So, where's the "Javadoc" for COMMON Lisp?
Larry Loen
What I think I need now is what I needed at a comparable point in my Java journey -- a simple, on-line, indexed, HTML version of all the functions
described.
Something very much like Javadoc does.
I don't really want another book (I have a couple more, but nowadays, books are awkward and I flit around several computers and between home and
work). As much as I admire Knuth, I don't want stuff in tex format (which I don't yet have any way of handling, especially a whole directory's
worth).
If it isn't HTML, it does have to be in a format that isn't Unix-specific and one which will work on a variety of platforms readily without me
learning another damn tool.
In short, I need a place to go to "find out" what I don't know about COMMON Lisp, function-by-function as I need it.
Larry
Tord Kallqvist Romstad
> In short, I need a place to go to "find out" what I don't know about
> COMMON Lisp, function-by-function as I need it.
The Common Lisp HyperSpec could be precisely what you are looking for:
http://www.xanalys.com/software_tools/reference/HyperSpec/
--
Tord Romstad
Larry Loen
Larry Loen wrote:
> Thanks to people posting here, I've read the "Gentle Introduction" and even coded up a few interesting programs in LISP.
>
> What I think I need now is what I needed at a comparable point in my Java journey -- a simple, on-line, indexed, HTML version of all the functions
> described.
>
> Something very much like Javadoc does.
And, just after that, saw this in another post.
http://www.xanalys.com/software_tools/reference/HyperSpec/FrontMatter/Chapter-Index.html
Looks like it will serve very well. Is there anything better (he asks greedily)?
Larry
Pierre R. Mai
> What I think I need now is what I needed at a comparable point in my
> Java journey -- a simple, on-line, indexed, HTML version of all the
> functions described.
You are aware of the fact that the text of the ANSI Common Lisp
standard is available in HTML form as something called the HyperSpec,
from www.xanalys.com?
This will give you a complete reference of the whole
standard-specified functionality of your implementation. For
everything else, you'll have to take a look at the documentation that
comes with your implementation.
If you use Emacs, you will probably also want to use one of the Emacs
<-> HyperSpec interfaces, which will look up the HyperSpec entry to
the symbol-at-point at the touch of a button. A couple of them come
with the ILISP distribution.
LispWorks on Windows/Linux already interfaces to the HyperSpec and
Xanalys' vendor documentation in an automated way.
For other implementations/editors/environments YMMV.
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
Marcin Tustin
it later)? Has anyone found the need to build something more like javadoc
(or Doxygen)? (I do mean javadoc, not api documentation).
Thomas F. Burdick
Better than the spec itself? Once you start to get the hang of the
language (which is what an intro book should give you), there's
nothing better.
Håkon Alstadheim
> Thanks to people posting here, I've read the "Gentle Introduction" and
> even coded up a few interesting programs in LISP.
[...]
> In short, I need a place to go to "find out" what I don't know about
> COMMON Lisp, function-by-function as I need it.
You are describing the Common Lisp HyperSpec.
<http://www.xanalys.com/software_tools/reference/HyperSpec/>. The
HyperSpec can be browsed online or downloaded. You really should be
using Ilisp <http://ilisp.cons.org/> to do your lisp editing. Ilisp
has a command to view (in a browser) the HyperSpec entry for the
function under the cursor. Ilisp can be customized to use a locally
stored copy of the HyperSpec.
--
Håkon Alstadheim, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Pierre R. Mai
All of those "lets generate reams of documentation automatically from
the code and mixed-in comments" tools I've ever encountered just
produce thousands of pages (either hard-copy, electronic or hyper-text)
of documentation for even smallish programs, that no-one in their right
mind would want to read.
In other words: Those tools are great for appeasing management that
insists on stacks of documentation (instead of focusing on quality
documentation), and/or for those that are somehow psychologically
incapable of reading source code, but other than that they are an
incredible waste of space.
A useful Lisp programming environment is going to beat any of those
systems hands-down:
- Most of the stuff those tools produce are implementation details,
which are only relevant when you are changing/working with that
unit's implementation, i.e. when you have the source-code those
documents were generated from in front of you anyway. No need to
look at the same things in HTML/DOC/PDF at all.
- Those things which define interfaces, i.e. stuff you might want to
reference while working on other files, are accessible much more
directly in the Lisp environment, via symbol-completion/apropos,
describe, doc-strings, argument lists, and if really necessary
commands like edit-definition, find-callers, etc.
- In fact most Lisp environments offers much better cross-referencing
tools than the simple-minded cross-linking most of the automatic
documentation generation tools provide.
So, IMHO, put all of the low-level stuff into comments, doc-strings
and the source code, but let them stay there. And then write some
high-level design documents, _BY HAND_, because those are documents
that will actually get read, because they answer questions which can
not be gotten more quickly from the source-code, and because they were
written by a human being, and are therefore at least half-way readable
and well-structured (in theory ;).
Paolo Amoroso
<lwl...@rchland.vnet.ibm.com> wrote:
> http://www.xanalys.com/software_tools/reference/HyperSpec/FrontMatter/Chapter-Index.html
>
> Looks like it will serve very well. Is there anything better (he asks greedily)?
What do you mean by "better"?
Paolo
--
EncyCMUCLopedia * Extensive collection of CMU Common Lisp documentation
http://cvs2.cons.org:8000/cmucl/doc/EncyCMUCLopedia/
Erik Naggum
> Actually, how powerful is the document string feature? (I'll go read about
> it later)? Has anyone found the need to build something more like javadoc
> (or Doxygen)? (I do mean javadoc, not api documentation).
In this day and age with "web browsers" used for everything, I think it
would have been a better idea than my hyperspec.el thing (which others
have also done) to keep URLs in the documentation strings of standard
symbols and of symbols exported from implementation-specific packages.
The generic function documentation does not necessarily need to return a
constant URL, but could build it from on-site or off-site base URLs,
possibly even build it from the symbol name and documentation type. The
Lisp system would interact with the browser with the established remote
control features, at least available in Netscape under Unix and Linux.
#:Erik
--
There is nothing in this message that under normal circumstances should
cause Barry Margolin to announce his moral superiority over others, but
one never knows how he needs to behave to maintain his belief in it.
Kent M Pitman
> * Marcin Tustin
> > Actually, how powerful is the document string feature? (I'll go read about
> > it later)? Has anyone found the need to build something more like javadoc
> > (or Doxygen)? (I do mean javadoc, not api documentation).
>
> In this day and age with "web browsers" used for everything, I think it
> would have been a better idea than my hyperspec.el thing (which others
> have also done) to keep URLs in the documentation strings of standard
> symbols and of symbols exported from implementation-specific packages.
(Why just those and not even user-defined symbols?) I think this is a
great idea. Is there any reason we couldn't just start doing this?
It's pretty easy to write a URL-P predicate, and so it's even
compatible with other uses of the doc string...
> The generic function documentation does not necessarily need to return a
> constant URL, but could build it from on-site or off-site base URLs,
> possibly even build it from the symbol name and documentation type. The
> Lisp system would interact with the browser with the established remote
> control features, at least available in Netscape under Unix and Linux.
Good idea, too.
Marco Antoniotti
Kent M Pitman <pit...@world.std.com> writes:
> Erik Naggum <er...@naggum.net> writes:
>
> > * Marcin Tustin
> > > Actually, how powerful is the document string feature? (I'll go read about
> > > it later)? Has anyone found the need to build something more like javadoc
> > > (or Doxygen)? (I do mean javadoc, not api documentation).
> >
> > In this day and age with "web browsers" used for everything, I think it
> > would have been a better idea than my hyperspec.el thing (which others
> > have also done) to keep URLs in the documentation strings of standard
> > symbols and of symbols exported from implementation-specific packages.
>
> (Why just those and not even user-defined symbols?) I think this is a
> great idea. Is there any reason we couldn't just start doing this?
> It's pretty easy to write a URL-P predicate,
Not so fast.... Have you looked at the UR[LI] spec?
Anyway there is the CommonURI package at www.dataheaven.de.
> and so it's even
> compatible with other uses of the doc string...
>
> > The generic function documentation does not necessarily need to return a
> > constant URL, but could build it from on-site or off-site base URLs,
> > possibly even build it from the symbol name and documentation type. The
> > Lisp system would interact with the browser with the established remote
> > control features, at least available in Netscape under Unix and Linux.
>
> Good idea, too.
Yep. Very good indeed. However, I would not discard the idea of a
Document Generator. I like to have "clean" doc strings in lieu of
comments.
Cheers
--
Marco Antoniotti ========================================================
NYU Courant Bioinformatics Group tel. +1 - 212 - 998 3488
719 Broadway 12th Floor fax +1 - 212 - 995 4122
New York, NY 10003, USA http://bioinformatics.cat.nyu.edu
"Hello New York! We'll do what we can!"
Bill Murray in `Ghostbusters'.
Erik Naggum
> (Why just those and not even user-defined symbols?)
Primarily because they would be in "sealed" packages with their external
specification and documentation, anyway. It would be a waste to keep a
watered-down version in documentation strings.
* Marco Antoniotti <mar...@cs.nyu.edu>
> However, I would not discard the idea of a Document Generator. I like to
> have "clean" doc strings in lieu of comments.
I think there is something to be said for a low-cost documentation like a
simple string. As I expect more from the specification in the HyperSpec
and I expect more from vendor documentation, I expect that documentation
for code in development _not_ be polished and indexed and everything web
pages, but rather something that is so easy to write well and maintain at
a high quality that it does not seem like the drag that documentation so
often is considered to be. I also personally prefer to leave the quality
publication job to people who are good at it, instead of me trying to to
something I both dislike and feel inept at. One of the reasons I do not
write a lot of web pages is that I have tremendous respect for typography
and nearly everything I do with that abominable HTML thing really sucks
-- much less than most of what is out there on the "web", but it still
looks mostly awful and screams incompetence. Although not only and not
necessarily mine, I still get blamed for how it looks. I would much
rather publish something in PDF than that hot toy markup language.
Kent M Pitman
> Kent M Pitman <pit...@world.std.com> writes:
>
> > Erik Naggum <er...@naggum.net> writes:
> >
> > > * Marcin Tustin
> > > > Actually, how powerful is the document string feature? (I'll go read about
> > > > it later)? Has anyone found the need to build something more like javadoc
> > > > (or Doxygen)? (I do mean javadoc, not api documentation).
> > >
> > > In this day and age with "web browsers" used for everything, I think it
> > > would have been a better idea than my hyperspec.el thing (which others
> > > have also done) to keep URLs in the documentation strings of standard
> > > symbols and of symbols exported from implementation-specific packages.
> >
> > (Why just those and not even user-defined symbols?) I think this is a
> > great idea. Is there any reason we couldn't just start doing this?
> > It's pretty easy to write a URL-P predicate,
>
> Not so fast.... Have you looked at the UR[LI] spec?
> Anyway there is the CommonURI package at www.dataheaven.de.
Admittedly, I was thinking of something that would only work
99.9999999999% of the time, like
(string-equal doc-string "http:/" :end1 (min (length doc-string) 6))
And I wasn't worried about parsing it--just recognizing it. You can just
hand it straight to a browser and let it do the parsing.
Bob Bane
Johannes Beck (be...@ki-server.informatik.uni-wuerzburg.de) that inhaled
CL and emitted documentation in HTML, TeX, or rtf. It worked pretty
well, but you could fool it with code of the form:
(macrolet
((dm (real-name arg1 ...)
`(defmacro ,real-name (,arg1 ...)
... )))
(dm boiler-plate1 ... ))
because it didn't actually define/macroexpand the code it analyzed
(which would have made it interesting when it was used to generate its
own documentation, I suppose). I remember hacking it to handle the few
odd top-level cases like the above that I occasionally do.
The links for it at www.alu.org have gone stale, and I can't locate the
author. I have my copy, and I don't see any licensing text in it, so I
suppose I could put it up for FTP, but I would feel better about doing
so if the author said it was OK to do so. Anyone know how to contact
him?
--
Remove obvious stuff to e-mail me.
Bob Bane
Raymond Toy
Marcin> Actually, how powerful is the document string feature? (I'll go read about
Marcin> it later)? Has anyone found the need to build something more like javadoc
Marcin> (or Doxygen)? (I do mean javadoc, not api documentation).
I'm not familiar with javadoc, but perhaps Mark K's user_man package
is what you are looking for. (See the CMU AI archives). It extracts,
I think, the docstrings of functions and produces TeX output for the
function and docstring.
Ray
Erik Naggum
> Admittedly, I was thinking of something that would only work
> 99.9999999999% of the time, like
> (string-equal doc-string "http:/" :end1 (min (length doc-string) 6))
There are a number of possible "schemes", or whatever they are called,
besides "http", but the general syntax is still supposed to be preserved.
It is almost like namestrings for pathnames, only far less intelligently
done (regardless of what anyone might think of pathnames), due to the
near-fatal case of standard-optionitis.
I do _not_ propose that the URL should be (in) the documentation string.
What I really wanted was a way to link the _real_ documentation to the
symbol and documentation type through that function. I think it would be
ideal if that function launched the browser in a friendly way, and if it
returned nil to the caller, that would not be a problem.
Since documentation strings are routinely discarded by most CL systems,
the best way to do this would be to use an interface that could take a
package name, a symbol name, and the documentation type. This would be a
lot easier to implement on top of the generic function documentation than
interfacing with magic values of the documentation string.
Erik Naggum
> I'm not familiar with javadoc, but perhaps Mark K's user_man package
> is what you are looking for. (See the CMU AI archives). It extracts,
> I think, the docstrings of functions and produces TeX output for the
> function and docstring.
I think this is a bad way to use documentation strings. This is also why
I think literate programming is bunk. The best case of documentation
strings put to real use that I know of is GNU Emacs. Even with Emacs,
there is a separate manual, written to be _read_, that describes a lot
more stuff in a pedagogical order and with an eye to physical proximity
of related details and information. Documentation strings are somewhat
like hypertext at its worst (i.e., not much better than the Web): They
are intended to be read in a very well-defined context of pre-existing
knowledge. Just like the argument list of a function should not be used
to tell those who do not know what it does how to use it, documentation
strings should not be considered the final word. Extracting them into an
external file in randomized order (such as alphabetically by symbol name)
is worse than useless -- a programmer who used them intelligently would
arrive at them through a path of discovery that has no relation to simple
collation orders.
The more standardized something is, the more one must expect people to
know it. A brief documentation string would not suffice for symbols in
the common-lisp package, because anything that could be written briefly
would already be known to the reader. The need for access to the full-
blown documentation in a nicely formatted and consistent form arises from
the fact that people will look for different minute details and should be
able to end their search quickly because they are in known territory.
Writing good documentation is hard, because intelligent people bore
easily and just put down documentation that explains the obvious, yet do
not use documentation that fails to be readable. What should be in the
documentation is stuff that people cannot figure out for themselves
faster than reading it. That is why I love specifications to be online
and why I think hypertext in specifications is such a wonderful use of
the technology. This is why I wrote hyperspec.el. But now I want the
same level of documentation for vendor-supplied pacakges that come with
tons of high quality documentation, although more of a tutorial kind than
specifications, since it is written after the fact, rather than before.
The reason I think literate programming is so stupid is the same reason I
found SGML's promise of "one source, multiple publications" to be so
hollow and ignorant. A piece of text has an audience, a context, and a
set of expectations associated with it. Until we can program computers
to deal with this, _people_ need to write text for different audiences,
different contexts, and different expectations. When I look at code, I
expect the documentation there to help me understand it. When I read the
documentation, I hope to understand the system design. If the system
design expectation is attempted filled by giving me a mere dump of the
code documentation sans code, I have reason to accuse people of fraud.
When I read specifications, I expect it to become the background noise of
my own expectations when I deal with a conforming system. (This is why
lack of conformance is so much more annoying than bugs in stuff that does
nto purport to conform to a specification; I have to become _conscious_
of my expectation that the specification is actually implemented, and
that means having to test for it and not being able to believe it. This
is like asking people if they understand every word you use, instead of
assuming that you agree to speaking the same language.)
