> I am fine now, I am just like that sometimes. I try not to let it effect > things too much. > as far as I know I have allways been like this, and really what does it > matter to anyone besides me?... I have been fine recently.
Not that I'm pushing you here, but this is a dead on classic thinking pattern. You must at least wuestion it, and keep in mind that you _may_ not be able to trust your self-worth instincts.
> for all I know it doesn't really exist as I have often thought I have had > things that I didn't, and I can't seem to identify the variation.
Well, then you should feel reassured, because here, you aren't the one saying you might "have something" ;) Really though, if you have some friends who are personally close, you would probably be best advised to overtly discuss this with them a little bit and ask them to maybe spend a little time looking for relevant information. (I say this because on the one hand, there is a lot of misinformation out there about these things and you can't just go to a doctor and assume s/he's remotely competant, and because depression is more common than people tend to think: a good fraction of people have or do deal with it in their or someone close's lives.)
> I can force myself to look cheery when dealing with people anyways, and > most of the time that works well enough.
If you have to do this with any frequency, and it isn't based on the people specifically, that's a very bad warning. Think about it this way: "putting on a happy face" is _pretending_ to be happy. What that does is (a) insures that you don't get actually happy during that time, and (b) helps you mentally distance your "self" from the idea/feeling of being happy, and (c) sets you up for an eventual crash where you realize that the "happy you" is not the "real you" and that you haven't spent enough time with the "real you" to know what it is, _and_ as if that wasn't enough, (d) prevents others from knowing about any problems or being prepared for such a crash, leaving even those who would help confused and unable to react.
> I don't mean to discredit you in any way...
No worries. I'm not making a professional diagnosis--just saying, "These are solid signs for something that people don't tend to catch even when it's beating them on the head."
(Oh, and the fact that you might even feel that your counterstatement might be taken by me as something akin to discrediting points to an overly effective sense of guilt, which -- while it would be really nice if more people exhibited it -- is a key factor in depression (it's part of how depression puts your mind against itself).)
>> I am fine now, I am just like that sometimes. I try not to let it effect >> things too much. >> as far as I know I have allways been like this, and really what does it >> matter to anyone besides me?... I have been fine recently.
> Not that I'm pushing you here, but this is a dead on classic thinking > pattern. You must at least wuestion it, and keep in mind that you _may_ > not be able to trust your self-worth instincts.
otherwise I would probably end up over promoting myself or something, or make myself look like I have too much ego...
>> for all I know it doesn't really exist as I have often thought I have had >> things that I didn't, and I can't seem to identify the variation.
> Well, then you should feel reassured, because here, you aren't the one > saying you might "have something" ;) Really though, if you have some > friends who are personally close, you would probably be best advised to > overtly discuss this with them a little bit and ask them to maybe spend a > little time looking for relevant information. (I say this because on the > one hand, there is a lot of misinformation out there about these things > and you can't just go to a doctor and assume s/he's remotely competant, > and because depression is more common than people tend to think: a good > fraction of people have or do deal with it in their or someone close's > lives.)
I don't really have friends, I can't really seem to get along with people... yet I can't really get away from people either, I am stuck with people whom I can't really associate. if I could control myself better and maybe prevent myself from acting like a spaz then maybe things would be better.
all there is is my girlfriend, and I try to keep myself together for her...
psychologists say I have autism... or at least they did one time I went to one (3rd grade I think). I don't know if this is anyhow realavent, maybe it is that.
>> I can force myself to look cheery when dealing with people anyways, and >> most of the time that works well enough.
> If you have to do this with any frequency, and it isn't based on the > people specifically, that's a very bad warning. Think about it this way: > "putting on a happy face" is _pretending_ to be happy. What that does is > (a) insures that you don't get actually happy during that time, and (b) > helps you mentally distance your "self" from the idea/feeling of being > happy, and (c) sets you up for an eventual crash where you realize that > the "happy you" is not the "real you" and that you haven't spent enough > time with the "real you" to know what it is, _and_ as if that wasn't > enough, (d) prevents others from knowing about any problems or being > prepared for such a crash, leaving even those who would help confused and > unable to react.
not like I can really do much else. I could only really stop if I was alone altogether. I continue on, trying to keep myself going as best I can, trying to avoid flaking out, trying to avoid "destructive" thoughts. I can't really seem to keep up, I do bad in school, and it is my own actions that are making me do bad, yet I fail to do better.
