Subject: Re: Lisp in the "real world" From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.no> Date: 1997/06/29 Newsgroups: comp.lang.scheme,comp.lang.lisp Message-ID: <3076533115490850@naggum.no> * Cyber Surfer -> Rainier Joswig | You've proved my point, then. You don't use Windows. ;-) is that your point? that anybody who doesn't use Windows is not a part of the "real world"? I would say the exact opposite is true. I would say that those who depend on Microsoft software are like those who invested in the Albanian pyramids. they are being defrauded and have been since they acquired their first PC with some Microshit pre-installed. they will find out, just like the Albanians that had already lost their savings by the time they found out. on the other hand, if you're such a willing servant of Bill Gates, why aren't you able to write wrappers around the functions you need? you know, the more time you spend not writing what you claim to need, the harder it will look for everybody else to do, and they don't even need it. it took me six months to write a system for machine-aided conversion of unbelievably shitty RTF generated by some randomly losing Microshit Word application into a structured, consistent SGML form. I didn't know RTF when I started, I didn't know diddly about the complexity of the problem (it took six months instead of the three I had hoped for), and the SGML form it needed to be forced into was itself barely more intelligent than Word. and it had to run under that Microshit Non-Technology fo(u)r naught. if it weren't for Microsoft's systemic braindamage and the amazingly resistant beliefs of some managers that only Microshit would "work" despite all evidence to the contrary, chances are it would have taken the three projected months because the sheer pain of working with the incomplete, underspecified, buggy and flat out dysfunctional environment known as "Windows" wouldn't have slowed me down so much. if you can't wrap a decent programming environment around your DLL nonsense in all the time you have claimed you wanted and needed it so badly, I for one will believe that it is because Microshit is so insanely braindamaged that anyone who has the intelligence and good taste to know what to do won't be able to stomach it, or won't consider the pain worth his while. and I guess that's why there's not much support for Microshit from people who would rather buy a real computer with a half-decent operating system instead of falling pray to Bill Gates' fraudulent business practices and amazingly successful _hype_ that replaces reasonably informative marketing as put out by all of his still self-respecting competitors. | Flame away, if you like Rainer, but all I'm asking for is support for the | basic features of the OS that I use. "all you're asking for" is for people to file off their fingers with a rusty nail file, stick chopsticks in the bloody sockets, and write "I will succumb to Bill Gates" a million times on an old Teletype. if this is so hard even you can't do it, asking others to do it for you is unbelievably arrogant, especially when you repeat, again and again, that you won't pay for it, and won't help those who do it for you in any possible way, that is, not in any commercially rewarding way. now, _why_ should they do what you ask for? there's a million reasons people should _not_ do what you ask for. if they can make a reasonable living without suffering the pain of working with Microshit, who the hell are you to demand they _do_ suffer? | Truly _basic_ features. Do you have anything more constructive to offer | than "use a mac"? learn to dig for truffles with your nose. you'll need it in your next life. #\Erik