Also, please note that a lot more than functions have documentation.
That often tends to be forgotten in systems that primarly have functions
as exportable interface concepts. Classes, slots, types, packages,
variables, and a lot more stuff have documentation in Common Lisp. It is
sometimes hard to understand how people who invented these things could
be so futuristic that they would foresee such needs. (It is likewise sad
to see vendors completely ignoring the specification and reinventing the
wheel badly when the "need" suddenly arises and half-assed stuff like the
"web" suddenly appears.)
Johannes Beck
I don't read c.l.l very often these days but I got this forwarded.
> Several years ago, I downloaded a system named LISPDOCU written by
> Johannes Beck (be...@ki-server.informatik.uni-wuerzburg.de) that inhaled
> CL and emitted documentation in HTML, TeX, or rtf. It worked pretty
> well, but you could fool it with code of the form:
>
> (macrolet
> ((dm (real-name arg1 ...)
> `(defmacro ,real-name (,arg1 ...)
> ... )))
>
> (dm boiler-plate1 ... ))
>
> because it didn't actually define/macroexpand the code it analyzed
> (which would have made it interesting when it was used to generate its
> own documentation, I suppose). I remember hacking it to handle the few
> odd top-level cases like the above that I occasionally do.
The first version had indeed a parser which used
read/macroexpand/read-table stuff and it always crashed horribly because
this only works if you scan files in the wrong order. So I had to make
this (horrible, I agree) text-based scanner and parser where LISP could
be so fine when it comes to treating source code as a structured data.
I did this as a student job for some university project with tons of
source files with very strange loaders. And read or some functions using
it will be unhappy if they find a symbol 'somepackage:myfun before you
have an export definition for this. I was not happy with the solution
myself and I had no knowlegde of how to write a decent parser so it's a
hack. If anybody wants to do it right, here's the solution (just code
it):
1) use defsystem to define modules, load them
2) let the documentation tool go through the defsystem definitions and
scan the files with read/macroexpand/etc (the files are all loaded and
let's say well-defined)
> The links for it at www.alu.org have gone stale, and I can't locate the
> author. I have my copy, and I don't see any licensing text in it, so I
> suppose I could put it up for FTP, but I would feel better about doing
> so if the author said it was OK to do so. Anyone know how to contact
> him?
I remember there was a disk failure and the web pages were gone without
backup.
You can find it at (how to point ALU to this?):
http://home.arcor-online.de/johannes.beck/lispdocu/
And if there's additional code I would collect them and publish them
here. Maybe I find the time on a rainy evening and even integrate
changes.
And well, there's no licence at all in this, so feel free to do what you
want with it.
Bye
Johannes
Larry Loen
"Pierre R. Mai" wrote:
> All of those "lets generate reams of documentation automatically from
> the code and mixed-in comments" tools I've ever encountered just
> produce thousands of pages (either hard-copy, electronic or hyper-text)
> of documentation for even smallish programs, that no-one in their right
> mind would want to read.
>
> In other words: Those tools are great for appeasing management that
> insists on stacks of documentation (instead of focusing on quality
> documentation), and/or for those that are somehow psychologically
> incapable of reading source code, but other than that they are an
> incredible waste of space.
>
Man, do we live in different worlds. I personally am very tired of this attitude of "go read my 100,000 line of code application to understand it."
I'm sorry, I just don't have that kind of time in my job.
I'm very capable of reading source code in a great many languages; I hope to include LISP in that set. But, if I had to routinely look at nothing but
source code, my job (performance analysis) would be entirely impractical (at least if practical is defined as getting more than one thing done a
year). My job is aptly defined in many cases as finding the right needle in the right haystack. Sometimes, that requries code reading, but I need
something more than the root directory of a multi-million line of code OS to know where to start. Good design doc is often a godsend. We do seem to
agree on that.
I do take your point that automatic documentation generators (from code) have limits. You'll note I said "good". A forklift full of detail comments
is, I presume you agree, nonesense.
But, I've been pretty happy with Javadoc. The tool is no more capable than the several I've used before and doubless earned the ire of us both. It
must have something to do with the culture -- most of it is a pretty good predictor of how to use the widget, which is what I normally need. And yet,
in theory, it is no better than any of the other "embed this in source code stuff" I've seen before.
Larry
Tim Bradshaw
> Man, do we live in different worlds. I personally am very tired of
> this attitude of "go read my 100,000 line of code application to
> understand it." I'm sorry, I just don't have that kind of time in
> my job.
I don't think anyone is suggesting that. I think they're suggesting
you load the system into your introspective environment and start
asking questions about it.
--tim
Paolo Amoroso
> I do _not_ propose that the URL should be (in) the documentation string.
What about a symbol property?
Pierre R. Mai
> "Pierre R. Mai" wrote:
>
> > All of those "lets generate reams of documentation automatically from
> > the code and mixed-in comments" tools I've ever encountered just
> > produce thousands of pages (either hard-copy, electronic or hyper-text)
> > of documentation for even smallish programs, that no-one in their right
> > mind would want to read.
> >
> > In other words: Those tools are great for appeasing management that
> > insists on stacks of documentation (instead of focusing on quality
> > documentation), and/or for those that are somehow psychologically
> > incapable of reading source code, but other than that they are an
> > incredible waste of space.
> >
>
> Man, do we live in different worlds. I personally am very tired of
> this attitude of "go read my 100,000 line of code application to
> understand it." I'm sorry, I just don't have that kind of time in
> my job.
You also don't seem to have the time to read usenet postings
thoroughly, it seems to me. While there are certainly things I could
have better expressed in my posting, I'm quite certain that even the
text you quoted should have given you enough of a hint that I don't
propagate the "lets have no documentation, because the source is the
whole documentation" position at all (note for example my reference to
_quality_ documentation). In fact I accuse automatic documentation
generators (ADGs for short) of propagating that view in only a
slightly modified form.
Given that I've done a fair share of maintenance programming of other
foreign and own systems in my live, I think I have a fairly solid
grasp of what I've found to be useful (i.e. quality) documentation,
and what not. And I have never found automatically generated
documentation to be any substitute for quality documentation. What
automatically generated documentation is, is a statically restricted
and automatically cross-referenced view onto the source code. This
doesn't constitute documentation, it is just a poor substitute for
interactive development systems that let me get at exactly the same
information (and often more of it) in a much more automated,
integrated and selective way.
> I'm very capable of reading source code in a great many languages; I
> hope to include LISP in that set. But, if I had to routinely look
> at nothing but source code, my job (performance analysis) would be
> entirely impractical (at least if practical is defined as getting
> more than one thing done a year). My job is aptly defined in many
> cases as finding the right needle in the right haystack. Sometimes,
> that requries code reading, but I need something more than the root
> directory of a multi-million line of code OS to know where to start.
> Good design doc is often a godsend. We do seem to agree on that.
Exactly. ADGs don't produce that kind of documentation, because
thousands of comments in the source code is not the kind of place to
put high- and mid-level design information. And when I want
information on the high- or mid-level design of a system, I don't
normally care about myriad of method signatures at the same time.
As I (perhaps with less than the required clarity) stated in my
original posting, I see at least three-four different kinds of
information I might be interested in, when working on/with a system:
A) High- and medium-level requirements, analysis, design
documentation. This is completely independent of source code
layout or information. It should be written in a well-structured,
prose style, possibly with relevant (pseudo-)formal notation thrown
in for good measure (if you believe in formalisms at that level).
See Erik Naggum's posting <32044685...@naggum.net> for more on
this topic.
Automatic documentation generators don't have a place at this level
at all, IMNSHO, but sadly I've often found that their use in
projects lowered the effort put into this kind of documentation,
because it is easier to just dump all your knowledge into
unstructured comments, than take the time to create a structured
and polished presentation.
B) Public interface documentation, which includes signatures and short
functional descriptions of said entities. This is where automatic
documentation generators shine, _in languages which don't offer
environments that give you advanced interactive introspection and
documentation capabilites, which will provide you with all of the
information e.g. javadoc/doxygen give you, and some more, but in a
much more directly useful way[1]. Again, take a look at any
half-decent Lisp environment, and you will find all of this
available at the touch of a button/key.
For example, in my working environment, C-c d will give me the
doc-string for any entity in the system, C-c i will describe it,
C-c I will inspect it, C-c a will give me the argument list for any
function (it will also automatically flash the arg-list in the
minibuffer while I type), C-c h will give me the HyperSpec entry
for any standard-mandated entity, M-. will take me to the
definition(s) of a given entity, C-c ^ will take me to the callers
of a given function, etc. There's also tons of per-project
customized stuff, so that I can get at specifications for certain
functions, etc. with a simple command, etc.
B+) For high-quality libraries or semi-autonomous subsystems, there
should be low-level API documentation that includes the
information in B, but should include relevant information from A,
and tie the whole API together in a well structured, presentation
that combines tutorial and reference, specification and design
in one. The ("library part" of the) ANSI CL standard is an
example of such high-quality documentation, IMHO, and I've only
seen a couple of other projects that achieved that level of
documentation. Ideally, all units/subsystems of any project
should achieve such a high level of quality of presentation, but
realistically, this is very expensive, and very seldomly achieved
in my experience. It is though one of the necessary ingredients
for succesful inter-project or even inter-team reuse, IMHO (which
might explain the relatively low levels of reuse achieved by most
companies).
C) Source-code unit-level implementation documentation. Since you
should by definition only need that kind of information when you
are working at the unit in question (if that's not the case, then
you already have even more urgent problems than documentation),
the source for the unit should already be at your fingertips (in
your editor). So everything that javadoc-style systems will have
generated from such a file will already be in plain view then. No
need for a separate, static, non-up-to-date view of the same,
then.
In combination with A and B (and B+), this should be pretty much
all you need to work with the implementation. And again, any
half-way decent environment will give you even better access than
javadoc-style documentation, by e.g. giving you interactive and
batch regexp-search capabilities across whole projects,
advanced cross-referencing, etc.
> I do take your point that automatic documentation generators (from
> code) have limits. You'll note I said "good". A forklift full of
> detail comments is, I presume you agree, nonesense.
But that's the kind of stuff I've seen most often included in such
systems. If I was lucky, then I found the stuff that is included in
decent doc-strings as part of the API documentation, but that was
all. And that included the documentation entries I wrote myself.
So while I think that javadoc-style ADGs might be an improvement in
languages that provide impoverished environments and language support
for introspection and documentation, I fail to see the advantage they
would bring to CL. And I see the dangers that they inherently create,
since by incentivizing keeping documentation and source-code together,
they dis-incentivize the proper maintenance of separate documentation
(which is already suffering from enough pressures that it is often
sorely neglected), in my experience.
CL environments are guilty of that to some degree, too, since there is
no standard for integrating stand-alone documentation with the
environment, so that e.g. accessing CMU CL documentation is more
painful than e.g. accessing the HyperSpec, and that's a tiny bit more
painful than asking the system about some arglist or doc-string.
Dito for maintenance: It's simpler to adjust the doc-string of a
function (or rewrite a comment), when something changes, than
adjusting the out-of-line documentation. That's where management
processes and project-guidelines must step in, to reverse the
inevitable trend...
> But, I've been pretty happy with Javadoc. The tool is no more
> capable than the several I've used before and doubless earned the
> ire of us both. It must have something to do with the culture --
> most of it is a pretty good predictor of how to use the widget,
> which is what I normally need. And yet, in theory, it is no better
> than any of the other "embed this in source code stuff" I've seen
> before.
There's the possibility that either our experiences or our standards
just differ, of course. But last time I seriously looked at the state
of e.g. publically available Java libraries, I was not impressed by
by the quality of the documentation.
In any case, I hope my current posting has cleared up any
mis-impressions of my position.
Regs, Pierre.
Footnotes:
[1] If you are a developer. There is a case for generating static
snapshots of some of that information in order to pass it to
e.g. QA people in order for them to write test-cases, etc. It is
no problem to write tools that generate that kind of snapshot
from the stuff that is available in a good Lisp environment.
That still doesn't mean that everyone should be restricted to
that kind of interface, though.
Raymond Toy
Pierre> CL environments are guilty of that to some degree, too, since there is
Pierre> no standard for integrating stand-alone documentation with the
Pierre> environment, so that e.g. accessing CMU CL documentation is more
Pierre> painful than e.g. accessing the HyperSpec, and that's a tiny bit more
Pierre> painful than asking the system about some arglist or doc-string.
Pierre> Dito for maintenance: It's simpler to adjust the doc-string of a
Pierre> function (or rewrite a comment), when something changes, than
Pierre> adjusting the out-of-line documentation. That's where management
Pierre> processes and project-guidelines must step in, to reverse the
Pierre> inevitable trend...
What do you think of gcl's approach where the doc-strings are really
held in an info file that describe and friends look through? Granted,
the current info file basically looks something like what an ADG would
generate, it at least has the potential of being something more,
perhaps even like the Hyperspec.
Ray
Erik Naggum
> What about a symbol property?
That would also work, but in essence, the mapping from package plus
symbol name and documentation type is nearly an ideal match for the way
URLs may contain queries. This way, we can outboard the mapping and use
it from other places, too, instead of making all that enormous amount of
data hang around in the Lisp image. After all, part of the reason
documentation strings are usually discarded from delivered images is that
they take up a significant amount of space, although many would argue
that this is not a valid reason in our time. Another issue is that some
people may prefer to translate the specification to their favorite
non-English language, which would either mean a lot of new properties and
string values in the name of "localization" and "internationalization",
or simply a language-sensitive server that returned the appropriate
language version if available. Finally, the reason I want documentation
for "stable" packages to be available in hypertext is that some people
may need to go back to a tutorial if they are still confused or need
examples and the like. If the WWW had actually _been_ hypertext <insert
long and pained sigh>, it would have been possible for a user to add
links between disjoint documents, but we need to figure out a way to do
that outside of that immensely retarded _tragedy_ called HTML.
Lars Lundback
> Since documentation strings are routinely discarded by most CL systems,
> the best way to do this would be to use an interface that could take a
> package name, a symbol name, and the documentation type. This would be a
> lot easier to implement on top of the generic function documentation than
> interfacing with magic values of the documentation string.
>
I would prefer this "scheme" to any that ties down symbol property
names, or specifies a particular location (in the source file, in a
"parallell" documentation file or in a db) , or in some particular file
or text format. In particular, I would not want to have HTML as the
common agreed-upon format.
There are obvious advantages in that there is no requirement for the
symbol's documentation to be loaded into the running (development)
environment. The function provider is free to choose whatever tool that
suits him in the development phase, as well as the way his external
audience should see the finished documentation.
Lars
Paolo Amoroso
> That would also work, but in essence, the mapping from package plus
> symbol name and documentation type is nearly an ideal match for the way
> URLs may contain queries. This way, we can outboard the mapping and use
> it from other places, too, instead of making all that enormous amount of
> data hang around in the Lisp image. After all, part of the reason
I had missed the idea of a _mapping_ in your original posting. Now I
understand it, and I realize about the resource usage implications of my
suggestion of storing the information in a symbol property.
Kent M Pitman
>
> On Thu, 19 Jul 2001 19:21:49 GMT, Erik Naggum <er...@naggum.net> wrote:
>
> > That would also work, but in essence, the mapping from package plus
> > symbol name and documentation type is nearly an ideal match for the way
> > URLs may contain queries. This way, we can outboard the mapping and use
> > it from other places, too, instead of making all that enormous amount of
> > data hang around in the Lisp image. After all, part of the reason
>
> I had missed the idea of a _mapping_ in your original posting. Now I
> understand it, and I realize about the resource usage implications of my
> suggestion of storing the information in a symbol property.
Doing it with a tuple mapping has the advantage, too, that you can make
different documentation for the selfsame (i.e., eq) symbol based on which
package it's exported from, since even though its actual implementation
and function might not vary, its "intentional" use might in some cases.
Erik Naggum
> Doing it with a tuple mapping has the advantage, too, that you can make
> different documentation for the selfsame (i.e., eq) symbol based on which
> package it's exported from, since even though its actual implementation
> and function might not vary, its "intentional" use might in some cases.