>> I don't mean to discredit you in any way...
> No worries. I'm not making a professional diagnosis--just saying, "These > are solid signs for something that people don't tend to catch even when > it's beating them on the head."
either way it doesn't really effect much. I don't know of a fix, I can't seem to really control it.
> (Oh, and the fact that you might even feel that your counterstatement > might > be taken by me as something akin to discrediting points to an overly > effective sense of guilt, which -- while it would be really nice if more > people exhibited it -- is a key factor in depression (it's part of how > depression puts your mind against itself).)
In most cases my choice of language is determined by the context of the work -- the existing programs, libraries, and community of co-programmers that I have to work with.
For small, new projects where this is not an issue, Common Lisp would still be a top choice as a language I can get a lot of work done in quickly.
I guess I got a reputation for abandoning Lisp because I am experimenting with Python as an alternative to Lisp for the implementation language for my AI text with Stuart Russell. The hypothesis is that (1) instructors no longer have time to teach 2 weeks of Lisp as part of the AI course because there is so much material in an AI course now, (2) some students have trouble learning Lisp on their own, and (3) some students may already know Python, or find it easier to learn than Lisp. Therefore, it makes sense to offer Python as an alternative to Lisp. Since the code is still fairly incomplete, I don't know yet whether the hypothesis will hold up. See http://www.norvig.com/python/python.html for more details.
> Peter, you have recently been cited as an example of someone of high esteem > in the Common Lisp world who has abondoned it, along with Paul Graham. I > think this is fair on the surface for Mr. Graham, given his own writings and > his focus on designing something "better".
> Is this a fair characterisation of your current views/opinions? Have you > purposely "left" lisp to work in other languages? If so, why?
> Do you have any hopes or concerns about lisp's future?
pe...@norvig.com (Peter Norvig) writes: > (1) instructors no longer have time to teach 2 > weeks of Lisp as part of the AI course because there is so much > material in an AI course now
I think two week within a AI course is not too much.
> (2) some students have trouble learning > Lisp on their own,
Some may have trouble learning Modula-2 on their own. At least I know one ;-) This holds IMHO for any other language and it therefor not a sound reason in favor of any language or againt another.
> and (3) some students may already know Python, or > find it easier to learn than Lisp.
Well other students may know Java or C or C++ or ... and may find it easier to learn Lisp. But it could be that some students may already know Lisp and find it easier to learn and use than ....
> Therefore, it makes sense to offer > Python as an alternative to Lisp.
Well you could use other alternatives with the same reasons as for Python, Ruby seems to fit even better than Python.
Peter Norvig wrote: > In most cases my choice of language is determined by the context of > the work -- the existing programs, libraries, and community of > co-programmers that I have to work with.
> For small, new projects where this is not an issue, Common Lisp would > still be a top choice as a language I can get a lot of work done in > quickly.
> I guess I got a reputation for abandoning Lisp because I am > experimenting with Python as an alternative to Lisp for the > implementation language for my AI text with Stuart Russell. The > hypothesis is that (1) instructors no longer have time to teach 2 > weeks of Lisp as part of the AI course because there is so much > material in an AI course now, (2) some students have trouble learning > Lisp on their own, and (3) some students may already know Python, or > find it easier to learn than Lisp. Therefore, it makes sense to offer > Python as an alternative to Lisp. Since the code is still fairly > incomplete, I don't know yet whether the hypothesis will hold up. See > http://www.norvig.com/python/python.html for more details.
In my experience many people I know who did not know Lisp before used Python like they used C or Java. Lisp, being more foreign to them, forced them to think in other terms and changed their whole style and way of thinking. So yes - the students may know Python but they think of it *much* different than someone with prior experience with a language like Lisp.
Will Python replace Lisp as the implementation language for AIMA or will both languages be supported in future?
I hoped that things like fol.lisp (which seems to be unfinished) will get developed further in future.
