Floyd L. Davidson wrote:
> Hee hee, I should tell you that first, my children and
> grandchildren are all Eskimos, and use that term often. That is
> because they are Yup'ik, not Inuit. Moreover, the people here
> in Barrow, who technically are Inuit, hate it when people call
> them that! They call themselves two things: Inupiat, or
> Eskimos!

ah, again the world isn't as black and white as one would think... thanks
for the info.

> My mind adapts to C rather well, but it took me years of
> dabbling with eLisp now and then to even begin to get
> comfortable with it. I can't say that I grok the concept yet...

i *think* i grok the concept, though i'm still sometimes surprised by the
possibilities that lisp gives you and that are unheard of in C-like
languages.

one thing that keeps amazing me is how easy it often is to write lisp
code. sometimes i get an idea for doing something, and i sorta expect to be
sitting on that for at least an hour, maybe more, to plan and design and
then implemen it. then i start making a first attempt, and 15 minutes
later i have it all written down and working the way i want.

not that i'm not sometimes struggling with lisp. but that is usually when
i don't understand some subtle point about the language...

--
Joost Kremers joostkremers@yahoo.com
Selbst in die Unterwelt dringt durch Spalten Licht
EN:SiS(9)

Franz M. Sauerzopf wrote:
> In <slrnch3uev.d5.joostkremers@j.kremers4.news.arnhem .chello.nl>, Joost
> Kremers wrote:
>
>> Franz M. Sauerzopf wrote:
>>> C++ has its drawbacks like so many programming languages, but its success
>>> did not come by chance.
>>
>> yeah, like MS's success did not come by chance...
>>
>> the sheer fact that something is popular doesn't mean it's good. in fact,
>> if there's any correlation between popularity and quality, it's usually
>> the other way around...
>
> You got me there. I stand corrected. Although if we are talking about
> success among professionals, I would expect a more direct correlation.

dunno. how many professionals have complete freedom to choose the tools
they want to use?

> Still, I think C++ is often badly rated by people who know too little
> about it. Like in every language you have to think it to be able to use it
> effectively. And once you understand the thinking of C++ it is very
> powerful. And, coming from the C side rather convenient.

i judge C++ on the difficulty i had learning it, compared to the difficulty
i had learning other languages. and in hat comparison, C++ comes out rather
badly. it took me ages to get even simple things right, while with other
programming languages, many of the basics sort of come natural. they just
"make sense". i never had the feeling that C++ "made sense"...

i know, it's not really a well-informed opinion. ;-)

--
Joost Kremers joostkremers@yahoo.com
Selbst in die Unterwelt dringt durch Spalten Licht
EN:SiS(9)

name wrote:
> On 2004-08-05, Joost Kremers <joostkremers@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> effective, true, logical, only in a sense. C grew out of the way hardware
>> was designed. on the lowest level, you have to address a computer in some
>> language that has the same fundamental principles as C: assignments and
>> commands. and because the hardware is designed that way, there will always
>> be a need for something like C. but IMVHO lisp shows that there is also
>> another approach to programming, one that is *not* ultimately forced by the
>> hardware design. (originally, lisp wasn't even meant to be a programming
>> language...) and from my (admittedly still small) experience with it, i
>> believe that that really is a better approach: if you design a programming
>> language, you should start out with how you would want to program a
>> computer, not with how the computer needs to be addressed on the most basic
>> level.
>
> Good assessment, I think. Now, I'm not a programmer or a software
> professional, albeit I have written stuff for myself and read a bit. So
> what follows is my (uninformed as may be) opinion. I offer it as an
> outsider's observation.
>
> With regard computers, it would seem reasonable to assume that one either
> talks to computers in a language the computer would understand, or one
> should train the computer to understand a language humans would understand.
> Probably the former makes more sense, as humans are more adaptable than
> computers.

i should point out that i do not think lisp is easier for humans to
understand than C. probably they're just about equal. it's just that lisp
is closer to how you would want to program a computer, not because it is
easier to understand for humans, but because it allows you to do
complicated things in an easy, sensible way.

> I've perused Deitel/Deitel on C++, and its obviously very powerful in terms
> of its ability to handle complex systems, but it makes one have to think and
> work its own way. The single benefit there is that it forces everyone thus,
> and so people can at least comprehend somewhat of what others have done.
>
> So far as I can tell, it does nothing that cannot be done in C, except that
> one has to establish the superstructure oneself.

and the same goes for lisp: it does nothing that cannot be done in any
other language, but one has to establish the superstructure oneself. that
is what Phil Greenspun meant when he said:

"Greenspun's Tenth Rule of Programming: any sufficiently complicated C
or Fortran program contains an ad hoc informally-specified bug-ridden slow
implementation of half of Common Lisp."

> Am I correct in my belief that some high level languages are actually
> written in C? If so, that says something, I think. Not sure what...

it's true, AFAIK even lisp systems have a C core. (most of any lisp system
is written in lisp, but at the core there is C code to "get things going",
so to speak.) but lisp compiles to machine code just as well as C does,
(some claim even better...) so with tools like that it would be possible
to build lisp out of lisp completely.