But how would you know which package that would be? Packages being a
reader concept, it is quite hard to figure out which package you mean
after the fact, other than the symbol's home package. So although I
appreciate the idea, I am not sure how you think it could be implemented.
I thought one would take the package from (symbol-package symbol) and
the symbol name from (symbol-name symbol), since the generic function
documentation does not receive the package separately from the symbol.
Kent M Pitman
>
> * Kent M Pitman <pit...@world.std.com>
> > Doing it with a tuple mapping has the advantage, too, that you can make
> > different documentation for the selfsame (i.e., eq) symbol based on which
> > package it's exported from, since even though its actual implementation
> > and function might not vary, its "intentional" use might in some cases.
>
> But how would you know which package that would be? Packages being a
> reader concept, it is quite hard to figure out which package you mean
> after the fact, other than the symbol's home package. So although I
> appreciate the idea, I am not sure how you think it could be implemented.
> I thought one would take the package from (symbol-package symbol) and
> the symbol name from (symbol-name symbol), since the generic function
> documentation does not receive the package separately from the symbol.
Sorry, I was assuming a parser that was either grabbing a string name
and could see the prefix the user typed, or that had hyperlinks
intra-document from one intentional name to another. I do agree if
you have a symbol, you have this problem.
But you also have this problem already anyway in reverse if someone
asks for doc on foo::car from outside of package FOO and really has no
right to know that CAR has any meaning internal to FOO at all, yet
MIGHT find the documentation for COMMON-LISP:CAR as a result...
So, for example:
http://localhost/lookup-symbol?package=foo&name=car&type=function
=> 404 Symbol FOO::CAR is not exported and no documentation
of a function FOO::CAR was found.
This won't happen, obviously, if you just use the symbol's home package,
but that doesn't mean it's not a useful error message to get when you do
have the intentional package name.
Reini Urban
: (It is likewise sad to see vendors completely ignoring the specification
: and reinventing the wheel badly when the "need" suddenly arises and
: half-assed stuff like the "web" suddenly appears.)
Nevertheless the ... "web" made it, the lispmachine or Xanadu not.
Worse WAS better, esp. in this pragmatic context.
For extracting docstrings with simple text scanning I also have a simple
perl script (exefied to win32) at my pages somewhere (lspdoc) which
generates winhelp and html. But mine uses the autolisp commenting
conventions, which has no docstrings.
BTW: Corman Lisp puts the CLHS page entry in a symbol property in the
interactive environment. (I extended it to CLtL2 also).
Only the page name, not the whole url.
This needs less memory than emacs and is much faster, but
emacs of course has all the other features we love.
--
Reini Urban
http://xarch.tu-graz.ac.at/acadwiki/AutoLispFaq
Steve Long
I used javadoc was a tool for reading my class documentation exported in an HTML format. Lisp entities can carry a documentation string that you can
access programmatically and write out as HTML, but someone (i.e., you)
have to include the documentation string.
Some ways to educate yourself...
Books besides the "Gentle approach":
"Object-Oriented Common Lisp", Stephen Slade (sp)
"Common Lisp, the Language", Guy Steele (a must if you are going to do any extensive amount of work)
"On Lisp", Paul Graham (macros -- a more difficult subject but very useful)
Submit questions to this newsgroup. Sure, folks sometimes pontificate on this subject or that, and sometimes they can be a bit short with newbies
(especially grad students looking for help with their homework!) but
I've learned an enormous amount from these lads (and lasses).
SLong
Larry Loen wrote:
> Thanks to people posting here, I've read the "Gentle Introduction" and even coded up a few interesting programs in LISP.
>
> What I think I need now is what I needed at a comparable point in my Java journey -- a simple, on-line, indexed, HTML version of all the functions
> described.
>
> Something very much like Javadoc does.
>
> I don't really want another book (I have a couple more, but nowadays, books are awkward and I flit around several computers and between home and
> work). As much as I admire Knuth, I don't want stuff in tex format (which I don't yet have any way of handling, especially a whole directory's
> worth).
>
> If it isn't HTML, it does have to be in a format that isn't Unix-specific and one which will work on a variety of platforms readily without me
> learning another damn tool.
>
> In short, I need a place to go to "find out" what I don't know about COMMON Lisp, function-by-function as I need it.
>
> Larry
Steve Long
that
much of the sofware world seems to be heading?
Erik Naggum wrote:
> * Paolo Amoroso <amo...@mclink.it>
> > What about a symbol property?
>
Erik Naggum
> Any ideas for implementing this functionality in the XML world, a
> direction that much of the sofware world seems to be heading?
What on _earth_ can XML possibly have to offer people who are not already
completely out of their mind? The interesting thing is to use Common
Lisp to deal with that abomination so that some people can see how dumb
SGML and HTML and XML really are and how it should have been done. There
is _zero_ point in moving from Common Lisp to XML. Making a connection
from CL to XML that is not pure kindness to the losers is _dangerous_.
Even as a data notation, CL is already at least a decade ahead of XML.
SGML and XML are good ideas if you were comatose when you designed your
software to begin with, but _only_ then. We should approach XML people
with a "good, good, you figured out that a uniform syntax has benefits --
how many _more_ years of pain and suffering and agonizing over lost data
before you figure out that types, read-write consistencey, _intelligent_
in-memory representation, programmable syntax, and macros have benefits,
too?" Sigh! These folks are coming from a third-world country as far as
software goes, and absolutely anything that carries symptoms of IQ above
freezing (Fahrenheit, just like the room temperature), is better than
their astonishingly retarded data formats. That _includes_ most of the
dreadfully "look, ma, I can also reinvent the wheel, with no hands!" Unix
"configuration file" syntaxes, log file formats, etc, etc. My God, it is
so amazingly mindless! Speaking of which, if anyone needs evidence that
there is _no_ god, that whatever god was here has _left_ the planet, etc,
take a look at the fantastic mess that people arrange for themselves in
data formats and what they actually consider improvements! Clearly, this
could not have taken place if anyone, I mean _anyone_, had had a grand
plan. Even a god who were responsible for the platypus would have done
better than XML.
Now, what did you have in mind?
Pierre R. Mai
> Any ideas for implementing this functionality in the XML world, a
> direction that much of the sofware world seems to be heading?
HyTime (ISO/IEC 10744:1992) is the SGML architecture for linking and
addressing, scheduling and rendition. But, the XML community being
what it is, they will no doubt (in the name of simplicity) produce a
completely new, incompatible, piece-meal standard, which will in the
end be even more complex, make the same mistakes as SGML did, add some
more of its own, throw out the useful features of SGML/HyTime, and add
a couple of useless ones instead.
And since no XML implementor will be bright enough to understand the
produced standard, no really conforming implementations will come
forth anyway, and any remaining interoperability between
implementations will be purely by chance.
Regs, Pierre.
Lars Bjønnes
> Any ideas for implementing this functionality in the XML world, a
> direction that much of the sofware world seems to be heading?
<URL: http://www.w3.org/XML/Linking >
--
Lars
Steve Long
> * Steve Long <stev...@isomedia.com>
> > Any ideas for implementing this functionality in the XML world, a
> > direction that much of the sofware world seems to be heading?
>
<snipped>
>
> The interesting thing is to use Common
> Lisp to deal with that abomination so that some people can see how dumb
> SGML and HTML and XML really are and how it should have been done. There
> is _zero_ point in moving from Common Lisp to XML. Making a connection
> from CL to XML that is not pure kindness to the losers is _dangerous_.
>
>
> Now, what did you have in mind?
I have no personal opinion nor direction in mind, but thanks for the colorful
analysis.
I don't need much arm twisting to avoid the alphabet soup of other languages
and
"standards" out there that I have no objective basis with which to evaluate.
SLong
Roland Kaufmann
Erik> * Raymond Toy
>> I'm not familiar with javadoc, but perhaps Mark K's user_man
>> package is what you are looking for. (See the CMU AI
>> archives). It extracts, I think, the docstrings of functions
>> and produces TeX output for the function and docstring.
Erik> I think this is a bad way to use documentation strings.
Erik> This is also why I think literate programming is bunk. The
Erik> best case of documentation strings put to real use that I
Erik> know of is GNU Emacs. Even with Emacs, there is a separate
Erik> manual, written to be _read_, that describes a lot more
Erik> stuff in a pedagogical order and with an eye to physical
Erik> proximity of related details and information.
True, but the purpose of literate programming (LP) [1] is *not* to
generate _User Documentation_ from (annotated) source code, but to
describe the implementation in more detail than usually done with
comments.
For example, Knuth's TeXbook, i.e. the user manual of TeX is not a
literate program (although it does contain some TeX macros with
explanations), but "TeX, the Program" is. Few people bother to read
the latter, because it is not necessary if you just want to use TeX.
[snip]
Erik> Writing good documentation is hard, because intelligent
Erik> people bore easily and just put down documentation that
Erik> explains the obvious, yet do not use documentation that
Erik> fails to be readable. What should be in the documentation
Erik> is stuff that people cannot figure out for themselves faster
Erik> than reading it. That is why I love specifications to be
Erik> online and why I think hypertext in specifications is such a
Erik> wonderful use of the technology. This is why I wrote
Erik> hyperspec.el. But now I want the same level of
Erik> documentation for vendor-supplied pacakges that come with
Erik> tons of high quality documentation, although more of a
Erik> tutorial kind than specifications, since it is written after
Erik> the fact, rather than before.
Erik> The reason I think literate programming is so stupid is
Erik> the same reason I found SGML's promise of "one source,
Erik> multiple publications" to be so hollow and ignorant.
What actually works (with LP) is to have one source from which the
code and _documentation of the implementation_ can be extracted.
Depending on the LP tools used, the documentation can include
cross-references, indices etc. Probably not such a big deal for Lisp
users, who have introspective tools available, but useful for
languages like C.
Erik> A piece of text has an audience, a context, and a set of
Erik> expectations associated with it. Until we can program
Erik> computers to deal with this, _people_ need to write text for
Erik> different audiences, different contexts, and different
Erik> expectations. When I look at code, I expect the
Erik> documentation there to help me understand it. When I read
Erik> the documentation, I hope to understand the system design.
This would be something like the architecture documentation, right?
Unfortunately, I have seen few good examples of this kind of
document. With Emacs, you can get some ideas about its architecture
from the Emacs Manual, some more from the Emacs Lisp Manual, the Emacs
paper, but I know of no document which describes the "design" in a way
detailed enough to make one feel comfortable with changing things.
Erik> If the system design expectation is attempted filled by
Erik> giving me a mere dump of the code documentation sans code, I
Erik> have reason to accuse people of fraud. When I read
Erik> specifications, I expect it to become the background noise
Erik> of my own expectations when I deal with a conforming system.
Erik> (This is why lack of conformance is so much more annoying
Erik> than bugs in stuff that does nto purport to conform to a
Erik> specification; I have to become _conscious_ of my
Erik> expectation that the specification is actually implemented,
Erik> and that means having to test for it and not being able to
Erik> believe it. This is like asking people if they understand
Erik> every word you use, instead of assuming that you agree to
Erik> speaking the same language.)
I have a similar problem with documentation, or more generally with
"broken rules"--once I see that there are (grave) mistakes, I am
getting sceptical and start wondering how much I can trust it. LP
does help here by reducing the distance between code and
documentation, so it is easier to keep them in sync. One still has to
update the other documents (user manual, architecture document) by hand/
Erik> Also, please note that a lot more than functions have
Erik> documentation. That often tends to be forgotten in systems
Erik> that primarly have functions as exportable interface
Erik> concepts. Classes, slots, types, packages, variables, and a
Erik> lot more stuff have documentation in Common Lisp. It is
Erik> sometimes hard to understand how people who invented these
Erik> things could be so futuristic that they would foresee such
Erik> needs. (It is likewise sad to see vendors completely
Erik> ignoring the specification and reinventing the wheel badly
Erik> when the "need" suddenly arises and half-assed stuff like
Erik> the "web" suddenly appears.)
Could you elaborate?
[1] From what I gathered as a long time reader of comp.prog.literate
and occasional user of LP.
--
best regards
Roland Kaufmann
Thomas F. Burdick
> BTW: Corman Lisp puts the CLHS page entry in a symbol property in the
> interactive environment. (I extended it to CLtL2 also).
> Only the page name, not the whole url.
> This needs less memory than emacs and is much faster, but
> emacs of course has all the other features we love.
Actually, Emacs keeps its docstrings on disk. So you only pay the
price of keeping them in memory if you use them.
Reini Urban
Oops, I knew that. But why don't they store just the offset into the DOC
file as symbol property? Just like corman lisp does it.
RANT: maybe because their int is too short :)
Disk IO vs Memory probably.
--
Reini Urban
http://tv.mur.at/film/
Robert Gonzalez
Erik Naggum wrote:
> * Steve Long <stev...@isomedia.com>
> > Any ideas for implementing this functionality in the XML world, a
> > direction that much of the sofware world seems to be heading?
>
> ....catatonic drivel deleted...
> so amazingly mindless! Speaking of which, if anyone needs evidence that
> there is _no_ god, that whatever god was here has _left_ the planet, etc,
> take a look at the fantastic mess that people arrange for themselves in
> data formats and what they actually consider improvements! Clearly, this
> could not have taken place if anyone, I mean _anyone_, had had a grand
> plan. Even a god who were responsible for the platypus would have done
> better than XML.
I take it you do not believe in God?
Erik Naggum
> > ....catatonic drivel deleted...
I take it that you do, to answer the other amazingly relevant comment you made.
Marcin Tustin
Erik Naggum <er...@naggum.net> wrote in message
news:32048083...@naggum.net...
> * Steve Long <stev...@isomedia.com>
> > Any ideas for implementing this functionality in the XML world, a
> > direction that much of the sofware world seems to be heading?
>
> What on _earth_ can XML possibly have to offer people who are not
already
> completely out of their mind? The interesting thing is to use Common
> Lisp to deal with that abomination so that some people can see how dumb
> SGML and HTML and XML really are and how it should have been done.
There
> is _zero_ point in moving from Common Lisp to XML
> Now, what did you have in mind?
Well, the only thing that I can see in XML is that it is simple: (It
seems to me) It is just the idea of describing data as lists of other data
using the <entity> list </entity> <symbol/> syntax. Not exciting, not too
pernicious.
Marcin Tustin
Roland Kaufmann <roland....@space.at> wrote in message
news:tl2bsmb...@space.at...
> What actually works (with LP) is to have one source from which the
> code and _documentation of the implementation_ can be extracted.
> Depending on the LP tools used, the documentation can include
> cross-references, indices etc. Probably not such a big deal for Lisp
> users, who have introspective tools available, but useful for
> languages like C.
I've been following this discussion, and a question, at the risk of
sounding ignorant, but...
What introspective tools/features exist in/for Cl?
Robert Gonzalez
Erik Naggum wrote:
> * Robert Gonzalez <no-...@austin.rr.com>
> > > ....catatonic drivel deleted...
> > data formats and what they actually consider improvements! Clearly, this
> > could not have taken place if anyone, I mean _anyone_, had had a grand
> > plan. Even a god who were responsible for the platypus would have done
> > better than XML.
> I take it that you do, to answer the other amazingly relevant comment you made.
>
I think the relevancy issue is in your court. What does God have to do with the
design of XML? Are'nt your rants getting a little ignominious?
>
> #:Erik
Erik Naggum
> I think the relevancy issue is in your court. What does God have to do
> with the design of XML? Are'nt your rants getting a little ignominious?
It seems that you have been offended. This was not intended on my part.
I consider the various versions of religions to be interesting fairy
tales and consider the fact that they collectively agree on absolutely
nothing to be evidence of their status as fairy tales created by people.
If you feel that your religion is under threat from someone who considers
it silly, you need to talk to someone to get over your hypersensitivity.