> For small, new projects where this is not an issue, Common Lisp would > still be a top choice as a language I can get a lot of work done in > quickly.
Ups, i just started lisp (3weeks ago) because i would like to handle HUGE projects and thought that lisp was a good choice for that. Am i wrong ?
> I guess I got a reputation for abandoning Lisp because I am > experimenting with Python as an alternative to Lisp for the > implementation language for my AI text with Stuart Russell. The > hypothesis is that (1) instructors no longer have time to teach 2 > weeks of Lisp as part of the AI course because there is so much > material in an AI course now, (2) some students have trouble learning > Lisp on their own, and (3) some students may already know Python, or > find it easier to learn than Lisp. Therefore, it makes sense to offer > Python as an alternative to Lisp. Since the code is still fairly > incomplete, I don't know yet whether the hypothesis will hold up. See > http://www.norvig.com/python/python.html for more details.
If it is allowed to discuss your hypothesis: (1) --> Introductionary courses never can nor want to cover the hole area of AI but want to give a "toolset" for the student to continue. IMHO you try to remove one of the importent tools: Lisp. I'm a newby to both AI and lisp but the first i learned in AI is that i have to learn Lisp to read the programs related to AI in the books. And it was nice to find that most of the stuff is written in lisp (and not in five or six different languages). (2) --> Some students have trouble to learn calculus. Should we remove it from the engeneering courses ? ;-) IMHO everyone that can learn BASIC can even learn lisp. The problem is to understand the concepts behind the syntax. But that holds for all languages. And if Phyton has comparable concepts like lisp than you will find other students who have trouble to learn phyton. (3) --> But more have to learn Phyton. So the instructor have to spend the two weeks saved in (1) to teach Phyton. And after the course the students that are interested in AI have to learn lisp (see above).
What i don't understand at all is what Phyton makes better than lisp. Is there any thing that can be done in Phyton that can't be done in lisp ?
Andy wrote: > Ups, i just started lisp (3weeks ago) because i would like to handle > HUGE projects and thought that lisp was a good choice for that. Am i > wrong ? Well, Peter wrote: > In most cases my choice of language is determined by the context of > the work -- the existing programs, libraries, and community of > co-programmers that I have to work with.
So if you are doing your own thing you are not bound by much context. PN mentioned libraries, but Lisp can call non-Lisp libraries more or less conveniently depending on the library.
One huge win of CL over C++ on a huge project would be eliminating the huge compile/link delays.
Andy wrote:
> What i don't understand at all is what Phyton makes better than lisp.
I think the key was the third reason, that Python is riding a wave of popularity. The authors want to make money, after all. The professors want students in the seats.
No point in debating this, PN was simply kind enough to share a working hypothesis:
Peter wrote: > > Since the code is still fairly > > incomplete, I don't know yet whether the hypothesis will hold up.
--
kenny tilton clinisys, inc --------------------------------------------------------------- "Harvey has overcome not only time and space but any objections." Elwood P. Dowd
> I think the key was the third reason, that Python is riding a wave of > popularity. The authors want to make money, after all. The professors > want students in the seats.
Yes, python may be flawed, and is definitely currently a weaker, less well-rounded language than common lisp (particularly for metaprogramming) - and the whitespace sensitivity is either love-it or hate-it, but it is undeniably popular currently.
Personally, I would not pick a language with pythonesque whitespace-sensitivity for examples in a book - with a language that delimited with visible characters, it doesn't really matter if the publisher screws up slightly, with a whitespace-sensitive language, it's much more sensitive to positioning errors, and misguided "improvements".
I think it is a mistake to pick $LANGUAGE_OF_THE_MOMENT for books - unless the book is specifically about that particular language, programming principles are usually generally applicable - one of the reasons why Lisp is popular in teaching books is because you _can_ illustrate, easily, most of those principles in it.
Lisp has the advantage of standardisation, like C and Fortran.
Python is still in the "early evolution" stages, really.
And why Python? Why not TCL, Perl, or Ruby? They're all comparably powerful, reasonably similarly popular, comparably elegant (or otherwise*), and all doing the reinvent-lisp-but-with-funny-syntax thang...
