your
> observational skills by learning to soak up as much as possible as it
> flows by. Nature has no rewiding button -- treat reading the same way.
> This is generally a question of concentration and reading with a
definite
> purpose to understand or visualize what is presented to you. In this
> sense, reading faster is just a case of increasing your internal clock
> speed. Most people can do this with no problem, but few people make a
> habit of it, because it does require more mental energy to be spent both
> in increasing and maintaining concentration. I believe it is a question
> of whether you can also "listen" to a text instead of wanting to make
> sense of it or make it fit your preconceptions of what it "should" say.

...


> The sensory input to which we are naturally prepared to be subjected is
> truly vast, and so much more than reading a page or a screen offers, yet
> the amount of information that becomes the subject of conscious
awareness
> if quite limited -- unless one concentrates on absorbing first and
> selecting afterwards.

> Strangely, many who start to read faster observe that they get much
> better reading comprehension from reading mechanically faster and
> "letting go" of their need to comprehend fully at all times, because
they
> allow more of the comprehension to proceed less linearly.

Also when the brain has to work more it is more concentrated on what it
does.

> In a nutshell, this is all about concentration.

And practice.

Marc


Geoffrey Summerhayes

unread,
Apr 3, 2002, 9:04:23 AM4/3/02
to

"Nils Goesche" <car...@cartan.de> wrote in message
news:a8ep0q$rjpd2$1...@ID-125440.news.dfncis.de...

> In article <v7xq8.15175$un4.2...@news20.bellglobal.com>, Geoffrey
Summerhayes wrote:
> >
> That's why I said ``don't do it with poetry'' :-)
>
> > Nonsense. First, comprehension and retention increase
> > with practice. Second, a lot depends on the work, I
> > found the amount of time required to read "Needful
> > Things" by King to be less than Clavell's Shogun by a
> > factor of ten. Last, there is nothing to stop you
> > from slowing down when you want to savour what you
> > are reading or need additional time to digest a
> > difficult passage,it's speeding up that takes work.
>
> It's not only about difficulty. I slow myself deliberately down
> whenever I read something written in very beautiful language; if
> the language has some inner ``tone'', ``melody'', or ``rhythm''.
> That would be lost if all you're after if is ``content''.
>

Hmmm..If I were you, I would work on my comprehension,
read my last point more carefully. One of my favourite
authors is the science fiction author Jack Vance, I find
his novels use English in a very exacting way, so much
so I can recognize his work after only a few pages...
by the taste. :-)

Geoff

Erik Naggum

unread,
Apr 3, 2002, 10:22:18 AM4/3/02
to
* Julian Stecklina

| Ok, you can read this way, but it destroys all the pleasure of
| reading. Reading is some kind of work then. And you have to
| concentrate to really understand what you have read.

When you started to learn to read, it was all like this. It was pretty
hard work by adult standard, but then you got the hang of it and it
became effortless. The same goes for reading faster. Indeed, all
thinking skills are very hard work when you are not training for them.

MSCHAEF.COM

unread,
Apr 3, 2002, 12:02:37 PM4/3/02
to
In article <32267615...@naggum.net>, Erik Naggum <er...@naggum.net> wrote:
>* msc...@io.com (MSCHAEF.COM)
>| How did you get to this speed? I can read such books at approx 30-40
>| seconds/page, but any faster and I start to have issues with
>| comprehension. Are there any standard approaches to increasing reading
>| speed?
>

Thanks for the detailed response, Erik. I have a fair bit to think
about regarding this issue. To be honest, my only prior experience with
explicit techniques for increasing reading speed was back in grade
school. My school had a machine that displayed text at an adjustable
speed, with no backtracking. In a way, it makes explicit some of what
you talk about when you describe 'no rewinding'.

> This takes quite some time,
> because, naturally, comprehension will suffer during this training, but
> the key is to focus on the speed and let comprehension follow, not to
> believe that missing something is so fundamental that you have to go back
> and re-read it or slow down.