There are, for any given religion, literally _billions_ of people who
consider it not just silly, but wrong, evil, heresy, a danger to mankind,
etc. I think you should be more worried about your real enemies than the
people who have fun with something that is both tragic _and_ funny in the
development of human societies and belief systems. If you do wish to
discuss your religious hypersensitivity, do it somwehere appropriate. If
you want to get respect for your religious views, have respect for mine
first. So far, you appear to attack me for no reason whatsoever. For
that reason alone, I think your religion is bad, for your information.
Your need to continue to talk about this is not a very good sign, either.
raj
> *
* ( bizarre drivel deleted .... )
Erik Naggum
> * ( bizarre drivel deleted .... )
Wow, a self-referential news-article!
Robert Gonzalez
Erik Naggum wrote:
> * Robert Gonzalez <no-...@austin.rr.com>
> > I think the relevancy issue is in your court. What does God have to do
> > with the design of XML? Are'nt your rants getting a little ignominious?
>
> It seems that you have been offended. This was not intended on my part.
Actually, no offense taken Erik, I simply questioned the tangled thread you
were weaving, I'm not sure anyone else understood either. You need to re-read
the original to see how irrelevant that whole paragraph was. It appeared more
to be a statement of your religious beliefs more that it was a statement about
the subject matter. People simply want a means of documenting code, and its
very valuable to a newbie starting out in a development project, that should be
the intended target audience for such a tool, not necessarily the end user.
>
> I consider the various versions of religions to be interesting fairy
> tales and consider the fact that they collectively agree on absolutely
> nothing to be evidence of their status as fairy tales created by people.
That's fine also. I do not have any religion whatsoever. Your powers of
observation are not as keen as you think. Religion is man's invention. I
agree with you 100% on that. It has nothing to do with God, except that they
make reference to God. And they can totally contradict or disagree with each
other, but this does not prove or disprove the existence of an omnipotent,
and/or omniscient being. Neither does the opposite. If all religions agreed
with each other, that still would not prove anything. Especially not with a
God who does not show himself freely.
>
> If you feel that your religion is under threat from someone who considers
> it silly, you need to talk to someone to get over your hypersensitivity.
Again, there is no threat to something that does exist on my end. I have just
been following this line of discussion, and the obtuse turns it took. You seem
to think you are very smart, and apparently enjoy putting people down who you
judge infererior to yourself, but this type of behaviour only exposes ones own
moral and intellectual inferiority. You may want to seek counseling on that,
it could cause problems for you in society. Are you having trouble on a
professional or personal front? I don't mean to be intrusive, but I have read
many of your posts, and was amazed by the vituperativeness of many of them.
Why are you so acrimonious towards so many of the posters? Some of them simply
need someone to help them.
>
> There are, for any given religion, literally _billions_ of people who
> consider it not just silly, but wrong, evil, heresy, a danger to mankind,
> etc. I think you should be more worried about your real enemies than the
That is absolutely true, religion does set itself up that way, how tragic. But
are you a person of principle or a pragmatist? If you are a person of
principle, then you should either just shoot yourself, for the future is
meaningless, either everything ends up in a collapsing inferno of which there
is no escape, or (as the current theory goes) the universe goes cold and there
is nothing we can do about it, or the flip side of a person of principle is you
believe in God and stick with that principle to the end, which now has some
meaning attached to it. If you are a pragmatist, then the practical thing
would be to believe in God, for the sheer probablistic imbalance of 80 years vs
infinity, i.e. if you are a betting man, you should bet on infinity and get
over any objections you have, otherwise that makes you a man of principle. I'm
with you, religion does not have anything to offer, but there are alternatives,
did you know that?
>
> people who have fun with something that is both tragic _and_ funny in the
> development of human societies and belief systems. If you do wish to
> discuss your religious hypersensitivity, do it somwehere appropriate. If
> you want to get respect for your religious views, have respect for mine
> first. So far, you appear to attack me for no reason whatsoever. For
You never answered my question, you simply made an assumption about my
question. So no one knows your religious views, therefore I made no assumption
about them. It seems that you may be the one who is hypersensitive about this
issue. It appears that maybe you have an internal conflict that makes you
defensive in this area. If you want respect for your views, you need to state
them. What are they Erik?
>
> that reason alone, I think your religion is bad, for your information.
> Your need to continue to talk about this is not a very good sign, either.
>
But you also continue to want to talk about it. You also appear to need to
want to talk about this further. The proof is in your answers. I don't mind
either way. I love stimulating intellectual conversation about just about
anything. And don't worry about getting me upset, I find that getting upset
about anything is a waste of time, I'm way past that juvenile stage of my life.
Erik Naggum
> You need to re-read the original to see how irrelevant that whole
> paragraph was.
I would need to be you to see how irrelevant that whole paragraph was. I
am not you. I do not have your hypersensitivity to this issue. In my
eyes, it was a joke. To you, it is getting closer and closer to a master
thesis on the relevance of indinvidual paragraphs in USENET articles.
I have not read the rest of your article. It did not appear relevant to
either XML or Common Lisp, but rather extremely relevant only to yourself.
However, if relevance was such an issue, you would not have talked about
this here. Ergo, relevance is _not_ your issue. In other words, you
need to examine your whole article to see how irrelevant it is here.
Drop it and move on.
Bob Bane
>
> Well, the only thing that I can see in XML is that it is simple: (It
> seems to me) It is just the idea of describing data as lists of other data
> using the <entity> list </entity> <symbol/> syntax. Not exciting, not too
> pernicious.
The problem is that they didn't even get the simplicity part right. Go
look at the XML spec:
http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/REC-xml-20001006
It's huge, introducing needless syntax and complexity for no real gain
in expressive power or clarity. Mimimal XML looks simple, but once you
add in N**2 attribute types, and entities, and a seperate syntax for
DTDs, you end up with parsers as big as the one Franz wrote.
In particular look at the design goals, section 1.1:
----------------------
1.XML shall be straightforwardly usable over the Internet.
2.XML shall support a wide variety of applications.
3.XML shall be compatible with SGML.
4.It shall be easy to write programs which process XML documents.
5.The number of optional features in XML is to be kept to the absolute
minimum, ideally zero.
6.XML documents should be human-legible and reasonably clear.
7.The XML design should be prepared quickly.
8.The design of XML shall be formal and concise.
9.XML documents shall be easy to create.
10.Terseness in XML markup is of minimal importance.
----------------------
I would say that they completely missed goals 6-8, goals 4 and 9 are
iffy, and I don't know enough to judge goal 3.
--
Remove obvious stuff to e-mail me.
Bob Bane
Robert Gonzalez
thread along philosophical lines, but you're right, this is the wrong place for
that. I don't want to offend you, so lets move on... This is the lisp
newsgroup after all.
larry a price
<snip/> ----------------------
1.XML shall be straightforwardly usable over the Internet.
2.XML shall support a wide variety of applications.
3.XML shall be compatible with SGML.
4.It shall be easy to write programs which process XML documents.
5.The number of optional features in XML is to be kept to the absolute
minimum, ideally zero.
6.XML documents should be human-legible and reasonably clear.
7.The XML design should be prepared quickly.
8.The design of XML shall be formal and concise.
9.XML documents shall be easy to create.
10.Terseness in XML markup is of minimal importance.
----------------------
I would say that they completely missed goals 6-8, goals 4 and 9 are
iffy, and I don't know enough to judge goal 3.
I'm not sure just what experiences make you think that goals 6 and 8
have failed but remember that they have failed only for *some*subsets*
of XML and not the conceptual framework of how to create new markup.
Schemas and DTD's are some of the more wartish aspects, but unless i'm
mistaken meta-programming is difficult to do cleanly even in lisp.
Also some people point out that standards associated with certain
vendors (a certain vendor) are more verbose and complex than they
absolutely have to be. And this mostly so that they can move an
opening into the standard on which they can hook their propietary
code.
Advogato had some discussion of a lisp-like method of handling
XML called Virgule.
http://virgule.sourceforge.net
which i'm thinking of trying out, i'm not sure how much like the lisp
parser it is (it seems to rely heavily on the SAX api which is
event-driven). But it gives me the means to use or define a </lambda>
tag i'll take it. and the syntax looks pretty natural to me, specially
all the < tag-body >
I guess what i'm starting to see is that XML is always a tree and that
whatever is between the tags is either a sub-tree or terminal.
On a totally other topic has anyone else experimented with trying to
import lisp code into python. I've got a rather tatty version of
lisp.py that doesn't seem to do very well in parsing code that clisp
considers acceptable. I'd also like to go the other way and take
python--->clisp bytecode or is that just too ambitious.
Also and the main reason lisp appeals to me is the possibility of
using it to define my own language that solves the problem at hand,
what are the best ways of doing this?
Oh yeah, how do i parse a buffer in lisp? er how do i define a
grammar? er how do i translate the parse-tree into a turing-computable
function??(ok that last term, (turing-computable function) I sort of
know what i meant, but am not sure if i'm using the same language
pointing to the same referent as everyone else here.
ps. Confidential to mr. N*gg*m I've been trying to figure out whether
you're a genius or just a loudmouth, i see much heat and little light
coming from your direction, much rant and little code, some of the
other regulars are published and fairly well regarded academics, some
of whom i'd actually heard of in other venues. You on the other hand
appear only on usenet and don't seem to participate in the
trust-pool in quite the same way.
Please in the future if responding to my posts
1.answer my questions
2.don't flame me for not having been a lisp hacker since age fourteen,
i've done other things with my life which didn't involve computers,
and i started up with html and c++ 2yrs ago at the local community college
and am arriving at lisp by way of python in which i as yet am still
working on achieving journeyman level (in my eyes) code.
3.yes you do scare off the newbies.
--
l@ _________
ae premise 1: The Truth Makes No Sense ( )__
pf ____( )
rn premise 2: Beauty Is Truth ( )
i. / / / / / / / / / /
co conclusion: Beauty Is Unconscious / / / / / / / / / /
er \@/ http://www.efn.org/~laprice
g |
__________________________/_\_________________________________________________
Erik Naggum
> Schemas and DTD's are some of the more wartish aspects, but unless i'm
> mistaken meta-programming is difficult to do cleanly even in lisp.
What kind of meta-programming are they doing with XML?
A DTD is a structured document which contains information about elements.
If SGML/XML were any good, this would have been written with exactly the
same syntax that is used to describe other data. However, because they
were ignorant of the "code is data" concept, they, too, made the mistake
that "what we think must be good enough for everbody else sure ain't good
enough for us", and invented their very own syntax for their own needs.
> I guess what i'm starting to see is that XML is always a tree and that
> whatever is between the tags is either a sub-tree or terminal.
This is actually _desperately_ wrong. One of the first things you should
realize when you start to delve into SGML (or its ancestors) is that very
few things in real life are _only_ trees. The power of a description of
something tree-like is how well it can deal with non-tree-like aspects of
the same object structure. This is where SGML made its most egregious
mistakes. Look at how inhumanly, mind-bogglingly complex HyTime got
before they managed to take care of this problem reasonably well, and I
am not talking about the very complex concepts it tries to represent --
those are the easy part, once you realize that the syntax is the worst
possible barrier to grasp them.
> ps. Confidential to mr. N*gg*m
Really? Which four-letter word followed by which three-letter word do
you think I am really trying to communicate to such a friendly person as
yourself right now? Take a wild guess.
Tim Bradshaw
> I don't think so. This situation is rather common, and every ng has his own
> share of lunatics. We're a small community, so we only have one: not
> bad.
No this is incorrect. Erik is sanest person here, it's the rest of us
who are mad.
This is not an ironic comment.
--tim
cbbr...@hex.net
Well, I'm not greatly impressed with #Erik's "diplomacy;" that may
perhaps be the best way of putting that.
But there is _definitely_ a _vast_ difference between him and the
_definite lunaticks_ that operate in a vast number of newsgroups. He
may say things that are quite spectacularly insulting; this is,
however, _not_ then backed up by saying things that are [from a
technical perspective] spectacularly STUPID.
There are some almost certifiably insane people on can.taxes
[discussing Canadian taxation matters]; they have effectively driven
away almost anyone that is actually credible, unfortunately including
a true luminary in the area, David Sherman, who edits research notes
on both the Canadian Income Tax Act and the Goods & Services Tax. [If
there exist people who know more about Canadian taxation than he does,
they are likely countable on one hand, most likely without resorting
to use of a thumb...]
Comp.lang.lisp is fairly _fortunate_ to have the participation of
reasonably public luminaries like Kent Pitman, and (arguably with
somewhat lesser "fame") Barry Margolin; #Erik isn't as known "as
luminary," but is _definitely_ exceedingly bright, and is valuable to
have around.
When the flames burn high, that value tends to get obscured; it is
clearer when the questions are amenable to seeing valuable answers as
opposed to being personality clashes where, in the immortal words...
"It's the sort of mail you should wear a welding helmet while
reading...." -- Dave Moon
Note that there are a number of notable characters out there that are
somewhat "prickly." #Erik is certainly one; David Moon apparently is
another; other notable "prickly" characters include Theo de Raadt
(main OpenBSD guy), John Dysan (a FreeBSD guy), RMS... Linus Torvalds
is known to swear fairly viciously at people, on occasion, but with
his accent, only BSD folk seem to take it seriously...
Aside/Ob-Lisp-musing: I keep wondering what David Moon is up to these
days; he had been with Apple, but the Dylan project is dead, so he
surely must be on to something else...
--
(reverse (concatenate 'string "gro.mca@" "enworbbc"))
http://vip.hyperusa.com/~cbbrowne/lisp.html
Never knock on Death's door; ring the doorbell and run (he hates
that).
Erik Naggum
> Well, I'm not greatly impressed with #Erik's "diplomacy;" that may
> perhaps be the best way of putting that.
I am, for the obvious reasons, a little more interested in what passes
for diplomacy towards me. Here I am, speaking my mind about something,
and some little turd gets up in the middle of the crowd and shouts the
most bizarre insults at me. Not only do I have to say something that I
think makes sense, I need to prove my worth by a carreer path so that he
can judge me as genius or loudmouth. For some bizarre reason, this is
_not_ a transgression of diplomacy or good netiquette. Quite the
contrary, this little wet turd of a "newbie" has been strongly encouraged
by other residents here that it is in fact entierely legitimate to take
pot-shots at _me_, completely unprovoked. I had never said a harsh word
to this little turd before he stepped up and served us his filthy crap.
Why is that acceptable to you guys? The moralistic bunch of hypocrites
who think of themselves as protectors of good behavior have _none_ of
their own, when push comes to shove. They accept everything that hurts
me. They in fact go out of their way to hurt me with slander and a truly
amazing amount of "insight" into my personality. Have you ever stopped
to think about your own behavior for a change? What makes _you_ tick?
What kind of horrible personality disorder caused that little turd to
believe that he could actually do what he did?
As long as the moralistic bunch of hypocrites tell people that it is OK
to lambast me for just about anything out of the blue, they perpetuate
the _myth_ to "newbies" and others that I am somehow harsh to people.
They forget the _massive_ abuse they have levied on me. Why do they have
such a morality that they can gang up someone and behave the way they do?
It is manifestly not something I do. Several people have in the past
crawled out of the woodwork and initiated a witch hunt and an exorcism of
something that I have never even done, let alone could have done. It is
not something I do _to_ them. It is obviously something _they_ feel, and
since they are of the moralistic bent, they turn off their ethics and
commit the most unspeakable evils against whoever think "deserve" it.
Now, how would you deal with people who are massively irrational and in a
moral frenzy about killing that which made them feel less than they think
they should feel, for whatever reason, and it happened to be _yourself_?
In a technical forum, I expect people to write precisely, to think before
they post, to know of what they speak, and to listen to technical
arguments. I consider a person who enters such a forum under false
premises, including lack of will to be precise, lack of will to think,
lack of will to learn, and/or lack of will to listen, to be a _fraud_.
