Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Subject: Re: case-sensitivity and identifiers (was Re: Wide character implementation)
References: <1016554947.964486@haldjas.folklore.ee> <3225568971513146@naggum.net> <1016831590.163240@haldjas.folklore.ee> <3225841444459787@naggum.net> <1016909497.106880@haldjas.folklore.ee> <3225923202075012@naggum.net> <87it7m4mnm.fsf@becket.becket.net> <3225942059872001@naggum.net> <871ye9i91x.fsf_-_@cs.uga.edu> <3226021614417921@naggum.net> <m3adswokg3.fsf@hanabi.research.bell-labs.com> <3226054464281011@naggum.net> <9f023346.0203251213.4a36ba04@posting.google.com> <3226096405923415@naggum.net>
From: Christopher Browne <cbbro...@acm.org>
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In the last exciting episode, Erik Naggum <e...@naggum.net> wrote::
> * Michael Parker
> | OTOH, if terminals had gotten color and typefaces earlier, maybe
> | programming languages would have evolved to use them.
>
>   Only if we had also had a stateless coding for them, statefulness being
>   so frigthening to the kinds of programmers who are likely to invent new
>   syntaxes.
>
> | Maybe give each namespace its own color, so you would specify the value
> | of a name by putting it in blue, the function by using red, keywords in
> | italics, macros in green.  The mind boggles at the possibilities.
>
>   Especially if they also used XML to write it all, and then we can use
>   cascading style sheets to control both background and foreground color.
>   And programmers would have be selected from those who are not color
>   blind.  This is unlikely to succeed, since the current selection from
>   those who can spell has not been successful, either, and that is at least
>   something you can learn.
>
>   Thanks for the URL, though.  My mind boggles at statements like these:
>   "With the huge RAM of modern computers, an operating system is no longer
>   necessary."

Yes, that seems rather a strange comment.

Note that one of Moore's more-publicized quasi-recent projects
involved building a CAD system for designing microprocessors.

His approach was to basically write the application-cum-operating
system based on a tiny kernel of Forth instructions which basically
meant he started with 80486 assembler, and built on top of that.

Apparently it offered vast opportunities to avoid all kinds of cruft
that tends to get built into CAD systems, but what it really amounted
to was that he built his system as an embedded system on top of bare
Intel metal.

I think a lot of his argument is that people keep building cruft on
top of cruft, when they might be better off with a _good_ embedded
system.  

Consider the horrors of MS Office: We might be better off if, instead
of continually being mandated by the latest bloatware upgrade to
upgrade their system to the latest "Pentium IV with more memory than
anyone could _conceive_ of ten years ago," people bought cheap
electronic typewriters with bare bits of computing power.  

If people spent their time _typing_, instead of trying to figure out
which menu allows them to change some bit of formatting, they might
get more work done.  Consider that back in the old days, Unix used to
run in 128K words of memory, and CP/M machines could handle word
processing, spreadsheets, and databases in 56K of RAM.  The notion
that you need 256MB of RAM to realistically Windows XP should be
offensive.

In any case, Moore is a fascinating character. He is perhaps not
always to be taken seriously, but he's had more inspired ideas than
most people ever learn about...
-- 
(reverse (concatenate 'string "gro.mca@" "enworbbc"))
http://www.ntlug.org/~cbbrowne/wp.html
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