* I consider perl to have the organic elegance of a large rainforest...
> > What i don't understand at all is what Phyton makes better than lisp.
> I think the key was the third reason, that Python is riding a wave of > popularity. The authors want to make money, after all. The professors > want students in the seats.
You mean like Forth or Borland Pascal some years ago. Mhhh, for me that is a absolut "Don't do this". For me a programming language is a tool not a pair of shoes that should be changed due to some hype. And if i find a better tool than i want to use it (thats why i change currently from C/C++ to lisp).
I don't want to start a new language discussion. I currently read Peter's famous PAIP and was wondering why he changed from lisp to phyton. For me it would be double work to learn AI because i now learn lisp (not only for AI) and then have to learn Phyton to read the next book. And after reading Peters comparision of Phyton and Lisp i simple can not find at least one think that points out for phyton. All i can do with phyton can also be done with lisp. And btw. Peter said phyton was 100 (!) times slower. Best regards AHz
pe...@norvig.com (Peter Norvig) writes: > I guess I got a reputation for abandoning Lisp because I am > experimenting with Python as an alternative to Lisp for the > implementation language for my AI text with Stuart Russell. The > hypothesis is that (1) instructors no longer have time to teach 2 > weeks of Lisp as part of the AI course because there is so much > material in an AI course now, (2) some students have trouble learning > Lisp on their own, and (3) some students may already know Python, or > find it easier to learn than Lisp. Therefore, it makes sense to offer > Python as an alternative to Lisp.
Perhaps a better alternative would be to hit at the heart of the problem - AI courses (and possibly thus textbooks) need to be segmented. How many levels of Algebra or Calculus are there? (rhetorical) And how many levels of AI are taught nowadays? (not rhetorical; I really don't know, but suspect that it is close to 1).
> Since the code is still fairly > incomplete, I don't know yet whether the hypothesis will hold up. See > http://www.norvig.com/python/python.html for more details.
Seems like at the technical level, there isn't enough difference to warrant a change. And who knows how popular your book/course will be several years from now, when Python has gone the way of other languages and lost its faddish popularity...
-- Duane Rettig Franz Inc. http://www.franz.com/ (www) 1995 University Ave Suite 275 Berkeley, CA 94704 Phone: (510) 548-3600; FAX: (510) 548-8253 du...@Franz.COM (internet)
>> I guess I got a reputation for abandoning Lisp because I am >> experimenting with Python as an alternative to Lisp for the >> implementation language for my AI text with Stuart Russell. The >> hypothesis is that (1) instructors no longer have time to teach 2 >> weeks of Lisp as part of the AI course because there is so much >> material in an AI course now, (2) some students have trouble learning >> Lisp on their own, and (3) some students may already know Python, or >> find it easier to learn than Lisp. Therefore, it makes sense to offer >> Python as an alternative to Lisp. Since the code is still fairly >> incomplete, I don't know yet whether the hypothesis will hold up. See >> http://www.norvig.com/python/python.html for more details.
> In my experience many people I know who did not know Lisp before used > Python like they used C or Java. Lisp, being more foreign to them, forced > them to think in other terms and changed their whole style and way of > thinking. So yes - the students may know Python but they think of it > *much* different than someone with prior experience with a language like > Lisp.
yes, I noticed that when I started using lisp. it did effect they way I started thinking about things, but I do not consider it really a problem. now I end up writting lisp like stuff in c...
of course similar occured when I encountered relational dbms's, which I also consider as having effected the way I write code...
Duane Rettig wrote: > And who knows how popular your book/course will be > several years from now, when Python has gone the way of other languages > and lost its faddish popularity...
pardon my cynicism, but authors of college textbooks come out with new editions precisely to kill the used market. they have to add new material for this to work. N&R can just change to Ruby. :)
the good news is that it is a slippery slope from C++ to Java to Python or Ruby to Lisp.
--
kenny tilton clinisys, inc --------------------------------------------------------------- "Harvey has overcome not only time and space but any objections." Elwood P. Dowd
> I don't want to start a new language discussion. I currently read > Peter's > famous PAIP and was wondering why he changed from lisp to phyton. For me > it would be double work to learn AI because i now learn lisp (not only > for AI) > and then have to learn Phyton to read the next book.