--
Joost Kremers joostkremers@yahoo.com
Selbst in die Unterwelt dringt durch Spalten Licht
EN:SiS(9)

Joost Kremers <joostkremers@yahoo.com> says...
>
>Floyd L. Davidson wrote:
>
>> Hee hee, I should tell you that first, my children and
>> grandchildren are all Eskimos, and use that term often. That is
>> because they are Yup'ik, not Inuit. Moreover, the people here
>> in Barrow, who technically are Inuit, hate it when people call
>> them that! They call themselves two things: Inupiat, or
>> Eskimos!
>
>ah, again the world isn't as black and white as one would think... thanks
>for the info.

I advise checking Mr. Davidson's posting record in all groups on
Google before engaging him in a conversation about "Eskimos"
Oil drilling, or anything else related to Alaska. You will find
that he spends most of his time engaging in nasty flame wars about
subjects that are of no interest to 99.9% of the world's population.

Guy Macon wrote:
> I advise checking Mr. Davidson's posting record in all groups on
> Google before engaging him in a conversation about "Eskimos"
> Oil drilling, or anything else related to Alaska. You will find
> that he spends most of his time engaging in nasty flame wars about
> subjects that are of no interest to 99.9% of the world's population.

i know floyd from this ng, and while he has strong opinions on many topics
and enjoys expressing them at length, he always seems quite well-informed
about them, and nothing i've seen him post here would constitute a flame
war by my definition.

so while you are perfectly free to put floyd in your kill file, forgive me
for not doing the same.

--
Joost Kremers joostkremers@yahoo.com
Selbst in die Unterwelt dringt durch Spalten Licht
EN:SiS(9)

Guy Macon <http://www.guymacon.com> wrote:
>Joost Kremers <joostkremers@yahoo.com> says...
>>
>>Floyd L. Davidson wrote:
>>
>>> Hee hee, I should tell you that first, my children and
>>> grandchildren are all Eskimos, and use that term often. That is
>>> because they are Yup'ik, not Inuit. Moreover, the people here
>>> in Barrow, who technically are Inuit, hate it when people call
>>> them that! They call themselves two things: Inupiat, or
>>> Eskimos!
>>
>>ah, again the world isn't as black and white as one would think... thanks
>>for the info.
>
>I advise checking Mr. Davidson's posting record in all groups on
>Google before engaging him in a conversation about "Eskimos"
>Oil drilling, or anything else related to Alaska. You will find
>that he spends most of his time engaging in nasty flame wars about
>subjects that are of no interest to 99.9% of the world's population.

Translation: Unlike Guy Macon, I post articles with facts,
supported by credible references, on subjects that I know
something about. That does seem to annoy people like Macon...

--
FloydL. Davidson <http://web.newsguy.com/floyd_davidson>
Ukpeagvik (Barrow, Alaska) floyd@barrow.com

Joost Kremers <joostkremers@yahoo.com> says...
>
>Guy Macon wrote:
>
>> I advise checking Mr. Davidson's posting record in all groups on
>> Google before engaging him in a conversation about "Eskimos"
>> Oil drilling, or anything else related to Alaska. You will find
>> that he spends most of his time engaging in nasty flame wars about
>> subjects that are of no interest to 99.9% of the world's population.
>
>i know floyd from this ng, and while he has strong opinions on many topics
>and enjoys expressing them at length, he always seems quite well-informed
>about them, and nothing i've seen him post here would constitute a flame
>war by my definition.
>
>so while you are perfectly free to put floyd in your kill file, forgive me
>for not doing the same.

I did not advocate putting Mr. Davidson in a killfile. I merely
suggested checking his posting record in all groups before engaging
him in a conversation about certain non-slackware-related subjects
which he seems to have strong feelings about.

Guy Macon <http://www.guymacon.com> wrote:

> I did not advocate putting Mr. Davidson in a killfile. I merely
> suggested checking his posting record in all groups before engaging
> him in a conversation about certain non-slackware-related subjects
> which he seems to have strong feelings about.

But you are Guy Macon. You're a fat pig. Why should anyone pay
attention to anything you say, lardass?

cordially, as always,

rm

Floyd L. Davidson <floyd@barrow.com> says...

>Translation: Unlike Guy Macon, I post articles with facts,
>supported by credible references, on subjects that I know
>something about. That does seem to annoy people like Macon...

Alas, due to time contraints and a lack of interest, I must turn down
your kind invitation to add me to the long list of people who are fighting
with you in various newsgroups. I will keep your flame on file in case
I ever feel a need to get into a rip-roaring fight about Eskimos.

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

In alt.os.linux.slackware, Floyd L. Davidson dared to utter,
> Translation: Unlike Guy Macon, I post articles with facts,
> supported by credible references, on subjects that I know
> something about.

You should check Guy's posting history before making that accusation. I
haven't known Guy to post about anything he didn't know a lot about.

- --
It is better to hear the rebuke of the wise,
Than for a man to hear the song of fools.
Ecclesiastes 7:5
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