Subject: Re: Lisp is neither (was Re: Ousterhout and Tcl lost the plot) From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.no> Date: 1997/04/24 Newsgroups: comp.lang.scheme,comp.lang.lisp,comp.lang.tcl,comp.lang.functional,comp.lang.perl.misc,comp.lang.python,comp.lang.eiffel Message-ID: <3070883923129869@naggum.no> * M. Prasad | You obviously have a following on the Usenet from those who enjoy seeing | the personal attacks. you know, that tar brush you're wielding is awfully broad -- you must be the biggest fan ever of personal attacks, so if there were _only_ personal attacks in my messages (such as in yours), I'd fully expect you to enjoy them and even request advance tickets to the live show. but no, you and all others who seem to enjoy (or hate) my articles, do so because I make technically valid points, contradict hype, demonstrate ignorance, and destroy "marketing arguments" aimed solely at the ignorant masses. people are certainly allowed to be ignorant, lying, mass-market propagandists, but if they try to claim they are something else, they must be exposed. I do that. some find it very entertaining. this would not be possible with the kind of personal attacks that you work so hard to find in my articles to the exclusion of everything else they contain, but it's hard to show that somebody is a pathological liar _in_ his arguments without at least someone confusing the issue and thinking that his (in their opinion valid) argument is dismissed _because_ he is called a pathological liar (which would have been an argumentum ad hominem). I don't think _I_ have a following. I think people would like to see the arguments I'm making more often, and are happy that I make them. if _I_ had a following, it would be immaterial what I wrote, and the idiocy you attribut to them would be possible. fortunately, I have never met anyone who has suggested that they like my articles because of the harsh treatment I give the incompetent fools I don't suffer -- that's just the spice. for many it's actually too hot. but very few are unable to taste the real meat only because they are too sensitive to the spice. curiously, those who are seem to be candidates for world championship in personal attacks without any form of substantiation, giving like M. Prasad serious competition. it is typical of such lame-brained idiots to associate something they don't think they like with something they already hate, to justify things to themselves, I guess. M. Prasad thinks of Lisp. the other day, I got a very nasty letter from some environMENTAList who accused me of being in favor of multiple death sentences on anti-whaler Paul Watson since I'm from Norway. events like these remind me of a joke about Stevie Wonder, who was asked "have you never been discriminated against because you're blind?" where he shall have answered "no, but I'm glad I'm not black -- I hear that's rough." (this article was sponsored by the Lisp Defamation League.) #\Erik -- if we work really hard, will obsolescence be farther ahead or closer?