If you know how to program, then learning enough Python to get you reading examples should not take you more than a few hours. Starting programming seriously in Python should not take more than a week.
> And after reading Peters comparision of Phyton and Lisp i simple can not > find at least one think that points out for phyton. All i can do with > phyton > can also be done with lisp. And btw. Peter said phyton was 100 (!) times > slower.
10 - 100, if you make good use of the libraries it gets faster since they are mostly written in C.
It seems to me that Python deserves most of the hype it gets. Maybe it "reinvents" much of what is already in Lisp, but that need not be a bad thing. Maybe Python will do some things better and then Common Lisp can say "hey, I didn't think of that, lets try it out" :) A symbioses of some sort.
* Andy <a...@smi.de> | And btw. Peter said phyton was 100 (!) times slower.
Perhaps Lisp has a future as an interpreted language? Maybe this whole compiler thing was the reason it never took off? Lisp was slow and large and interpreted _way_ ahead of the crowd, but then got fast and lean and mean before the others had time to catch up or even be invented. Such is _not_ good for business. The key problem is that computers are simply becoming too fast for human comfort. Computers have already answered most questions before the human has actually finished asking it, like this: before the tactile response from the mouse or the enter key has reached the brain, the eye detects a change, making it appear that the computer knew what you were going to ask before you did. Clearly, if you are generally slow to begin with, this can be stunningly scary. Our good friends at Microsoft are working day and night to make sure that no computer is ever faster than any person alive on earth today, and many other developers for too fast computers help by reinventing byte code and other slow and bloated interpreters. It also helped a lot with slow and congested Internet links, but now that that is soon history, responsible and idiot-friendly companies compensate for any uncomfortable speed with web pages with tons of Javascript, stylesheets, many nested tables, and a thousand images that say less than one well-chosen word, not to mention the excellent effort by such things as Gecko to make display comfortably and predictably slow. Users can make a very simple test. How fast do you want your autorepeat to work? Set the number of repetitions per second to what you believe is your IQ. IIff yyoouu wwrriittee lliikkee tthhiiss ooorrr llliiikkkeee ttthhhiiisss, you are not as smart as you think you are, and should get a slower computer, too, or maybe use Python. Artificial Intelligence is good, but we cannot have computers that are way faster than their programmers' real intelligence, can we? Moreover, if the computer is busy doing some mindless repetitive task like running a byte code interpreter, it will never figure out what it is _really_ doing, either. The world is yet safe for average people.
/// -- 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.
Duane Rettig <du...@franz.com> writes: > ... And who knows how popular your book/course will be > several years from now, when Python has gone the way of other languages > and lost its faddish popularity...
i don't know if useful languages ever really go away. it seems to me that predictions on the language front is bound to be disappointing. python is making it into highschools. this may or may not change its futures for instance.
> i don't know if useful languages ever really go away. it seems to me > that predictions on the language front is bound to be disappointing. > python is making it into highschools. this may or may not change its > futures for instance.
But so did Pascal and BASIC, and C and C++ never really did until recently, when the AP test switched over to C++, so I don't see any significant connection.
-- -> -/ - 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.
The second edition of the Russell & Norvig book, like the first, will have only pseudo-code -- no Lisp or any other actual language. (It turns out the pseudo-code does look more like Python than anything else, although I had not seen Python when we invented the pseudo-code format.) Don't confuse this book with my "Paradigms of AI Programming in Common Lisp" book, for which no second edition is planned.
The online site accompanying the book will offer a complete reference implmentation of the code in Lisp, hopefully a complete or near-complete version in Python, and whatever code in Prolog, C++, Java, etc. that helpful users want to contribute.
I think Duane is hitting at a big part of the problem: too much AI material for one course. I realize that AIMA, at 1000 pages, doesn't help much. In an ideal world (from my point of view) there would be a two-semester AI "theory" sequence, and a separate AI programming course. Berkeley, MIT, CMU and some other schools work pretty much like this, but most schools do not -- as Duane points out, most schools (and almost all students) don't go beyone 1 AI course.