I do this pretty frequently, actually. Maybe it's part of the issue,
but I pretty often go back and reread sections of text to ensure that
I'm comprenending what I've just read.

> Reading glasses that correct for astigmatism is necessary
> to make this work well, as even a slight case of astigmatism may produce
> blurry vision and cause a strain to recognize words unless they are dead
> center in your focus area.

That might be an issue too. I've had lousy eyesight for quite some time
and have recently replaced my glasses with a better prescription.

Thomas F. Burdick

unread,
Apr 3, 2002, 5:50:19 PM4/3/02
to
"Geoffrey Summerhayes" <sumNOS...@hotmail.com> writes:

> "Julian Stecklina" <der_j...@web.de> wrote in message
> news:876639w...@blitz.comp.com...
> > Nils Goesche <car...@cartan.de> writes:
> >
> > [reading speed]
> > > Have you tried to increase speed? I consciously did a few years ago
> > > and found it quite doable. For one thing, don't imagine a voice
> > > speaking the words you're reading. And don't try to read one word
> > > after the other, but rather try to get several words, maybe sentences
> > > at once. But I wouldn't recommend reading poetry that way :-)
> >
> > Ok, you can read this way, but it destroys all the pleasure of
> > reading. Reading is some kind of work then. And you have to
> > concentrate to really understand what you have read.

It really does depend on what you're reading. If I'm reading CS
papers, my speed is all over the place, depending on how much I have
to think about what I'm reading. Speed reading is fantastic for
reading the newspaper, too.

> Nonsense. First, comprehension and retention increase
> with practice. Second, a lot depends on the work, I
> found the amount of time required to read "Needful
> Things" by King to be less than Clavell's Shogun by a
> factor of ten. Last, there is nothing to stop you
> from slowing down when you want to savour what you
> are reading or need additional time to digest a
> difficult passage,it's speeding up that takes work.

Exactly. And anyone who reads Virginia Wolf so fast that they're not
saying the words in their head should be shot :)

--
/|_ .-----------------------.
,' .\ / | No to Imperialist war |
,--' _,' | Wage class war! |
/ / `-----------------------'
( -. |
| ) |
(`-. '--.)
`. )----'

Kenny Tilton

unread,
Apr 4, 2002, 1:26:05 AM4/4/02
to

"Thomas F. Burdick" wrote:
> Exactly. And anyone who reads Virginia Wolf so fast that they're not
> saying the words in their head should be shot :)

Barbarian. The death penalty requires aggravating circumstances:
speed-reading the Cliff notes on Wolf.

:)

Julian Stecklina

unread,
Apr 4, 2002, 5:52:34 AM4/4/02
to
Erik Naggum <er...@naggum.net> writes:

> * Julian Stecklina
> | Ok, you can read this way, but it destroys all the pleasure of
> | reading. Reading is some kind of work then. And you have to
> | concentrate to really understand what you have read.
>
> When you started to learn to read, it was all like this. It was pretty
> hard work by adult standard, but then you got the hang of it and it
> became effortless. The same goes for reading faster. Indeed, all
> thinking skills are very hard work when you are not training for them.


After following this thread I am really tempted to practice "speed
reading" myself. There is a 1000-page Tom Clancy novel lying on my
desk... I want to "consume" it as fast as possible, so I can return to
Discworld. :)

Bruce Hoult

unread,
Apr 4, 2002, 6:59:17 AM4/4/02
to
In article <sfwr8ly...@shell01.TheWorld.com>,

Kent M Pitman <pit...@world.std.com> wrote:

> I'm not a lawyer but my armchair opinion (offered free of charge, not
> because I support "free law" but because the advice I'm offering may
> well be worth what I'm charging) is that you will find the same
> problem as Falwell's mother had in going after Larry Flynt for the
> arguably slanderous statements made in Penthouse magazine. In order
> to make your case of damage, you will have to first show that anyone
> in their right mind would have believed Erik in the first place. But,
> ironically, the only way to show that is to show that what he's saying
> has an element of truth... If what he's saying is outlandish on its
> face, it isn't injuring you. If it's not outlandish, that is, if it's
> something a reasonable person having seen and observed you firsthand
> here might still believe, it's not slander because truth is (in many
> venues, at least) a defense.

