Subject: Re: ACL, CLISP and pathnames
From: Erik Naggum <cl@naggum.no>
Date: 1998/05/13
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Message-ID: <3104070279853953@naggum.no>


* Sam Steingold
| if you were a paying customer of CLISP ... :-)

  get real.

| I said: ACL 4.3 for linux doesn't have :key in reduce. Do you dispute this?
| (the wording was different, but the meaning was unambiguous).

  well, you failed to get your intended unambiguity across, and I'm tired
  of that complaint from you regardless of your intent.  if I could see
  what would satisfy you, things would be a little different, but I can't.

| Please stop your abuse.

  do you really think I beat you over the head _unprovoked_?  geez!

| BTW, CLISP is GPLed, so, if you unhappy with it, you are welcome to join
| the development.  (leaving the abuse and insults outside, of course).

  I have been informed that the CLISP sources are now to be distributed and
  worked on in the language C, as opposed to the language D, which differs
  only from C in that comments have a gratuitiously different syntax, as
  far as I could tell.  such gratuitous braindamage is not conducive to
  cooperation.  I have also said previously that to get people to work on
  some source code, you have to adhere to some reasonable coding standards.
  CLISP is the _ugliest_ code I have ever seen, possibly excluding Kyoto
  Common Lisp and the MULE code in GNU Emacs.  neither of these invite
  people to fix them.  the cognitive load is too high, and just cleaning it
  all up is a gargantuan effort.

| Why do you think your abuse and insults of CLISP to be legitimate while
| denying me a right to comment on ACL?

  that question is valid only if you ignore the fact that you have a very
  different idea about what constitues "unambiguous" in your incessant
  complaints than I do.  the fact that you got a simple fix from me, and a
  suggestion to write your own REDUCE if you really had to have this, yet
  _continue_ to complain, but "invite" me to fix CLISP when you can't be
  bothered to fix things for yourself, suggests that you suffer from a
  one-sided view of the situation.  I object vociferously to your leniency
  towards an anti-conforming free software product and your incessant
  whining about a commercially supported and highly superior product in all
  respects.  in brief, I'm trying to establish the balance that you have
  perturbed.  you beat up ACL and extol CLISP.  I do the reverse.  it sort
  of evens out, except that ACL _is_ of high quality, and CLISP will be of
  high quality sometime in the distant future, good men and gods willing.

#:Erik
-- 
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