In AIMA we chose not to address the AI programming part at all -- we don't teach a programming language, and we don't teach software engineering for AI. Instead we teach the theory and intuitions behind the problems and their solutions. I tried to cover Lisp and software engineering in PAIP, and it really does deserve its own 1000 pages. Given that we don't teach a language in AIMA, the choice is really up to the professor, and I think it can't hurt to offer some options. (Note: if it were really the case that most of AI was done in Lisp, then it WOULD hurt to fragment the community by encouraging other languages. But there was always a variety of language choices (e.g. Prolog, Pop-11), and if you look at the current statistical/probabilistic/machine learning AI communities, they're doing more work in C++ and Matlab than in Lisp.)
For those who are interested in programming real AI applications, rather than just understanding the algorithms in a course setting, I continue to recommend Lisp, and to recommend against Python (unless you're willing to code some extensions in C).
And for Duane and his employer, let me say that if there was a standard, easy to use Common Lisp GUI package that was portable across Windows, several flavors of Unix, and possibly Mac, then I would never have started looking at Python. Really the only answer to "what can Python do that Lisp can't" that matters to me is "put up a window in a portable way".
> Perhaps a better alternative would be to hit at the heart of the > problem - AI courses (and possibly thus textbooks) need to be segmented. > How many levels of Algebra or Calculus are there? (rhetorical) And how > many levels of AI are taught nowadays? (not rhetorical; I really don't > know, but suspect that it is close to 1).
In article <da69ff6a.0204250306.13acb...@posting.google.com>, pe...@norvig.com (Peter Norvig) wrote:
> And for Duane and his employer, let me say that if there was a > standard, easy to use Common Lisp GUI package that was portable across > Windows, several flavors of Unix, and possibly Mac, then I would never > have started looking at Python. Really the only answer to "what can > Python do that Lisp can't" that matters to me is "put up a window in a > portable way".
I'm not up in Python, but I thought it could only do that by using tk -- which Lisp can use as well.
> If you know how to program, then learning enough Python to get you > reading examples should not take you more than a few hours. > Starting programming seriously in Python should not take more than a > week.
But, again, what is the advantage ? Learning one more scripting language after all the others is not the point by itself. The question for me is what i can do better with it. If there is nothing new then it's waste of time. I.e using perl for system administration tasks is a advantage compared to core shell programming (maybe holds only for me) due to the integration of awk, C & sed features.
> 10 - 100, if you make good use of the libraries it gets faster since > they are mostly written in C.
Ok, but even 10 times slower is not realy an advantage ;-)
> It seems to me that Python deserves most of the hype it gets. Maybe > it "reinvents" much of what is already in Lisp, but that need not be a > bad thing. Maybe Python will do some things better and then Common > Lisp can say "hey, I didn't think of that, lets try it out" :) > A symbioses of some sort.
Thats true. It's not that i don't like phyton (in fact i didn't know it). But i just started learning lisp and feel very comfortable with it. And as i can see it has adapted (or maybe invented) lots of concepts that are realy helpful (i.e. Objects, error-handling). I'm shure that it will also adapt new things due to it flexible structure. But exactly that makes it a "long-time language" (as seen the last 40 years). So i again end up in asking what a change to phyton is good for ;-)
>> pattern. You must at least question it, and keep in mind that you _may_ >> not be able to trust your self-worth instincts. > otherwise I would probably end up over promoting myself or something, or > make myself look like I have too much ego...
See what you said there? You're trusting you're self worth instincts, which _should_ make you have too much ego. What if those instincts are just broken--what if they don't work like experience has taught you? What if the reservations you have about making your self too important are an insidious trick by your mind working against itself? Do you really think that you, with obvious strong reservations about over promoting yourself, _could_ be in any _actual_ danger of displaying too much ego, compared to others?
> I don't really have friends, I can't really seem to get along with > people... yet I can't really get away from people either, I am stuck with > people whom I can't really associate.
Eeek. Don't be alone--find a support group or something. Especially if you might have something like autism, that people will readily take seriously. Really. No, REALLY.