See also Carl Sagan vs Apple Computer, a case brought when Sagan learned
that the Apple internal code names for the first three models of PowerPC
Macintosh were "Piltdown Man", "Cold Fusion" and "Sagan", supposedly
denoting the three biggest hoaxes ever.

Actually, I seem to recall that Sagan merely *threatened* to sue over
this, upon which Apple legal told the techies to rename the project,
which they did, to "BHA". Sagan then in fact sued, claiming that BHA
stood for "Butt Headed Astronomer".

The case then went exactly as you describe above.

-- Bruce

Thomas Bushnell, BSG

unread,
Apr 4, 2002, 1:44:29 PM4/4/02
to
Kent M Pitman <pit...@world.std.com> writes:

> I'm not a lawyer but my armchair opinion (offered free of charge, not
> because I support "free law" but because the advice I'm offering may
> well be worth what I'm charging) is that you will find the same
> problem as Falwell's mother had in going after Larry Flynt for the
> arguably slanderous statements made in Penthouse magazine.

This is precisely why I challenged Erik to put his slanders in the
form of a letter to the people who review my progress in graduate
school.

Barry Wilkes

unread,
Apr 4, 2002, 3:47:54 PM4/4/02
to
Kent M Pitman <pit...@world.std.com> writes:
>
> I'm not a lawyer but my armchair opinion (offered free of charge, not
> because I support "free law" but because the advice I'm offering may
> well be worth what I'm charging) is that you will find the same
> problem as Falwell's mother had in going after Larry Flynt for the
> arguably slanderous statements made in Penthouse magazine.

Slander is the spoken word. You mean libelous statements made in Penthouse
magazine.

I'm not a lawyer either.

Barry.

Erik Naggum

unread,
Apr 4, 2002, 5:37:19 PM4/4/02
to
* Thomas Bushnell, BSG

| This is precisely why I challenged Erik to put his slanders in the form
| of a letter to the people who review my progress in graduate school.

So name them. They are not involved in this until _you_ involve them.
There is no reason whatsoever for me to do anything like you stupidly
want simply so you can find a way to take revenge when you cannot do it
now. You admit to have lost, that you can do nothing about what _you_
perceive as a gross violation. Maybe it simply is not what you think it
is? Maybe you should realize that the only recourse you would have is to
make it something it is not, but that this requires cooperation wigh a
similarly self-destructive disorder on my end, and conclude that it is in
fact no point whatsoever to even _ask_ for this idoicy, that it makes you
look like even more of a moron to make this stupid revenge point. I have
described your _behavior_ here. It is _amazingly_ uintelligent. Just
behave smarter, and the criticism will also go away. It really is that
simple. Whining that my description is so accurate that it is slanderous
and libelous is actually even more deserving of the same description.

The _only_ working recourse after having been stupid or idiotic is to
_stop_ being stupid and idiotic, even if you do not "agree" that it is
stupid or idiotic. If you cannot deal with this kind of "disagreement",
it is actually nobody's business but your own. Do not try to make it
anyone else's.

By admitting that you cannot change your behavior and put the "slander"
to shame _that_ way, you simply prove it true, and more so: By whining
about it, you prove it even _more_ true. Just be intelligent about it.

///
--
In a fight against something, the fight has value, victory has none.
In a fight for something, the fight is a loss, victory merely relief.

Post with compassion: http://home.chello.no/~xyzzy/kitten.jpg

Kent M Pitman

unread,
Apr 4, 2002, 10:08:56 PM4/4/02
to
Barry Wilkes <wil...@acm.org> writes:

Hey, I knew that. I was just testing you, Barry. ;)

Actually, I have some philosophical problems with the notions of
slander and libel. I think the traditional distinction of
spoken/written is dealt with overly pedantically. I think the real
reason for the split is (a) that the spoken word was more dynamic and
that saying something bad is just of a different magnitude than
writing it, but (b) publishing used to be an elite activity and so the
opportunity to reply (and hence to correct) was limited.