There is nothing that can be said, on-topic, to such a person to make him
stop defrauding people. People do not stop being frauds in real life if
you give them _more_ money. They may stop if you give them _no_ money
and additionally beat them over the head. The problem, if any, is that
some people think they have a right to participate in a technical forum
with no knowledge or valuable contributions to others at _all_. They
think of themselvse as "newbies" and think they have the _right_ to waste
other people's time when they ask vague questions that have no answer, do
not think about the answers they do get, assume so much that you have no
idea what they know, what they have just guessed, or what they made up,
do not actually listen to what anybody say but try to match it to their
massive set of mostly unconscious assumptions, and refuse to learn
because they think they have a _right_ to be told correct "answers" to
their "questions". In a real physical forum, such people shut up,
because they actually manage to sense the antipathy they receive from
people areound them. On the Net, there is no sense of antipathy. You
have to realize that it is there from something you read consciously. In
other words, a fraud can set up shop on the Net and nobody will come and
hit him if they think he is a bastard. This safetey from reaction causes
people to behave in counter-productive ways. It also causes people to
fire up their righteousness and hurt people much more than they would
have if they had sensed that people would fight back. As long as nobody
can actually be _hurt_ on the Net, this will always continue. The people
who keep it up are the frauds, because they are the only people who
_gain_ by abusing the public trust in the purpose of a technical forum.
Diplomacy is the art of saying "nice doggie" until you find a big enough
rock to kill it with. I skip the "nice doggie" part. So sue me. ///
raj
>perhaps be the best way of putting that.
>
>But there is _definitely_ a _vast_ difference between him and the
>_definite lunaticks_ that operate in a vast number of newsgroups. He
>may say things that are quite spectacularly insulting;
Is Erik still around ?
I had killfiled him a while ago.
I must "unkill" him.
His posts are bizarrely funny in a strange sort of way.....
Israel Raj Thomas
---------------------------------------------------
VI VI XIII
Roman Neighbour of the Beast
raj
( much meaningless invective deleted)
> ....... On the Net, there is no sense of antipathy. .....
.....
> Diplomacy is the art of saying "nice doggie" until you find a big enough
> rock to kill it with. I skip the "nice doggie" part.
Yeah , right....
No antipathy at all.
(Shaking head wonderingly...)
Erik Naggum
> (much meaningless invective deleted)
This is the kind of fraud I am talking about. Why is that criminal
allowed to believe he is contributing to the forum and that _his_
behavior is appropriate? ///
raj
The same reason that the Naggum criminal is....
Kent M Pitman
> On Wed, 01 Aug 2001 11:55:42 GMT, Erik Naggum <er...@naggum.net> wrote:
>
> >* raj <isra...@optushome.com.au>
> >> (much meaningless invective deleted)
> >
> > This is the kind of fraud I am talking about. Why is that criminal
> > allowed to believe he is contributing to the forum and that _his_
> > behavior is appropriate?
>
> The same reason that the Naggum criminal is....
Modulo the confusing use of the word criminal in both cases, I beleive
raj has you on a technicality Erik. People are allowed here because
they cannot be excluded. People are allowed to believe things because
most of us (probably yourself included) think it is immoral to try to
control others' minds.
Erik, I've often defended some of your more colorful language as harmless
when others have claimed it similarly not contributing. That didn't
mean I didn't understand how someone's feelings could get hurt; just
that I think at some point we have to rely on the good sense of those
involved to sort out the difference between "statements" and "truth", etc.
I think similarly here, I can understand why you are upset, but I also
think your sparring partner is engaging in "colorful language" and I think
people watching can tell the difference.
I even think it's fine for you to cite the fact that you take exception
to the form of what he said. I just hope neither of you will dwell on it.
Erik Naggum
> Do you think that sig file you used until yesterday helped to perpetuate
> this 'myth'?
No. That myth has been perpeatued by people like yourself for the
longest time. You just need excuses not to stpp, and they have nothing
to do with what I do, either. You are perfactly capable of inventing
such excsues entirely on your own. As you have proven time and again.
> BTW, it was a very 'clever' ass-covering technique to remove it, now that
> you want to make yourself look as a victim of some kind of conspiracy.
See, you impute evil intentions to me that you have way of knowing
anything about at all. This is not a conspiracy, of course, it is a set
of ethical guidelines that make evil people pretend they have the right
to do exactly whatever they want towards me because they think of me as
the aggressor no matter what I actually do, whether I have actually done
anything, or whether I even intended to do anything. You prove that.
Every once in a while, I change something in the way things appear around
me and what I write. Midnight of August 1, 2001, I started using a new
"signoff" and no signatures. I will predict that you somehow magically
"know" the reason and rationale for this, too, and that it has to do with
the timing of other news articles. After all, you are the conspiracy
buff around here who can intuit people's intentions: Nothing I say or do
will turn you away from your "knowledge" of what I did and why. ///
Erik Naggum
> People are allowed to believe things because most of us (probably
> yourself included) think it is immoral to try to control others' minds.
Not so. Several people here think it is entirely moral, even their
goddamn _duty_, to control _my_ mind, and not only that, they make a huge
stink about telling people what my intentions are, because they _want_
others to think I am as bad as their nightmares. Now, I could not care
less what people think I want to do, but I do in fact care when _many_
people systematically portray _everything_ I do as bad, no matter what I
have done, in fact _whether_ I have done anything at all. _Those_ are
the lunatics of comp.lang.lisp. Somehow, they are tolerated much more
than I am. That actually _puzzles_ me.
> Erik, I've often defended some of your more colorful language as harmless
> when others have claimed it similarly not contributing. That didn't mean
> I didn't understand how someone's feelings could get hurt; just that I
> think at some point we have to rely on the good sense of those involved
> to sort out the difference between "statements" and "truth", etc. I
> think similarly here, I can understand why you are upset, but I also
> think your sparring partner is engaging in "colorful language" and I
> think people watching can tell the difference.
That was not the point of referring to said bastard that way. It is
impossible for me to say _anything_ without that kind of fraud coming to
tear it down for reasons of his own personal agenda, completely unrelated
to either form of contents of what I have said. There is _nothing_ in
what I do that controls people's reactions to it, anymore. They are
self-propelled lunatics by now. Whether I am nice to people or bomb them
has absolutely no bearing on the reactions of those people. When that
wet little turds like that insulting newbie thought he had the right to
do what he did, he had absorbed that impression from other people here.
One of the worst current perpetrators is Barry Margolin, whom people I
have talked to on other topics have spontaneously mentioned is obviously
unable to read anything I write at all without going ballistic. And he
says he is afraid of me. How does anyone expect people to react to such
lunacy? There is so much irrationality in a few people on this newsgroup
that it is hard for "newbies" not to be scared away, but then they blame
_me_ for it because that the is consensus among the lunatics. I do not
believe in the Christian and Jewish concept of scape goats, but there is
no doubt that if the people who behave incredibly destructively here did
not have me to blame for their very own evil behavior, somebody would
have shot _all_ of them instead of just trying to get me.
> I even think it's fine for you to cite the fact that you take exception
> to the form of what he said. I just hope neither of you will dwell on it.
I take exception to the fact that he portrays _everything_ I do as bad,
not the form in which he said it. How could I possibly care about form?
I have never _dwelled_ on the disturbed reactions of lunatics. That does
not mean they do not annoy me when they insist on not going away. ///
Coby Beck
Erik,
I'm responding to this because I have no doubt you consider me one of the
"moralistic bunch of hypocrites" you are referring to above and because you
have asked specific and aparently non-rhetorical questions. (If I am
mistaken, then I regret contributing to this thread) I also believe that
you misrepresent what you are discussing so I will put forth a different
perspective.
I apologize for contributing to off-topic bandwidth and hope that at least
changing the subject line will enable those annoyed by these kinds of
discussions to avoid it.
> contrary, this little wet turd of a "newbie" has been strongly
encouraged
> by other residents here that it is in fact entierely legitimate to take
> pot-shots at _me_, completely unprovoked. I had never said a harsh word
> to this little turd before he stepped up and served us his filthy crap.
> Why is that acceptable to you guys?
I didn't think the "confidential to Erik:" part of "larry a price's" post
was useful or called for. Other people responded with their defensive of
your technical expertise. I'm not interested in calling more attention to
these kinds of things. But you seem to want to know why I have protested a
small fraction of your inappropriate postings and not this one, so I will
explain:
The odd one-time post by someone unknown to the group is a very different
matter than consistent behaviour from a regular. Like it or not Erik, your
stature here brings with it responsibility. Meaning no slight to other
informed and interesting contributers, your posts carry more weight than any
other regular with the exception of Kent Pitman and Barry Margolin. I may
be basing this on some unconcious personal bias, but to me these three names
more than any others represent the deepest knowledge of lisp in this group.
When you write, you represent the lisp community much, much more than some
random visitor or some long-time lurker. You can blast the human nature
that needs to revere and emulate perceived experts all you want, but it is a
fact that you will never change by belittling and insulting this "moronic"
behaviour. People are not computers, you should not deal with them as
though they should be as logical and unemotional as the languages we invent
to program them. Given these facts, it is your responsibility to behave
more maturely.
You chose not to, I can't change that. I do however, try to undo some of
the damage you cause. larry a price did very little damage to the group's
dynamic.
> As long as the moralistic bunch of hypocrites tell people that it is OK
> to lambast me for just about anything out of the blue, they perpetuate
> the _myth_ to "newbies" and others that I am somehow harsh to people.
> They forget the _massive_ abuse they have levied on me. Why do they
have
> such a morality that they can gang up someone and behave the way they
do?
Thse lines are exactly why I harbor no hopes of you ever understanding your
own behaviour in any terms shared by human society.
Please show me any post telling any one what you claim, if it is mine I will
apologise. If you are meaning an implicit encouragement by silence, I hope
I have explained above my own perspective. By the way, the best way to
refute any attack on your behaviour is to respond maturely or not at all.
> Diplomacy is the art of saying "nice doggie" until you find a big enough
> rock to kill it with. I skip the "nice doggie" part. So sue me. ///
This is only true if your goal is, in fact, to kill somebody. There are
other ways to disagree. There are other ways be right.
Coby
--
(remove #\space "coby . beck @ opentechgroup . com")
Kent M Pitman
> * Kent M Pitman <pit...@world.std.com>
> > People are allowed to believe things because most of us (probably
> > yourself included) think it is immoral to try to control others' minds.
>
> Not so. Several people here think it is entirely moral, even their
> goddamn _duty_, to control _my_ mind,
They may. But they don't end up doing it, do they? They are allowed to
believe they are able to control you because in fact they cannot; and to
the extent that they only think they can, they are confused. Which they,
like anyone, are allowed to be.
> Somehow, they are tolerated much more than I am.
> That actually _puzzles_ me.
The world is a strange place. Many things puzzle me but few surprise me.
> That was not the point of referring to said bastard that way. It is
> impossible for me to say _anything_ without that kind of fraud coming to
> tear it down for reasons of his own personal agenda,
Well, having surveyed the logs of this in detail one time, I have to agree
with you that the pattern of people "attacking you for attacking" was more
statistically prevalent than your "attacking others". You do have a short
temper with some issues, but I agree with your analysis that there is a clash
of styles here, and that your style gets beaten up perhaps unfairly by some.
I might commend to all concerned the works of Deborah Tannen (and perhaps
it would be cool if she'd do a book on newsgroup discussion :-) about
differences in style and dialect leading naturally to clashes like this.
I don't think there's much to be done in such cases but to go calmly meta
and shrug it off.
> ... There is so much irrationality in a few people on this newsgroup
> that it is hard for "newbies" not to be scared away,
I think most people know what newsgroups are and I doubt this scares
off that many. All in all, people don't tend to jump on newbies and I bet
newbies read mostly the responses to their own posts. Many have commented
at how friendly this newsgroup is compared to some. I tend to
agree.
A quote I picked up from somewhere in my distant past seems near relevant:
"people who worry what others think of them probably overestimate the
frequency with which they do". Yes, there are things said on this newsgroup
tha,k if read, might scare people off. In most cases, I bet those same
scare-able people are long gone due to sheer length of post, or irrelevance
of topic, and never survive to the offensive part. But even so, flamage
is a part of modern life and people need to learn just to skim past it.
> > I even think it's fine for you to cite the fact that you take exception
> > to the form of what he said. I just hope neither of you will dwell on it.
>
> I take exception to the fact that he portrays _everything_ I do as bad,
Me, too, fwiw.
> not the form in which he said it.
Ah, sorry. The sentiment of my remark stands even if you strike "the
form of".
> How could I possibly care about form?
Heh. My error.
> I have never _dwelled_ on the disturbed reactions of lunatics. That does
> not mean they do not annoy me when they insist on not going away. ///
Well, without prejudice as to who is a lunatic and who is not, let me
just say that given that I often believe it the sane thing to go away
when things are not to one's liking (and I often take time off from
the newsgroup when I feel people are attacking me), I would find it
little difficult to believe that anyone not sane would not go
away. ;-)
Marco Antoniotti
Kent M Pitman <pit...@world.std.com> writes:
...
> I might commend to all concerned the works of Deborah Tannen (and perhaps
> it would be cool if she'd do a book on newsgroup discussion :-) about
> differences in style and dialect leading naturally to clashes like
> this.
"You Just Don't Understand!" or: "is that really what you meant?" :)
Cheers
--
Marco Antoniotti ========================================================
NYU Courant Bioinformatics Group tel. +1 - 212 - 998 3488
719 Broadway 12th Floor fax +1 - 212 - 995 4122
New York, NY 10003, USA http://bioinformatics.cat.nyu.edu
"Hello New York! We'll do what we can!"
Bill Murray in `Ghostbusters'.
Thomas F. Burdick
> I apologize for contributing to off-topic bandwidth and hope that at least
> changing the subject line will enable those annoyed by these kinds of
> discussions to avoid it.
In general c.l.l is one of the nicer newsgroups around, with usually
only one flame war going on, sometimes none. However, I find the
propensity to mark the flamewars as "discussions of Erik Naggum"
*really* creepy. And it's completely dishonest of you to change the
subject line like that. If you were *really* just interested in
providing the public service of marking the thread as having descended
into the furnace, you'd have changed it to "[Flame] So, where's the
'Javadoc' for COMMON Lisp?", or some such. Instead of moving personal
attacks into the subject line.
Kent M Pitman
I concur with Thomas here. The cure here is far worse than the
problem. I tried to send Coby private mail exprssing my disapproval
of this thread, but the mail bounced.
Threads of this kind appear to offer their subject line as a premise
and create an inappropriate bias to otherwise neutral participants
that is hard to address fairly other than by responding in kind (i.e.,
escalating). It should not be done.
It also raises what would be an obscure corner of the newsgroup
invisible to most newbie posters to a level of visibility that anyone
sees in the summary of "what we talk about". I think it's bad in that
regard.
I've really gone back and looked at the logs, and the number of "witch
hunt" posts against erik far outnumber the number of offensive posts
by Erik, especially if you only count the initial posts from Erik and
not the ones that occur after an all-out flamefest on both sides has
been engendered. And in nearly all cases that I saw where Erik might
be regarded as "attacking first", there is a pretty clear instance of
someone straying from the technical into the a controversial social
observation which any reasonable person thinking ahead could expect
might push someone's buttons. In the cases where people stick to
technical topics, they pretty much get very high quality technical
responses from Erik and in the case where they drift, Erik "drifts"...
Maybe Erik shouldn't jump on people as quickly as he does in some cases;
that's a subjective judgment some might reasonably have.. But speaking
as objectively as one can in here, merely by counting message posts
and observing the flow, the oil people put on that flame seems to hugely
magnify the problem, and seems to me objectively (to the extent anything
can be objective here) to be worse than the original problem in the sense
of being more visible, more long-running, more painful, more full of
insults than I imagine would likely occur if the incident were simply
ignored.
This is not a forum in which one can coerce the behavior of another. It
is foolish on all sides to try. Anyone, however well meaning (including
myself here), who even tries is contributing to the problem.
Coby Beck
"Thomas F. Burdick" <t...@conquest.OCF.Berkeley.EDU> wrote in message
news:xcvpuaf...@conquest.OCF.Berkeley.EDU...