> if I could control myself better and maybe prevent myself from acting like > a spaz then maybe things would be better.
...And if I had wings I could flap them to blow the papers off my desk. If you weren't built that way, you weren't built that way. Don't feel like it's your fault you're made the way you are. That's like blaming someone for being tall. Yes, of course you should try to keep yourself in control, but that does _not_ mean your efforts should be judged by the standards for people who aren't made like you.
> psychologists say I have autism... or at least they did one time I went to > one (3rd grade I think). I don't know if this is anyhow realavent, maybe it
Yeah, it's pretty relevant, I'd think. I don't know anything about autism though, just about depression. Still, concerns about depression apply.
>>> I can force myself to look cheery when dealing with people anyways, and >>> most of the time that works well enough.
[...snipping some stuff I said in between...]
> not like I can really do much else. I could only really stop if I was alone > altogether.
It isn't quite so simple though. Armed with knowledge that you need to avoid doing the happy face thing, you can take some steps to avoid situations that will make you more susceptible to the slow damage the happy-face is so prone to cause. Also, you can make a specialized effort to educate at least some of the people you associate with. Tell them that the happy face is a significant burden, and they can't expect it all the time. Even just understanding what I said about it already is a significant step above being an unsuspecting tool of the depressive influence.
> I can't really seem to keep up, I do bad in school, and it is my own > actions that are making me do bad, yet I fail to do better.
How familiar this sounds to me! Do you also feel like you aren't really doing even the things that you genuinely want to do? If so, then run, don't walk, and get someone else involves in figuring out what's going on for you. Support groups are a very good resource if you can find any. No one really understands depressed people like depressed people.
> either way it doesn't really effect much. > I don't know of a fix, I can't seem to really control it.
There's not just an "it" here. For example, you're relationship/attitude with/towards "it" is equally important. Then there's your attitude towards your attitude towards "it" -- and that's two more things without even breaking up "it."
Small steps, small progress. Play with giant steps and you'll have to climb up out of the footprint to even get to where you started.
Hope this helps you some. I think I've said about as much as I can fairly get away with in a programming group. If you want to continue, I think we should switch to email. I'm at rob...@concordant-thought.com if you can't get it from the message headers.
Bruce Hoult wrote: > In article <da69ff6a.0204250306.13acb...@posting.google.com>, > pe...@norvig.com (Peter Norvig) wrote:
>> And for Duane and his employer, let me say that if there was a >> standard, easy to use Common Lisp GUI package that was portable across >> Windows, several flavors of Unix, and possibly Mac, then I would never >> have started looking at Python. Really the only answer to "what can >> Python do that Lisp can't" that matters to me is "put up a window in a >> portable way".
> I'm not up in Python, but I thought it could only do that by using tk -- > which Lisp can use as well.
There are at least QT, GTK and WxWindows bindings for Python. AFAIK all of this run on Linux and Windows.
We used Trolltech's QDesigner GUI Builder to create a Python GUI Frontend for a Common Lisp application (visual demonstration of local optimization techniques like Simulated Annealing and Treshold Accepting) at university. We have done it this way because not all of the team knew Lisp and so some could hack the GUI with Python. I was one of those who knew Lisp so besides of creating the CL application I had to write the marshalling code for the communication between Lisp and Python.
> And for Duane and his employer, let me say that if there was a > standard, easy to use Common Lisp GUI package that was portable across > Windows, several flavors of Unix, and possibly Mac, then I would never > have started looking at Python. Really the only answer to "what can > Python do that Lisp can't" that matters to me is "put up a window in a > portable way".
Well I have used CAPI from LispWorks on both Windows and Linux and it runs on diverse unices too. It's as easy as (for a dialog) (capi:display-message "this is a ~A capi dialog" (type-of 10))
Friedrich Dominicus <fr...@q-software-solutions.com> writes: > Well I have used CAPI from LispWorks on both Windows and Linux and it > runs on diverse unices too. It's as easy as (for a dialog) > (capi:display-message "this is a ~A capi dialog" (type-of 10))
> But I guess that is not what you want to have?
I wish someone could port CAPI to MCL (and that Digitool soon gets their OS X version out)... -- (espen)
