Received: by 10.68.130.100 with SMTP id od4mr4439704pbb.2.1335912802449;
        Tue, 01 May 2012 15:53:22 -0700 (PDT)
MIME-Version: 1.0
Path: r9ni121232pbh.0!nntp.google.com!news1.google.com!goblin2!goblin.stu.neva.ru!aioe.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail
From: Kaz Kylheku <k...@kylheku.com>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Subject: Re: GUI library/toolkit recommendation
Date: Tue, 1 May 2012 22:53:20 +0000 (UTC)
Organization: Aioe.org NNTP Server
Lines: 34
Message-ID: <20120501153952.167@kylheku.com>
References: <jndfs5$7gc$1@dont-email.me> <jndfs5$7gc$1@dont-email.me>
 <almarsoft.1430730156812327589@news.individual.net>
 <jnebcd$olp$1@dont-email.me>
 <13974936.144.1335795363665.JavaMail.geo-discussion-forums@vbbh3>
 <32989574.1445.1335805950662.JavaMail.geo-discussion-forums@ynnh24>
 <2391381.37.1335907728588.JavaMail.geo-discussion-forums@vbya4>
NNTP-Posting-Host: X+c6YNb3AaWMPA3YfA4opg.user.speranza.aioe.org
X-Complaints-To: abuse@aioe.org
User-Agent: slrn/pre1.0.0-18 (Linux)
X-Notice: Filtered by postfilter v. 0.8.2

On 2012-05-01, polos.ru...@gmail.com <polos.ru...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> I have a feeling the above would simply be shorter, simpler and more straightforward as a C/C++ program...
>
> let's clear some points:
>
> - a GUI is always an *illusion* (it's not real)
> - real things (like the chair you're probably sitting on) are made out of real physics
> - the above means: you can *experience* them with your common senses, allowing you to discern from phantasy
>
> but:
>
> - computer programs are *not* *real*

That is false. A computer program is real.  You are heading down a dangerous
philosophical path here toward nihilism and reductionism.  For all you know,
your consciousness and personality may also be software.  Ergo, not real. You
don't exist.  Not as you, the person, just as an organism.

> - they fake physics creating a (quite perfect) illusion using a perfect philosophy (mathematics)
> - when a computer program works, that doesn't mean anything *real* (as any illusion is possible in our phantasy)

A computer program is real to the extent that anything else that you call
"real" is real.

It can be pinpointed in space, and given enough effort, as precisely as we
like. For instance, the program's image can reside on a very specific area of
disk, and while running, its code and data, at any instant, is in specific
places on specific processor and memory chips.

It has mass, volume, temperature.

Would you say that a deck of punched cards driving a silk-weaving loom into
weaving a picture is not real? If that is real, why is an electronic computer
program not real?