> "Coby Beck" <cb...@mercury.bc.ca> writes:
>
> > I apologize for contributing to off-topic bandwidth and hope that at
least
> > changing the subject line will enable those annoyed by these kinds of
> > discussions to avoid it.
>
> In general c.l.l is one of the nicer newsgroups around, with usually
> only one flame war going on, sometimes none. However, I find the
> propensity to mark the flamewars as "discussions of Erik Naggum"
> *really* creepy. And it's completely dishonest of you to change the
> subject line like that.
That's what the post was about. That is what the post it replied to was
about. You can object to my even making it but how can that be
characterized as dishonest?
> If you were *really* just interested in
> providing the public service of marking the thread as having descended
> into the furnace, you'd have changed it to "[Flame] So, where's the
> 'Javadoc' for COMMON Lisp?", or some such.
That *really* was my intention so there must be a flaw in your deduction.
And, as it was not a flame, I wouldn't have labeled it as such. From
Google's usenet glossary:
Flame:
1.. vi To post a message intended to insult and provoke.
2.. vi To speak incessantly and/or rabidly on some relatively
uninteresting subject or with a patently ridiculous attitude.
You can not seriously characterize my writing that way though you are more
than welcome to disagree with my statements.
> Instead of moving personal
> attacks into the subject line.
>
There is no attack in that subject line. Please....
Coby
Thomas F. Burdick
> "Thomas F. Burdick" <t...@conquest.OCF.Berkeley.EDU> wrote in message
[ ... ]
> > If you were *really* just interested in
> > providing the public service of marking the thread as having descended
> > into the furnace, you'd have changed it to "[Flame] So, where's the
> > 'Javadoc' for COMMON Lisp?", or some such.
>
> That *really* was my intention so there must be a flaw in your deduction.
> And, as it was not a flame, I wouldn't have labeled it as such. From
> Google's usenet glossary:
>
> Flame:
> 1.. vi To post a message intended to insult and provoke.
And what, exactly, is it to, in a public forum, "analyze" in
pseudo-objective phraseology, the (percieved) personal shortcomings of
someone with whom you're not on great terms? I'm assuming you're not
actually so naive.
Coby Beck
"Kent M Pitman" <pit...@world.std.com> wrote in message
news:sfw3d7b...@world.std.com...
> t...@conquest.OCF.Berkeley.EDU (Thomas F. Burdick) writes:
>
> >
> > "Coby Beck" <cb...@mercury.bc.ca> writes:
> >
> > > I apologize for contributing to off-topic bandwidth and hope that at
least
> > > changing the subject line will enable those annoyed by these kinds of
> > > discussions to avoid it.
> >
> > In general c.l.l is one of the nicer newsgroups around, with usually
> > only one flame war going on, sometimes none. However, I find the
> > propensity to mark the flamewars as "discussions of Erik Naggum"
> > *really* creepy. And it's completely dishonest of you to change the
> > subject line like that. If you were *really* just interested in
> > providing the public service of marking the thread as having descended
> > into the furnace, you'd have changed it to "[Flame] So, where's the
> > 'Javadoc' for COMMON Lisp?", or some such. Instead of moving personal
> > attacks into the subject line.
>
> I concur with Thomas here. The cure here is far worse than the
> problem. I tried to send Coby private mail exprssing my disapproval
> of this thread, but the mail bounced.
>
Please feel free to use the address in my sig.
> Threads of this kind appear to offer their subject line as a premise
> and create an inappropriate bias to otherwise neutral participants
> that is hard to address fairly other than by responding in kind (i.e.,
> escalating). It should not be done.
>
> It also raises what would be an obscure corner of the newsgroup
> invisible to most newbie posters to a level of visibility that anyone
> sees in the summary of "what we talk about". I think it's bad in that
> regard.
>
These are good points. On reflection I regret having altered the subject.
I will insist however that my motives were not insincere, I really thought
that given my choice to write such a post, that was the proper thing to do.
I apologize for raising the profile of this branch of this thread.
Erik Naggum
> Thse lines are exactly why I harbor no hopes of you ever understanding your
> own behaviour in any terms shared by human society.
The people who engage in the unceasing vilification of everything I do
are quite few in number, but _very_ vocal. The two most recently active
specimens are "Fernando" and "raj", more or less anonymous as one would
expect. You are a vocal and annoyingly persistent critic, but at least
you abstain from senseless vilification. If you think I have a greater
responsibility because my articles carry more weight, the people I refer
to who have made it their purpose to destroy any and all value in what I
write. _That_ is the incredibly unfair part. That is what I *hate* that
people do. If I do something bad, tell me, flame me, yell at me, but try
to make something I do that is _not_ bad, even good, into something bad,
and you will not doubt that you would be dead if it were only up to me.
Now, unlike what everybody tells others about me, I do not consider it
_good_ to flame people who resort to vilification. It is a _necessary_
evil, but evil nonetheless. Some of the people who spend an enormous
amount of energy vilifying me from here to the end of the world, have
made it clear that they think it is _good_ to attack me, that they do it
because they believe they are morally _justified_ in doing it. This is a
huge difference. There is no stopping someone who is morally justified.
The interesting thing about real life is that people realize very quickly
how much evil they can get away with towards somebody else. This means
that by signalling to others what you will not accept, they refrain from
doing it in the first place. Rational self-interest makes people think
twice about hurting someone if they sense that they can get hurt back.
This unreduced will to hurt anyone who attacks you is the reason people
form peaceful societies and human advances such as trust and justice --
without it, bad people can get away with absolustely anything they want.
This is the case on the Net and the reasons there are so many bad people
who abuse it -- take all the worms and viruses and denial-of-service
attacks with all the bad USENET and WWW cultures. Ignorants blame the
absence of real faces and empathy and all kinds of gobbledygook, but the
_real_ reason is that you can laugh at somebody's fist instead of getting
hurt by it if _you_ do something bad to somebody else and they hit you
back. The absence of a credible threat of violent response fosters evil,
because those who have evil intentions are in fact only stopped by force.
The same applies to how people react to corrections. I may be getting
worked up at times, but I make a point of not insulting people first, I
do not think people are stupid, I do not consider or call them morons --
I simply state what I consider to be true, on technical or philosophical
matters. Still, some morons _are_ insulted, because in real life, _they_
would have signalled a violent response to the prospect of having ideas
or opinions of that kind presented to them, or particularly the fact that
they might be wrong. To some people, a minority of perhaps 5%, it is
_much_ more important to defend their inflated ego than anything that
could make their ego _recover_ (such as actually listening to the critics
and fix what they do wrong) and they will not back down until their ego
is vindicated. Obviously, some people will think this applies to me, but
look carefully at how these vilifiers jump at every opportunity to make
things much, much worse. It is impossible for me to make these insane
guys stop their attacks. _That_ is the core of the problem. It has
nothing to do with what _I_ do, anymore.
> Please show me any post telling any one what you claim, if it is mine I will
> apologise.
I cannot recall that it has been in your articles. Take a look at what
"Fernando" and "raj" do.
> By the way, the best way to refute any attack on your behaviour is to
> respond maturely or not at all.
Not any more. Not with these guys around. Not with silent acceptance of
their behavior and an enormous outburst of hatred when I respond in any
way at all, which is what _really_ tells me that even you think this is
my fault, and that "Fernando" and "raj" are innocent little fucks who
should be allowed to get away with it. ///
Wade Humeniuk
> matter than consistent behaviour from a regular. Like it or not Erik,
your
> stature here brings with it responsibility. Meaning no slight to other
> informed and interesting contributers, your posts carry more weight than
any
> other regular with the exception of Kent Pitman and Barry Margolin. I may
> be basing this on some unconcious personal bias, but to me these three
names
> more than any others represent the deepest knowledge of lisp in this
group.
>
> When you write, you represent the lisp community much, much more than some
> random visitor or some long-time lurker. You can blast the human nature
> that needs to revere and emulate perceived experts all you want, but it is
a
> fact that you will never change by belittling and insulting this "moronic"
> behaviour. People are not computers, you should not deal with them as
> though they should be as logical and unemotional as the languages we
invent
> to program them. Given these facts, it is your responsibility to behave
> more maturely.
Facts??
Are you blasting Erik's behavior or supporting it?
Stature, responsibility, deepest knowledge, maturity....
Its too bad that people do not behave as you expect. Perhaps you should
take them off the pedestal that you have created.
Wade
Gareth McCaughan
[SNIP: quotation from someone else saying that Erik
should behave more maturely because his posts carry
much weight in c.l.l]
> Facts??
I think it's pretty incontrovertible that Erik is one of the
N most expert Lispers here, for fairly small N. (I make no
comment on the exact position assigned him by the previous
poster.)
I think it's pretty incontrovertible that there would be
less flamage on c.l.l if Erik had a longer fuse. (But there
might also be more drivel. And, as Kent observes, Erik gets
picked on and it's hardly a surprise if he gets annoyed.)
> Are you blasting Erik's behavior or supporting it?
He's praising Erik's technical expertise and criticising
Erik's behaviour. Is that hard to understand, or something?
> Stature, responsibility, deepest knowledge, maturity....
You appear to think that these are all compliments paid
to Erik by the previous poster. Only the first and third
are. (In particular, he was complaining that Erik ought
to behave more maturely than he does, not admiring Erik's
maturity.)
> Its too bad that people do not behave as you expect. Perhaps you should
> take them off the pedestal that you have created.
I saw no pedestal. The article you describe praised Erik's
technical expertise and criticised his behaviour. Calling
someone an expert on Lisp is not putting them on a pedestal.
Please note that I pass no comment on the views expressed
in the grandparent of this article, beyond what I've explicitly
said above. In particular, I should not be assumed to agree
with everything in it merely because I think Wade is attacking
it on unreasonable grounds.
--
Gareth McCaughan Gareth.M...@pobox.com
.sig under construc
Bulent Murtezaoglu
[well thought out bits deleted]
GM> Please note that I pass no comment on the views expressed in
GM> the grandparent of this article, beyond what I've explicitly
GM> said above. In particular, I should not be assumed to agree
GM> with everything in it merely because I think Wade is attacking
GM> it on unreasonable grounds.
But by saying this you are insulting all of us by insinuating that we
would make such an assumption.
Please note this is a an attempt at humour. I should not be assumed
to make references to anything else that might have happened here
before. Please also note that the above attempt to cover my behind
is a poor substitute for not writing anything in the first place.
Please also...
cheers,
BM
larry a price
>Well, I'm not greatly impressed with #Erik's "diplomacy;" that may
>perhaps be the best way of putting that.
>
Ok, as the voluntary recipient of mr. Naggum's latest round of
diplomacy. I feel somewhat bound to explain myself.
Erik, if you think that i had or have by now made a permanent judgment
of your mental capacities or your tact, you are wrong. Of the two
alternatives i mentioned (genius|loudmouth) it is an unfortunate fact
that evidence of the latter has overwhelmed evidence of the former at
least in the time that i have been reading this newsgroup.
Kent Pitman mentioned a book that i also recommend
Deborah Tannen's "You Just Don't Understand" ISBN:0345372050
which explores the multifarious ways that language as often interferes
with understanding as it enables.
To which I might add another book recommendation
Suzette Haden Elgin's "The Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense" ISBN:0688137865
which provides practical insight on as she puts it "disagreeing
without being disagreeable" -- a worthy goal we should probably all
strive for.
Oddly enough these books touch upon one of the main reasons i am
seeking to learn lisp, the fact that though we each carry around
multiple, often conflicting definitions of words and everyone's
mental dictionary is different, we still manage, occasionally, to
communicate.
I'm interested in what for lack of a better term might be called
'negotiated semantics', that is the process by which relevant
definitions are adjusted by the participant's in a conversation,
during that conversation.
I'm interested in modelling some aspects of that process and lisp
looks like it would be a fairly good tool for that job.
Is Erik still around ?
I had killfiled him a while ago.
I must "unkill" him.
His posts are bizarrely funny in a strange sort of way.....
Israel Raj Thomas
---------------------------------------------------
I'm actually somewhat ideologically opposed to the concept of always
editing one's reality to suit one's prejudices. I'd rather not need a
kf at all.
Christophe Rhodes
> On Wed, 01 Aug 2001 20:57:17 GMT, Erik Naggum <er...@naggum.net> wrote:
>
> >* "Coby Beck" <cb...@mercury.bc.ca>
> >> Thse lines are exactly why I harbor no hopes of you ever understanding your
> >> own behaviour in any terms shared by human society.
> >
> > The people who engage in the unceasing vilification of everything I do
> > are quite few in number, but _very_ vocal. The two most recently active
> > specimens are "Fernando" and "raj", more or less anonymous as one would
> > expect.
>
> No Erik, there's nothing anonymous about me. I'm no "G I Gunmaker".
>
> For those with a bad memory:
> http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&safe=off&th=6a61e62639b668f,10&rnum=1&selm=94s8ju%24ubp%241%40nnrp1.deja.com
And of course, anyone who follows that link should really read all the
surrounding context, including Erik's explanation, and not just the
one message. Incidentally, and forgive me if this is totally obvious
to everyone, I'm fairly convinced that if Erik had wanted to be
anonymous he'd have done rather better than posting with an address
with his name in the whois database...
I'm amazed at the amount of time people have to spend on senseless
discussion; time that surely could be better spent elsewhere.
Christophe
--
Jesus College, Cambridge, CB5 8BL +44 1223 510 299
http://www-jcsu.jesus.cam.ac.uk/~csr21/ (defun pling-dollar
(str schar arg) (first (last +))) (make-dispatch-macro-character #\! t)
(set-dispatch-macro-character #\! #\$ #'pling-dollar)
Alain Picard
> "Coby Beck" <cb...@mercury.bc.ca> writes:
> >
> > Flame:
> > 1.. vi To post a message intended to insult and provoke.
>
> And what, exactly, is it to, in a public forum, "analyze" in
> pseudo-objective phraseology, the (percieved) personal shortcomings of
> someone with whom you're not on great terms? I'm assuming you're not
> actually so naive.
A level-headed attempt to cool things down. If you think Coby's
message was a flame, it is you who is naive, or else you've never
seen what a real flame looks like.
Gee, now I'm reminded the the old days on rec.audio, when the
vinyl types would argue that Nyquist's theorem couldn't be true...
now, _those_ were flamewars! :-)
--
It would be difficult to construe Me, in this article.
this as an attack on anyone.
Erik Naggum
> Erik, if you think that i had or have by now made a permanent judgment
> of your mental capacities or your tact, you are wrong.
Please. I am not dead, yet. Some people believe a reaction to an
observed action, like "idiot!", is just that, which puzzles me, because
all anyone can ever see and actually judge is people's actions and all
anyone ever reacts to is observed action. That, however, does not mean
some people refuse to accept the existence of counter-evidence to their
conclusions, but it is not the judgment that is the problem, it is the
lack of new judgment in the face of new data.
> Of the two alternatives i mentioned (genius|loudmouth) it is an
> unfortunate fact that evidence of the latter has overwhelmed evidence of
> the former at least in the time that i have been reading this newsgroup.
Yeah, I know. A lot of people would _prefer_ I were a loudmouth.
> Kent Pitman mentioned a book that i also recommend Deborah Tannen's "You
> Just Don't Understand" ISBN:0345372050 which explores the multifarious
> ways that language as often interferes with understanding as it enables.
Another useful book in this regard is David Kerisey: Please Understand Me
II (ISBN 1-885705-02-6), which explores how people differ in what they
wish to understand and how they go about it, due to personality types.
Some people insist on telling people how the world should be, others are
much more interested in learning what it is like. Some people introspect
and think most, others sense and feel most, and some are introverted
about what they most, while others are extraverted about it. This makes
for an interesting blend of personality types. (There are other models.)
> To which I might add another book recommendation Suzette Haden Elgin's
> "The Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense" ISBN:0688137865 which provides
> practical insight on as she puts it "disagreeing without being
> disagreeable" -- a worthy goal we should probably all strive for.
Some people see agremeent on one or more levels as a primary value.