I perosnally disagree with any notion of slander when the two people
are present and allowed to speak. That is, the supreme court has said
that, in general, the best answer to bad speech is "more speech".
Consequently, since we are in a forum that is not elite and in which
dynamicity is at a near peak, and in which either party can
immediately correct a mistatement, there is no need to get the courts
involved in a process for which adequate conversational corrective
mechanism already exists. Therefore, I think the supreme court is
just exactly right in opining on slander/libel situations where both
people are involved in the discussion. If one person being discussed
is not involved, that perhaps makes it a little worse, though the right
thing still seems to me for the person to just post a corrective statement.

Sending an unsolicted message to a private recipient without the relevant
context to understand the message would be a worse thing to do, indeed,
but there's no evidence that Erik planned to do that.

If I were a lawyer, which I'm not, I would think that openly admitting
you were trying to trick someone into sending such a private message
could work against the person making that admission. Not for the
obvious reason of "oh, look at that trickery", but for the more subtle
implication that being happy with the other person doing the deed
suggests that the person doing the baiting could adequately defend any
such charge if it comes up, and so as a consequence it is more
confirming evidence that the person doing the bainting thinks nothing
is at risk. And if nothing is at risk, the statement must be, by
definition, fairly innocuous regardless of the superficial form it
takes. It's also a statement against interest, which is normally
taken as stronger evidence of truth by the courts. So when he says "I
want you to do this", a legal argument might be constructed that the
baiter really did strongly want this, and that the baitee was really
honestly being invited and offered express permission. Would such an
argument work? I don't know. I'm not a lawyer.

Larry Clapp

unread,
Apr 5, 2002, 11:26:39 AM4/5/02
to
Kent M Pitman <pit...@world.std.com> wrote in message news:<sfwr8ly...@shell01.TheWorld.com>...

> I'm not a lawyer but my armchair opinion (offered free of charge, not
> because I support "free law" but because the advice I'm offering may
> well be worth what I'm charging) is that you will find the same
> problem as Falwell's mother had in going after Larry Flynt for the
> arguably slanderous statements made in Penthouse magazine. In order
> to make your case of damage, you will have to first show that anyone
> in their right mind would have believed Erik in the first place. But,
> ironically, the only way to show that is to show that what he's saying
> has an element of truth... If what he's saying is outlandish on its
> face, it isn't injuring you.

Theoretically speaking, could he not (attempt to) show that a) some
people on the ng hold Erik in high regard, and b) that said people
might believe Erik regardless of the "outlandishness" of it?

For example, if *I* said something outlandish, most of the people here
would probably ignore it (if they haven't killfiled me already :). If
*you* said something outlandish, I think at least some of the people
here would think, "Okay, that sounded pretty outlandish ... but Kent
said it, and Kent doesn't normally go off the deep end like that, so
maybe what he says has an element of truth ... ."

OTOH, you're not a lawyer, so why am I asking you? ("he said,
outlandishly." :)

-- Larry

Thomas Bushnell, BSG

unread,
Apr 5, 2002, 1:27:31 PM4/5/02
to
goo...@theclapp.org (Larry Clapp) writes:

> Theoretically speaking, could he not (attempt to) show that a) some
> people on the ng hold Erik in high regard, and b) that said people
> might believe Erik regardless of the "outlandishness" of it?

In any case, if Erik's statement is not intended to be taken at face
value, and if he's joshing, or using rhetorical excess, then he could
have said so, once he realized that his words were an issue...

He wants me to take them seriously, however. But the defense "hey, on
Usenet nobody believes anything" would mean that he doesn't expect
anyone else to take the seriously.

