Subject: Re: Future of LISP in NatLang/AI
From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.no>
Date: 1996/05/11
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Message-ID: <3040811127340546@arcana.naggum.no>


[Erik Naggum]

|   there appears to be an interminable stream of excuses for not seeing
|   that Lisp is alive, so I assume that _nothing_ will convince people to
|   the contrary if they think Lisp is dead.  why bother with people who
|   are impervious to facts and absorb hype with a passion?

[Gary Houston]

|   Such people are not necessarily irrational.  They may be reasoning
|   consistently using probability theory as an extended logic.
|   
|   [arguments about C++ elided]

my argument was about those who (1) think Lisp is dead (which cannot
possibly imply that any other language is for losers), and (2) appear to
have an interminable stream of excuses for not seeing that Lisp is alive.

I think people who have interminable streams of excuses _are_ irrational,
i.e., people who will conjure up a new excuse as soon as their previous one
was shown to be irrelevant.  if they are reasoning consistently according
to any form of logic, they will, sooner or later, terminate their stream of
excuses and provide actual arguments consistent with such reasoning (or
have such done for them).

as far as it applies to your imputing opinions to me, I don't care what
people do with C++.  my only interest in C++ is the ability to write Lisp
that can either talk to C++ code or write C++ code for me, if such needs
should surface.  I also don't care what the kind of people write in C++.
I'm just glad I don't have to be one of them, because I don't like the
language.  I have no reason to dislike its users.  (maybe its creators, but
that's another story.)

-- 
natural born Lisper