Others consider the focus on agreement to be a disaster. Simply put:
Some people want to be liked. Others want to understand. When a person
who wants to be liked is confronted with a person who wants to
understand, the former is likely to feel under serious pressure, and
indeed often feel physically threatened, because many people do not think
people like eachother because they understand each other, but because
they simply make an effort to be polite to all the people they do not
like, but that would stop if they understood them.
> Oddly enough these books touch upon one of the main reasons i am seeking
> to learn lisp, the fact that though we each carry around multiple, often
> conflicting definitions of words and everyone's mental dictionary is
> different, we still manage, occasionally, to communicate.
You will find that a lot of people who like Lisp have a philosophical
bent and appreciate such fundamental puzzles. You did not exactly look
like one who would from your extremely judgmental, anti-introspective,
extraverted feelings.
> I'm interested in what for lack of a better term might be called
> 'negotiated semantics', that is the process by which relevant definitions
> are adjusted by the participant's in a conversation, during that
> conversation.
Looks like Habermas has thought up something you could benefit from.
> I'm actually somewhat ideologically opposed to the concept of always
> editing one's reality to suit one's prejudices.
In regard to the person you quoted, he is a _typical_ judgmental type.
It is the mark of the judgmental type to want to edit reality. ///
Erik Naggum
> You are the _only_ one who repeteadly insults people, as well as the only one
> dishonest enough to post anonymous flames.
Have a caring doctor look into that psychosis, will you? Get well soon. ///
Erik Naggum
> I'm amazed at the amount of time people have to spend on senseless
> discussion; time that surely could be better spent elsewhere.
You know, I happen not to think so. I get quite worked up because I am
under attack a lot, but the people who revel in attacking me? I do not
think they could have spent their time better elsewhere. In the end,
that is a _more_ generous view than what you ascribe to them. ///
Bijan Parsia
[snip]
> A DTD is a structured document which contains information about elements.
> If SGML/XML were any good, this would have been written with exactly the
> same syntax that is used to describe other data. However, because they
> were ignorant of the "code is data" concept, they, too, made the mistake
> that "what we think must be good enough for everbody else sure ain't good
> enough for us", and invented their very own syntax for their own needs.
[snip]
I wonder if they were ignorant or just savvy enough to recognize how
desperately awful a SGML/XML like syntax is for representing SGML/XML
code. I mean, working with XSLT makes me *long* for a nicer syntax
(<xsl:variable name="foo" value="bar"/> to bind "foo" to
*bar*???!!! Yikes!) Alas, if only they'd fix the object language syntax
instead of stretching their evil-syntax generation powers yet again.
That DTD syntax can make me, in weak moments, think, "yeah,
this would be better if it were just XML...) is tribute to the mind
corrupting power that angle brackets exhibit. Shades of "Snow Crash".
Cheers,
Bijan Parsia.
Erik Naggum
> I wonder if they were ignorant or just savvy enough to recognize how
> desperately awful a SGML/XML like syntax is for representing SGML/XML
> code. I mean, working with XSLT makes me *long* for a nicer syntax
> (<xsl:variable name="foo" value="bar"/> to bind "foo" to *bar*???!!!
> Yikes!) Alas, if only they'd fix the object language syntax instead of
> stretching their evil-syntax generation powers yet again.
I think it is a symptom of "it is good enough for them, but not good
enough for me"-syndrome of almost all programming language designers.
Lisp is _really_ different in this regard, also from Scheme. In fact,
this may be _the_ most undervalued value of the Lisp tradition. ///
Kaz Kylheku
>On Wed, 01 Aug 2001 20:57:17 GMT, Erik Naggum <er...@naggum.net> wrote:
>No Erik, there's nothing anonymous about me. I'm no "G I Gunmaker".
Note that G. I. Gunmaker is an anagram for Eric Naggum. That is hardly
anonymous.
Kaz Kylheku
>On Wed, 01 Aug 2001 20:57:17 GMT, Erik Naggum <er...@naggum.net> wrote:
>No Erik, there's nothing anonymous about me. I'm no "G I Gunmaker".
Note that G. I. Gunmaker is an anagram of Eric Naggum. That is hardly
anonymous.
cbbr...@hex.net
Well, it _is_ a fairly savvy thing that they did when they recognized
that having "code is data" might be a good idea.
The unfortunate thing is that they didn't work to pare down the
isomorphism a bit more, because they would have gotten something even
more like Lisp.
Furthermore, angle brackets _do_ seem quite mind-corrupting...
<itemizedlist>
<listitem><Para> whatever </para> </listitem>
<listitem><Para> whatever </para> </listitem>
<listitem><Para> whatever </para> </listitem>
</itemizedlist>
would be a fair bit nicer as:
(itemizedlist
(listitem (para "whatever"))
(listitem (para "whatever"))
(listitem (para "whatever")))
and the whole parsing problem would virtually disappear.
(I am consciously ignoring the symbol versus namespace versus string
versus readtable issues; an "XML" based on this would be nicer than
SGML almost regardless of the policy choices...)
And
<xsl:variable name="foo" value="bar"/>
would be a whole lot nicer as:
(xsl:let (foo "bar"))
[of course, that lets open an issue of scoping of such a binding! ;-)]
--
(concatenate 'string "aa454" "@freenet.carleton.ca")
http://vip.hyperusa.com/~cbbrowne/oses.html
DSK: STAN.K; ML EXIT -- FILE NOT FOUND
Marc Spitzer
From what I have seen in this news group the anagram is probably
someones attempt to set Erik up, if it is anything at all. If Erik
did do that, I do not think he did, he would be suffering from evil
geniousites. It is the thing that gets the villian killed in every
Bond movie, leaving clues that no one but me is BRILIANT enough to
figure out. Erik strikes me as entirly too practical to do something
so self absorbed. And too smart to do something so easily traced.
With that said I only know Erik from what I have read in c.l.l and his
web site.
marc
Geoffrey Summerhayes
"Marc Spitzer" <ma...@oscar.eng.cv.net> wrote in message
news:slrn9mjun...@oscar.eng.cv.net...
>
> From what I have seen in this news group the anagram is probably
> someones attempt to set Erik up, if it is anything at all. If Erik
> did do that, I do not think he did, he would be suffering from evil
> geniousites.
He did, it was a joke, a good portion of the NG got it,
a few didn't. I suspect some people won't be happy until
the alt.complaints.erik.naggum NG takes off. No, now that
I think about it, I won't be happy till then either. Then
I can get back to lurking and reading postings about Lisp
instead of the drivel in this thread. (<-self-referential
and inclusive! Tail recursive too, wrong NG, *sigh*)
Geoff
Erik Naggum
> From what I have seen in this news group the anagram is probably someones
> attempt to set Erik up, if it is anything at all. If Erik did do that, I
> do not think he did, he would be suffering from evil geniousites. It is
> the thing that gets the villian killed in every Bond movie, leaving clues
> that no one but me is BRILIANT enough to figure out. Erik strikes me as
> entirly too practical to do something so self absorbed. And too smart to
> do something so easily traced.
You are taking Rainer Joswig's reaction at face value, instead of mine.
I have _fun_ with such things. Other people may do it for gain and to
manipulate. I have never had any need to do either, and I find it much
more insulting that you suddenly impute such things to me than all the
other nonsense that _follows_ from such a personal need.
I do in fact have pretty high expectations for how smart people should be
and what I expect them to figure out. It is _one_ of the reason I get so
pissed at all the morons who populate the world. If nobody would have
figured out the anagram, I would have been _disappointed_. If somebody
thought it was _fun_, I would have achieved what I had wanted.
> With that said I only know Erik from what I have read in c.l.l and his
> web site.
I fail to see how you could find evidence of the "evil-geniusitis" here,
and I would be disappointed if you _did_ find evidence of it. ///
cbbr...@hex.net
> * ma...@oscar.eng.cv.net (Marc Spitzer)
>>From what I have seen in this news group the anagram is probably
>>someones attempt to set Erik up, if it is anything at all. If Erik
>>did do that, I do not think he did, he would be suffering from evil
>>geniousites. It is the thing that gets the villian killed in every
>>Bond movie, leaving clues that no one but me is BRILIANT enough to
>>figure out. Erik strikes me as entirly too practical to do
>>something so self absorbed. And too smart to do something so easily
>>traced.
>You are taking Rainer Joswig's reaction at face value, instead of
>mine.
Ah! That brings back some recollection. [And unfortunately DejaNews
is not there for it to be easy to pull back the original with
context...]
>I have _fun_ with such things. Other people may do it for gain and
>to manipulate. I have never had any need to do either, and I find it
>much more insulting that you suddenly impute such things to me than
>all the other nonsense that _follows_ from such a personal need.
>I do in fact have pretty high expectations for how smart people
>should be and what I expect them to figure out. It is _one_ of the
>reason I get so pissed at all the morons who populate the world. If
>nobody would have figured out the anagram, I would have been
>_disappointed_. If somebody thought it was _fun_, I would have
>achieved what I had wanted.
Rainer nicely derailed that by going ballistic over the "gun" thing;
it's certainly something that _I'd_ consider tremendously funny.
Of course, one of the ongoing family jokes has to do with unexpected
people walking around with machine guns, and a brother wrote a column
for a while in one of the really _serious_ gun magazines (e.g. - not
the _Soldier of Fortune_ nonsense of "I prefer knives with
diamond-plated edges because they are more intimidating than a gun to
a Gurkha" or with specials on "Bikini Camo Gear"...)
On the other hand, Brad put up a jokey web page about the
Thompson/Center submachine gun, a "Tommy gun" purportedly having
interchangeable barrels, and has gotten a lot of correspondence from
idiots that didn't "get it," either indignant at him posting incorrect
information (DUH!), or, altogether funnier, asking where they can get
one! :-)
>>With that said I only know Erik from what I have read in c.l.l and
>>his web site.
>I fail to see how you could find evidence of the "evil-geniusitis" here,
>and I would be disappointed if you _did_ find evidence of it. ///
Oh, but a _true_ Evil Overlord <http://www.eviloverlord.com/> doesn't
brag about being an Evil Overlord, so that if you were planning to
take over comp.lang.lisp as a stepping stone to Bigger and Better
Things [probably taking over the whole comp.lang.* hierarchy :-)], it
wouldn't do for you to leave evidence.
--
(reverse (concatenate 'string "ac.notelrac.teneerf@" "454aa"))
http://vip.hex.net/~cbbrowne/xwindows.html
"The main reason for open-source gets developed is need. If the need
is there, then the software will get written. If it isn't really
needed, then the lack of software is hardly a problem, right?"
-- Almost Brian Hurt's Words <bh...@visi.com>
Erik Naggum
> Oh, but a _true_ Evil Overlord <http://www.eviloverlord.com/> doesn't
> brag about being an Evil Overlord, so that if you were planning to
> take over comp.lang.lisp as a stepping stone to Bigger and Better
> Things [probably taking over the whole comp.lang.* hierarchy :-)], it
> wouldn't do for you to leave evidence.
Interesting. Let me see. I want world dominance. I tried with GNU
stuff, but right before Linux hit the proverbial fan, I decided against
spending more energy on it. Now Linux is taking over the world. Then I
tried with SGML, but I quit that a few years before the tags hit the
proverbial fan. Now everybody are talking abot XML. Then I tried Lisp.
So, if I quit now, Lisp should gain world dominance shortly. What better
Evil Overlord than he who controls the world without knowing? This also
implies that a few years from now, when I tire of target shooting, it
should become the next _major_ world-wide sports interest, and football
and baseball are all gone. Yeah, I kind of like this, especially if we
get shoot-outs on grass fields as a spectator sport. It will do wonders
for world overpopulation, too, and I can dominate the world. Alone.
This could actually work. ///
Marc Spitzer
> * ma...@oscar.eng.cv.net (Marc Spitzer)
>> From what I have seen in this news group the anagram is probably someones
>> attempt to set Erik up, if it is anything at all. If Erik did do that, I
>> do not think he did, he would be suffering from evil geniousites. It is
>> the thing that gets the villian killed in every Bond movie, leaving clues
>> that no one but me is BRILIANT enough to figure out. Erik strikes me as
>> entirly too practical to do something so self absorbed. And too smart to
>> do something so easily traced.
>
> You are taking Rainer Joswig's reaction at face value, instead of mine.
> I have _fun_ with such things. Other people may do it for gain and to
> manipulate. I have never had any need to do either, and I find it much
> more insulting that you suddenly impute such things to me than all the
> other nonsense that _follows_ from such a personal need.
You are correct and I apologize for not checking out the details befor
opening my mouth.
The reason I wrote this post was that you raised a good point in a
previous post about how you are constantly attacked in this group by a
few people with the implied consent of the group because no one will
say this is wrong. So I got involved and I did a less then perfect
job of it. My previous attatude is that you did a much better job
defending your self then I could do defending you so I realy could not
do much good.
I have no reason to insult you Erik and I did try to support you when
you asked for it. It looks like I did a bad job but the reason I got
involved at all was becaused you said that the silence in this group
about the abuse that is directed at you incourages and perpetuates
that behavior in this group.
>
> I do in fact have pretty high expectations for how smart people should be
> and what I expect them to figure out. It is _one_ of the reason I get so
> pissed at all the morons who populate the world. If nobody would have
> figured out the anagram, I would have been _disappointed_. If somebody
> thought it was _fun_, I would have achieved what I had wanted.
>
>> With that said I only know Erik from what I have read in c.l.l and his
>> web site.
>
> I fail to see how you could find evidence of the "evil-geniusitis" here,
> and I would be disappointed if you _did_ find evidence of it. ///
I did not find any evidence of "evil-geniusites" in your posts was my
point, I must not have made it clear enough.
marc
Erik Naggum
> You are correct and I apologize for not checking out the details befor
> opening my mouth.
Well, this is certainly getting moderately difficult. When I implied
that people tacitly approve of the abuse, I did not mean that people
should defend _me_. I do not like defense speeches for people in the
first place. I would have been happy if a few people had just asked, in
a moderately hostile voice, the lunatics to can it.
Part of the problem is that people have this counter-productive notion of
"taking sides". Getting involved all too often means taking a particular
side, but by so doing, you cut yourself off from the most rational course
of action: To _understand_ what is going on. It also makes it harder for
you to respond to actions as opposed to people, which is simply wrong.
It is a good thing to form alliances with people, but it is not a good
thing to form them on such a fickle basis as USENET fights.
> My previous attatude is that you did a much better job defending your
> self then I could do defending you so I realy could not do much good.
Well, thank you, sort of. I try not to defend _myself_, though. This is
not always an easy task, but what I do object to is the unfairness in
misdirected and false accusations and the idiocy of people who think they
can speak for other people's intentions without that bothersome _doubt_
that would have held them back.
> I have no reason to insult you Erik and I did try to support you when
> you asked for it.
OK, I see that you wanted me well, and I still took it negatively, but it
was because by implying that I could not have done it myself unless it
was yet another reflection of my purportedly bad character, you made it
just that much harder to say I did.
> It looks like I did a bad job but the reason I got involved at all was
> becaused you said that the silence in this group about the abuse that is
> directed at you incourages and perpetuates that behavior in this group.
Cool, but the reason it failed was again connected to the will to see my
intentions. It is just as false to think I have only good intentions as
to think I have only bad intentions, because you cannot know. However,
you can _sometimes_ see how some people have bad intentions by their
choice of reaction to being criticized. If they get on their high horse
and proclaim their right to commit evil in the name of some irrelevant
but self-serving good, you know they have bad intentions all the way down.
> I did not find any evidence of "evil-geniusites" in your posts was my
> point, I must not have made it clear enough.
It is clear now, and I do appreciate it. ///
Marc Spitzer
> * ma...@oscar.eng.cv.net (Marc Spitzer)
>> You are correct and I apologize for not checking out the details befor
>> opening my mouth.
>
> Well, this is certainly getting moderately difficult. When I implied
> that people tacitly approve of the abuse, I did not mean that people
> should defend _me_. I do not like defense speeches for people in the
> first place. I would have been happy if a few people had just asked, in
> a moderately hostile voice, the lunatics to can it.