Thomas

Erik Naggum

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Apr 5, 2002, 3:10:27 PM4/5/02
to
* Thomas Bushnell, BSG

| In any case, if Erik's statement is not intended to be taken at face
| value, and if he's joshing, or using rhetorical excess, then he could
| have said so, once he realized that his words were an issue...

What makes you think anyone will believe you if you claim that you did
not know what you let yourself in on when you opened fire on me? Have
you apologized for anything you have said? No. Are you going to? No.
If you are so unable to understand your own role that you _stupidly_ have
to make your own behavior and an accurate description of them someone
else's problem, you deserve everything you got.

| He wants me to take them seriously, however. But the defense "hey, on
| Usenet nobody believes anything" would mean that he doesn't expect anyone
| else to take the seriously.

You knew what you were going to. You picked a fight. You got it. Now
you are sore that you lost. Get over yourself.

Considering the early mail exchange we had, where you seemed to provide
me with proof of your understanding of the need not to engage in flame
wars and the fact that you still did, I think I have ample grounds for my
determination of your lack of exercise of whatever intellectual abilities
you might possess. You have dug your own grave. Deal with it.

Quit whining and just behave intelligently. That is your redemption:
Render my discription inaccurate. As of now, it is very accurate, and
the more you continue whining the way you do, the more accurate it gets.

cbbr...@acm.org

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Apr 14, 2002, 4:20:48 PM4/14/02
to
I'm bouncing this back over to comp.lang.lisp, as it's probably more of
"general interest" than of my interest.

On Mon, 01 Apr 2002 20:30:49 GMT, the world broke into rejoicing as
"cr88192 sydney" <cr8...@hotmail.com> said:
> >A really interesting project to take on might be to look at OpenMCL,
> >and consider writing an IA-32 code generator for it that might allow
> >using it on IA-32 platforms.

> from what I have seen of things I think with cl one might try to build
> the underlying os from the lisp standpoint than building lisp from the
> os standpoint, I may be wrong...

Counterargument:

Getting an OS working involves a whole lot of fiddling around figuring
out how to interface with:
a) Disk drives;
b) Graphics cards;
c) Keyboards;
d) Motherboards, CPUs, memory buses

Keeping up with the regular "churn" of hardware changes means you'll be
liable to need to modify details on an annual basis, and you'll have to
very tightly specify what hardware must be used.

After all, if you wrote a nifty display manager for an nVidia RIVA last
year, you'd have found by now that the model you supported isn't
commercially available anymore.

If your goal is to continually struggle with the continual hardware
changes, then that's the nature of your project. OS makers have been
known to "punt" and basically say "Nope; we don't support hardware other
than this tiny limited set."

For instance, you need not bother trying to use Plan 9 on a system with
an Adaptec SCSI controller; they don't support that at all. And it
won't work with nVidia video hardware.

You'll be left with that very sort of challenge, of, on the one hand,
having to pick and choose some tiny set of compatible hardware, and, on
the other, regularly rewriting parts of the system to ensure that
there's _some_ current hardware on which your OS can run.

The alternative: Use Linux or FreeBSD as the OS kernel, and XFree86 as
the graphics "kernel." You can thus avoid writing much if any kernel
code, and can run on the regularly-extended set of hardware that they
support.

The question is then of how deeply to start trying to have the system
"be Lisp."

The "rather deep" choice would involve replacing Unix init with a Lisp
program that basically populates a system that from there on down looks
like Lisp, perhaps with an XFree86 process alongside to provide
graphical services.

> either case either a cl or scheme os would probably be a starting point for
> making a better os...
> also as one can probably guess I work in the create/trash/rewrite process
> (often reusing any good code...).
>
> are there similar projects to mine I can look at?

Certainly there are. See the URL below for links to what largely amount
to failed projects.
--
(reverse (concatenate 'string "gro.mca@" "enworbbc"))
http://www3.sympatico.ca/cbbrowne/lisposes.html
We are Pentium of Borg. Division is futile. You will be approximated.
(seen in someone's .signature)

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