markj+0...@cloaked.freeserve.co.uk (MJ Ray) writes: > Erik Naggum <e...@naggum.net> wrote: >> Have you thought about how _necessary_ it is for you Scheme freaks to be >> hostile to those who do not agree with you? E.g., where _did_ the stupid >> need to attack Common Lisp now come from? So immature and vindictive!
> Sorry Erik. I attacked you, not Common Lisp. Or are you Common Lisp > itself?
>> [...] so far, we have had a large number of Scheme freaks invade >> Common Lisp fora to tell us how superior Scheme is, while no Common Lisp >> programmers invade Scheme camps to tell you how good Common Lisp is.
> I can only think of one Common Lisp forum,
Then you're obviously not thinking very hard, since you just posted to one. :)
> CLiki, and it contains little > about Scheme. Maybe you wish to make general Lisp fora "pure" and filled > only with your One True Lisp?
Why do you think that CLiki -- a Wiki devoted to Common Lisp, and for the most part consisting of resources for Common Lisp developers on Unix -- would include Scheme information? CLiki is *specifically* about Common Lisp, not Lisp in general.
> I've snipped the rest of your content-free post. Followups set.
Followups ignored, since this is also relevant to Common Lisp.
-- BPT <b...@tunes.org> /"\ ASCII Ribbon Campaign backronym for Linux: \ / No HTML or RTF in mail Linux Is Not Unix X No MS-Word in mail Meme plague ;) ---------> / \ Respect Open Standards
Russell Wallace wrote: > On Tue, 1 Jan 2002 22:25:56 +0000, Gareth.McCaug...@pobox.com (Gareth > McCaughan) wrote:
> >Think "order" when you see "ordinal". Ordinals are for measuring > >the lengths of well-ordered sequences.
> That was the mnemonic I originally tried to use, but then I saw it > being used the other way round; or was the place I read the reverse > usage in error?
> What about infinite quantities? I've seen the terms used in that > context too, how does that relate?
Anything that used "ordinal" for things that measure size and "cardinal" for things that measure length got it backwards. Ordinals measure length; cardinals measure size.
This applies *especially* for infinite quantities. Sizes of finite sets and lengths of finite well-orderings are both just the non-negative integers, so the distinction doesn't matter so much for finite quantities as for infinite. In the infinite realm, provided the axiom of choice holds, there's an ordinal for every cardinal and also a whole lot of ordinals in between.
-- Gareth McCaughan Gareth.McCaug...@pobox.com .sig under construc
Russell Wallace wrote: > On Tue, 1 Jan 2002 22:25:56 +0000, Gareth.McCaug...@pobox.com (Gareth > McCaughan) wrote:
> >Think "order" when you see "ordinal". Ordinals are for measuring > >the lengths of well-ordered sequences.
> That was the mnemonic I originally tried to use, but then I saw it > being used the other way round; or was the place I read the reverse > usage in error?
> What about infinite quantities? I've seen the terms used in that > context too, how does that relate?
Anything that used "ordinal" for things that measure size and "cardinal" for things that measure length got it backwards. Ordinals measure length; cardinals measure size.
This applies *especially* for infinite quantities. Sizes of finite sets and lengths of finite well-orderings are both just the non-negative integers, so the distinction doesn't matter so much for finite quantities as for infinite. In the infinite realm, provided the axiom of choice holds, there's an ordinal for every cardinal and also a whole lot of ordinals in between.
-- Gareth McCaughan Gareth.McCaug...@pobox.com .sig under construc
Brian P Templeton wrote... >markj+0...@cloaked.freeserve.co.uk wrote: >> Erik Naggum <e...@naggum.net> wrote: >>>[PROBABLY OTHER PEOPLE HAVE ALSO written:]
[FLAMEY STUFF ABOUT COMMON LISP AND SCHEME]
Guys, what makes you think that the rest of the newsgroups care to follow this flame war? Us other language users don't give a damn. In fact, this whole thing looks like a troll for a flame war. If you really must keep flaming each other (and I'm not taking sides since I haven't been following the thread, and I'm not trying to say that flaming isn't fun) then could you please trim the list of newsgroups down to just the lispy ones?
Or better still, please arrange to meet behind the Gym building after school and you can have a fist fight to decide which version of Lisp is better. If you are too woosy to have a fist fight, have a pokemon battle on your gameboys.
-- Space Corps Directive #997 Work done by an officer's doppleganger in a parallel universe cannot be claimed as overtime. -- Red Dwarf
> markj+0...@cloaked.freeserve.co.uk (MJ Ray) wrote in message > > After all, without diversity, is there progress?
> There isn't any in regards to the RnRS document, that's for sure. Its > time for a new standard without the input of you sad, whining critics. > I've gots some news for you: arrogance does not equate to > intelligence.
You know what? Go for it. Go right ahead and write a new standard. Then write a compiler according to the standard you've written. By all means feel free to experiment with new stuff. If stuff works better, and starts to be popular, then you'll get more implementors out there doing the same or similar stuff. If your ideas are sufficiently good, then after a while most schemes will implement them and they'll become uncontroversial. And then they'll probably get written into a standard. Heck, if you do good, you can make the very next RnRS, because R6RS isn't due for at least another ten years. You probably won't make the next IEEE standard though - that bus is leaving now and will probably arrive inside of three years.