>
> Part of the problem is that people have this counter-productive notion of
> "taking sides". Getting involved all too often means taking a particular
> side, but by so doing, you cut yourself off from the most rational course
> of action: To _understand_ what is going on. It also makes it harder for
> you to respond to actions as opposed to people, which is simply wrong.
> It is a good thing to form alliances with people, but it is not a good
> thing to form them on such a fickle basis as USENET fights.
I was not actualy taking sides you vs them but abuse vs not abuse, you
just happened to be on the not abuse side.
>
>> My previous attatude is that you did a much better job defending your
>> self then I could do defending you so I realy could not do much good.
>
> Well, thank you, sort of. I try not to defend _myself_, though. This is
> not always an easy task, but what I do object to is the unfairness in
> misdirected and false accusations and the idiocy of people who think they
> can speak for other people's intentions without that bothersome _doubt_
> that would have held them back.
>
>> I have no reason to insult you Erik and I did try to support you when
>> you asked for it.
>
> OK, I see that you wanted me well, and I still took it negatively, but it
> was because by implying that I could not have done it myself unless it
> was yet another reflection of my purportedly bad character, you made it
> just that much harder to say I did.
>
Well anyone who has read your reply's would have a VERY hard time
stating, with some proof, that you can not defend your self. You are
quite expert in it. It is a sad waste of your time that you have to
do it, but I enjoy reading them. They are well thought out and
sometimes I see ways to improve my writing by reading yours. And my
writing needs improvement.
>> It looks like I did a bad job but the reason I got involved at all was
>> becaused you said that the silence in this group about the abuse that is
>> directed at you incourages and perpetuates that behavior in this group.
>
> Cool, but the reason it failed was again connected to the will to see my
> intentions. It is just as false to think I have only good intentions as
> to think I have only bad intentions, because you cannot know. However,
> you can _sometimes_ see how some people have bad intentions by their
> choice of reaction to being criticized. If they get on their high horse
> and proclaim their right to commit evil in the name of some irrelevant
> but self-serving good, you know they have bad intentions all the way down.
>
Well I am wrong a lot, I just try not to be wrong the same way twice.
>> I did not find any evidence of "evil-geniusites" in your posts was my
>> point, I must not have made it clear enough.
>
> It is clear now, and I do appreciate it. ///
no problem
marc
Reini Urban
: 3.yes you do scare off the newbies.
no. honestly said, erik amuses a lot of newbies. ranting is a lot of fun,
esp. in block mode. he's harsh, but always right. I'd rather fear kent's
occasional anti-free software rants might turn them off.
--
Reini Urban
http://xarch.tu-graz.ac.at/acadwiki/AutoLispFaq
Kent M Pitman
> larry a price <lap...@garcia.efn.org> wrote:
> : 3.yes you do scare off the newbies.
>
> no. honestly said, erik amuses a lot of newbies. ranting is a lot of fun,
> esp. in block mode. he's harsh, but always right. I'd rather fear kent's
> occasional anti-free software rants might turn them off.
Wouldn't surprise me in the slightest.
Sounds like motivation enough for people to stop advocating free software
so I won't have to scare people off by adding balance. :-)
"There are no political answers, only political questions."
Translation: If one answer to a question is political, then all are.
There is no such thing as a neutral position on a political matter,
there are only positions that people hope will not be spotted as
equally political.
So, maybe what scares people off isn't that I'm ranting, but that I'm
ranting in a way that doesn't suit them. Reini's comment might not
have been intended to suggest a change in my behavior, but if it did
mean to, it was unclear as to whether I would be better to not speak
on the topic that others speak freely but differently on, or whether I
would be better to merely change my beliefs to others that I don't
believe.
All this offered in a friendly light. Not meaning to light another flame
war. Just trying to expand on how difficult it is to know what is
politically the right thing to do or say sometimes...
Peter Wood
If someone is genuinely interested in learning about Lisp, enduring
kmp's anti-software diatribes is a small price to pay for his
technical advice.
That said, this touches on some speculations I have about the
transmission of values and 'apprenticeship'.
Assuming that when Lisp was 'born' society was generally more
conservative[1], perhaps this has contributed to a slightly more
conservative Lisp community today. On the face of it, 'Lisp' is a
technical subject, devoid of political attitudes, so learning it ought
not to perpetuate the (non-technical) attitudes of the teachers.
Perhaps the 'face of it' is wrong. In the Eastern 'guru' traditions,
a disciple must accept *everything* the guru says, and this is
believed to improve the learning process. Maybe the Eastern way just
formalises the principle that learning is imitation (in the
beginning). Perhaps the more conservative[1] attitudes of the
original Lispers have filtered down to today's (yesterday's ? ;-) )
lispers.
If the above is true[2] (even if only in part) it would help to explain
the *relative* lack of support for the principles of Free software in
the lisp community. I have no idea about the numbers, but I think
it's a safe bet that there is a relationship between the year(s) of
origin of a language and the present day level of support for Free
software in that language's community.
Regards,
Peter
[1] Conservative in a general sense. Not necessarily 'how you vote'.
[2] And I'm not sure it is. I'm speculating. And not suggesting that
its the only factor.
Kent M Pitman
> If someone is genuinely interested in learning about Lisp, enduring
> kmp's anti-software diatribes is a small price to pay for his technical
> advice.
I think you left out the word "free" here. :-)
Btw, just to be clear: I'm not really anti-free-software. I'm
pro-careful-thought-before-releasing-software-in-some-particular-mode.
It's fair to say I'm anti-panacea. I've never taken an opinion on free
software here one way or another until lately when people have entered
the forum with "the thing that's wrong with lisp is it's not free" pitches.
I think things like that require balance.
I have on other occasions in the distant past been known to say that I
think a Stallman is at least inevitable and perhaps necessary, and even
that if he had not come along, I might have felt a need to do what he
is doing myself (though, as with all things manmade, it would have had
my character instead of his). I have given to the ACLU, too, and lately
I don't for various reasons. But whether I approve or disapprove of them
locally, I think they serve a valuable role in a critical debate.
I'm sorry about the occasional degree to which I go off topic on this, but
there are certain topics that I think are best learned "in context". I think
the only people who read ethics books are ethicists, who may show up on talk
radio or talk TV, but who otherwise don't contribute to actual decisionmaking.
I think the only way to teach ethics is to once in a while stop what you are
doing in any actual activity and say "here is where you apply ethics". Or,
if you prefer, more generally, "here is something that may appear to be done
by rote but which is actually a choice point that we have merely done in
X or Y or Z way for a very long time". So, paradoxically, or perhaps not,
it is not off topic ... because if what we do has no ethical core nor sense
of individual thought, and we are mere cogs in a larger program, doing
without choosing, there seems little point to the activity at all.
> That said, this touches on some speculations I have about the
> transmission of values and 'apprenticeship'.
An excellent metaphor. This is how I learned Lisp and, at some point,
programming generally. (The actual history of how I learned programming
originally was in near-total isolation, in an environment where personally
owning a computer was literally illegal, so I was happy to come to MIT
where computers were allowed and where other people existed to help you
figure out how to use them.)
> Assuming that when Lisp was 'born' society was generally more
> conservative[1],
I'd be extremely curious to know, in spite of your footnote, what
characterizes such conservatism. I understand conservatism in the US
political system to mean "adhering to a strict reading of the constitution",
but in the absence of a constitution-analog to read strictly, I'm less sure
what it might mean. I don't mean to suggest that you mean nothing, only
that I'm baffled by what you might mean.
> perhaps this has contributed to a slightly more
> conservative Lisp community today. On the face of it, 'Lisp' is a
> technical subject, devoid of political attitudes, so learning it ought
> not to perpetuate the (non-technical) attitudes of the teachers.
I think it's fair to say that languages carry with them the baggage of
how they are created and rise to success. Lisp, having been
long-lived enough to have achieved success and to some degree also
having seen a backslide since that success (which I'll decline to
characterize as failure or even a motion toward it, though surely others
might), carries with it the baggage of those who either remember what it
should be or who hold it back from what it might be. That's the puzzle.
We could be either. We might be both. Society changes. In doing so,
it sometimes kills good ideas and sometimes kills bad ones. Perhaps we
were doing things all wrong, and needed to change. But perhaps we were
doing things mostly right and only lost out, as do moths of the wrong
color, because we failed to change our skin color--having nothing
structurally wrong at all.
> Perhaps the 'face of it' is wrong. In the Eastern 'guru' traditions,
> a disciple must accept *everything* the guru says, and this is
> believed to improve the learning process. Maybe the Eastern way just
> formalises the principle that learning is imitation (in the
> beginning). Perhaps the more conservative[1] attitudes of the
> original Lispers have filtered down to today's (yesterday's ? ;-) )
> lispers.
It wasn't obvious to me if the guru thing was an example of conservatism
or nonconservatism, or if it was orthogonal (which I think it is).
I tend to largely reject the term "guru" for myself and anyone I respect;
I sometimes use it in cocktail party conversation for want of a more pithy
term, but in serious discussion I find it means "imitate without
understanding", and my anti-panacea campaign says it's fine to imitate,
but you must understand.
There's an "AI koan" (one of several teaching riddles written by Danny Hillis
at the MIT AI Lab long ago) that relates to this:
| A novice was trying to fix a broken Lisp machine by turning the
| power off and on.
|
| Knight, seeing what the student was doing, spoke sternly: "You
| cannot fix a machine by just power-cycling it with no understanding
| of what is going wrong."
|
| Knight turned the machine off and on.
|
| The machine worked.
> If the above is true[2] (even if only in part) it would help to explain
> the *relative* lack of support for the principles of Free software in
> the lisp community. I have no idea about the numbers, but I think
> it's a safe bet that there is a relationship between the year(s) of
> origin of a language and the present day level of support for Free
> software in that language's community.
I found this a very interesting observation, and have several remakrs to
offer.
One is that political orientation is relative. Clinton, a very conservative
Liberal, was regarded as merely "overly Liberal" by the Republicans, but not
so by the Democrats. Free software people probably see me as
"anti-free-software" only because on some axis, I am farther to the right
than they are. How far to the right is another question.
But also, there's a point I've been making in talks I give about Lisp
for the last few years, and this gets away from Conservative/Liberal but
toward a different framing that I personally find more apt:
Lisp grew up in a kind of Socialist era, when The State (the lisp vendors,
i.e., the folks from whom all light and life flowed) was the power source
and The People awaited handouts from the state. Even today, we often see
users waiting eagerly for "what the vendors will give us next", which I
regard as a holdover from that earlier time, and a dangerous one (one I
think big enough to account for some piece of the decline in Lisp use,
actually).
I think Java, more than anything, represented a shift toward a kind of
democratization of the programming landscape. This in the sense that yes,
the language came with lots of goodies, but it also finally acknowledged
that users would provide goodies, too. It's the subtle but important
integration of the com.foo.frobs.fun notion of package naming, which gave
to the Java namespacing the same egalitarianism that Lisp's use of parens
for primitive operators gives to the use of operators. In Lisp, no one
fights over the * in x*y like they do in infix; and in the special forms
we do have, like (if x y z), someone else can build a (when x y) or
(usually-when x y) that is syntactically alike. Java did this for
contributed packages. And I think that although a lot of the packages
came from Sun, others still came out of w3 and other places such that
it was plain that Sun was not identifying itself as "the source of all good".
This charged a citizenry to "go forth and its own packages" in a way
we need to do for Lisp.
The reason the Java model is right, by the way, is that it doesn't
require a central committee to progress. The problem with waiting for
vendors to produce new goodies is that vendors work on their own
clock, and they hold back everyone else. A necessary aspect of the
Java system is that competing versions of the same functionality will
arise, and perhaps will even be linked into the same application.
Lisp used to try to avoid such redundancy, and I think some value came
of the head start this avoidance offered in getting people going. But
it doesn't scale. Society is a large parallel processor and it cannot
afford to wait for everyone to agree when to go "ahead", and so
"ahead" is a multi-dimensional space in what I call the democratized
universe where it used to be a single-dimensional space in what I call
the fallen socialist state.
I think the free/open software movement is captivated by this same
democratization, and I definitely support that aspect. But free software
is only one possible form of that good thing, and I think it achieves
some success due to that and some due to other aspects of it. But each
of those aspects functions independently, and there are other forms of
democratized software which differ on the other points (inspectability
from outside, ownership, etc.) The democratization element is a place
where society was held back by a paradigm (the software release cycle of
vendors) that really no one owned, and so it hurts no one (not even the
vendors, off of whom it takes considerable pressure to produce the next
good thing) to fix that ... and most people benefit. The free part,
however, is really a more personal choice with some purported good
sides to it and some purported bad sides. (You can remove the word
purported from that sentence if it offends you, just be sure to remove it
from both branches of the sentence, not just the side you support.)
I think to move forward, Lisp must necessarily confront that there are
(or should be) more Lisp users than vendors. If not due to a rise of
users, then a fall in vendors and/or vendor dollars achieves the same
effect. The users must move it forward. But they can do this in a variety
of ways, "free software" being only one of many. I personally am a fan
of economic empowerment, and I don't mind if sometimes money piles up on
one person because I think even the chance that that one person has vision
is worth it. Having been involved in standards organizations before,
which I regard as "optimizing the worst case", as do all democracies,
I prefer the occasional risk of dictatorships because, when benevolent,
they optimize the best case. I do think there needs to be safeguards
to assure one doesn't have malevolent dictators, and I have established
these criteria: a dictatorship must be voluntary to enter or leave and
must not harm a person or their possessions while inside it. Companies
are such, and on the whole, most companies function well this way.
Some companies get too big and so either can harm people or can keep
their employees or even their customers from leaving; that requires
safeguards. But it is not a condemnation of the idea of caring about the best
case.
I often said in the design of CL that I thought most of the people in
the room could have, given appropriate resource, designed a more
coherent spec than the committee ended up designing. Democracies and
group consensus are not good at design, I think. That's why I favor
individual autonomy. And some people say free software maximizes
that. But the one thing it doesn't maximize is the resource needed to
carry out complex tasks. I need there to be millionaires. Maybe so
I'll be one and can implement my world vision. Maybe so I can aspire
to be one. Maybe just so I'll work for one with his own clear vision.
But to do that, I must be able to accumulate wealth, and I'd prefer to
do it by doing the activity I'm best at, not by doing some other
activity which is "all that is left" after my best activity has denied
me the ability to make money. If we're all just peasants working in
the field with the ability to go home from our day job and program in
the evening, that will not suit me.
Whether I'm a millionaire or I work through free software, I think the
thing society has learned is that we need a world model that doesn't
assume any of us has a global lock on the market. We're each
scrambling for our stake in a complex MIMD, not SIMD, world now.
I might be right or wrong, or like in most things that aren't black
and white, maybe I get part credit. But just to bring it back home to
the local topic of Peter's very interesting message, this issue of
conservatism either is or ought to be not about "sticking with the old
ways" vs "using the new ways" but rather "sifting through the old
ways, figuring out which were working and which weren't, discarding
what was not working, adopting new ideas, and being careful, as they
say, not to throw out the baby with the bathwater."
I come back to my central anti-panacea pitch: the world is about tradeoffs.
As long as you see them and make them thoughtfully, you're probably
doing ok. As long as you think the tradeoff has been decided and eliminated
and need no longer be thought about it, you should know you're entering
dangerous turf.
Duncan Harvey
> larry a price <lap...@garcia.efn.org> wrote:
> : 3.yes you do scare off the newbies.
>
> no. honestly said, erik amuses a lot of newbies. ranting is a lot of fun,
> esp. in block mode. he's harsh, but always right. I'd rather fear kent's
> occasional anti-free software rants might turn them off.
Bah!
[thinks: hmmm, a pompously gnomic response is called for]
Any newbie who can't think for themself is a newbie not worth having.
[thinks: cool!]
Single data-point: Neither Erik nor Kent (nor anyone) scared me away. A
state-supplied gerbil does all my thinking.
--
Duncan Harvey
"Smiling and waving. Before letting himself fall."
-- Anja Garbarek, The Diver