But you have to understand something -- with a few glaring exceptions, standards follow implementations and not the other way around. Changing the standard won't change the world, because if you do it without some consensus amongst the implementors, they'll abandon the standard rather than try to conform to it. R5RS, whether *you* happen to like it or not, is what achieved some consensus last time the implementors got together to talk about it. If you become an implementor before the R6RS talks start, then you'll have a legitimate place at the table to discuss changes to the standard.
So, basically, what it boils down to is, if you want to change scheme, implement a changed scheme.
Changing the minds of the implementors is how to change the standard. And you're not likely to change any minds if you start out by dismissing them as old fools instead of discussing with them the changes you'd like.
>markj+0...@cloaked.freeserve.co.uk (MJ Ray) writes: >> I can only think of one Common Lisp forum, >Then you're obviously not thinking very hard, since you just posted to >one. :)
Sorry, I've looked at the available material about comp.lang.lisp and it appears to be a forum for Lisp, not just Common Lisp. Am I mistaken? Can you justify that?
>Why do you think that CLiki [...] would include Scheme information?
I don't, as it's the only CL forum I found, which is what I said. Please try to parse in the spirit of the message. ;-)
>> I've snipped the rest of your content-free post. Followups set. >Followups ignored, since this is also relevant to Common Lisp.
Followups reset, as this has nothing to do with perl, python, or religion. Please be polite, even if you ignore my recommendation.
On Wed, 2 Jan 2002, Jeffrey Siegal wrote: > Bijan Parsia wrote: > > Hmm. I think of VB as definitely a Niche langauge. A Large Niche, perhaps, > > but definitely a Niche (maybe two, I'm not sure).
> Perhaps. I'm not going to argue that.
It is relevant to the subsequent point...
> > It seems that there are a bunch of qualities that are being conflated, > > nicheness, popularity (ELisp is a very popular niche langauge, as is > > Javascript), purposeness (general vs. various sorts of specificity), > > "mainstreamness", etc.
> Popularity is essential for something to be mainstream. Consider the > word itself.
If if so, it doesn't mean that popularity is the same thing as mainstream.
> If something isn't popular, it isn't mainstream,
Which doens't mean that if it's popular, it *is* mainstream. Python is *quite* popular, but whether it's mainstream depends, IMHO, on some other features (e.g., in part, it being *seen* as a "normal", mainstream choice by various classes of people).
But, fwiw, I don't agree with your claim about the connection between popularity and mainstreamness.
> although it may be > difficult to define the niche except in terms of the thing itself ("the > niche of Python users").
Given that most Python programming is directed to other tasks, this definition, in this context, seems rather vacuous.
I think you're seriously conflating *unpopularity* and "niche". A language can be perfectly general purpose, and used by it's user base in an uniformly general purpose way, and still be unpopular.
So, at this point, I'm completely puzzled at what distinctions you're trying to draw and the value of them. Ok, python is a general purpose, fairly popular, "niche" (in your sense) language....I guess. It doesn't seem to explain very much.
If it helps, I think of VisualBasic as a niche language because my understanding of it is that the primary driving force of its use is making database frontend screens for corporate (Windows based) apps.
I may be wrong about that, and it may be used for other things (I'm *sure* it is), but the connection between it's use, evolution, popularity, status, etc. still seem fairly tightly tied to that niche. A large niche, to be sure, but nevertheless.
Bijan Parsia wrote: > > although it may be > > difficult to define the niche except in terms of the thing itself ("the > > niche of Python users").
> Given that most Python programming is directed to other tasks, this > definition, in this context, seems rather vacuous.
You seem to want to classify languages in terms of the tasks they are used for. I don't. I never saw any reason why Lisp should have been considered an "A.I language", despite it's greatest popularity being in A.I. circles.
I'm more interested in the dynamics of the subculture that surround a language, and one of the most important, if not the most important defining factors of that subculture is size.
Back in this thread somewhere, I already said I considered Lisp (and Scheme) and Dylan to be niche languages. They're not mainstream by any stretch of the imagination, yet they can be, and are, certainly used for all manner of tasks, just like Python. That makes them all general purpose languages, but not mainstream ones.
markj+0...@cloaked.freeserve.co.uk (MJ Ray) writes: > Brian P Templeton <b...@tunes.org> wrote: >>markj+0...@cloaked.freeserve.co.uk (MJ Ray) writes: >>> I can only think of one Common Lisp forum, >>Then you're obviously not thinking very hard, since you just posted to >>one. :)
> Sorry, I've looked at the available material about comp.lang.lisp and it > appears to be a forum for Lisp, not just Common Lisp. Am I mistaken? Can > you justify that?
It is a forum for any Lisp, which makes it a possible forum for Common Lisp, and for Scheme as well.
>>Why do you think that CLiki [...] would include Scheme information?
> I don't, as it's the only CL forum I found, which is what I said. Please > try to parse in the spirit of the message. ;-)
>>> I've snipped the rest of your content-free post. Followups set. >>Followups ignored, since this is also relevant to Common Lisp.
> Followups reset, as this has nothing to do with perl, python, or religion. > Please be polite, even if you ignore my recommendation.
Sorry. I forgot about the original newsgroups header.
-- BPT <b...@tunes.org> /"\ ASCII Ribbon Campaign backronym for Linux: \ / No HTML or RTF in mail Linux Is Not Unix X No MS-Word in mail Meme plague ;) ---------> / \ Respect Open Standards
