Subject: Re: MD5 in LISP and abstraction inversions From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.net> Date: Fri, 16 Nov 2001 00:12:39 GMT Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp Message-ID: <3214858356435965@naggum.net> * John Foderaro | So the ANSI spec is out of this. Your claim is that the standard if, when, and unless should not be used. This is the crux of the matter, not if*. If they could be used freely, then if* has no merit whatsoever. The only merit of if* is if it should replace the standard conditionals. This is defintely your point, since you are even telling people that code will be converted from standard to Foderaro style if submitted to you, because you cannot, supposedly, read standard code. Since you are quite hysterical about having your freedom threatened in any way, please try to understand that you are threatening the freedom of those who want to exercise their freedom to employ the standard to its fullest. Apparently, you ignore this aspect of your if* stunt completely, because you want to exercise _your_ freedom, and do not give a flying fuck about others. That others have _repeatedly_ and very strongly objected to your anti-standard attitude has never registered with you as far as your lines of defense can provide information, because you only talk about _your_ freedom to create new macros, never about the freedom you seek to take away from those who like the standard. Those who want the standard to be our common point of agreement are labeled "religious" and worse things by you in your fight for if*. This is very clear evidence that there is a fight between conflicting freedoms, here. Now, this does not normally happen among freedom-loving people. It does happen quite frequently among people who want to control others. I have objected to your stupid, stupid if* stunt on the grounds that you forbid if, when, unless, and (let us not forget) cond. You have not grasped it. Now, we have a word for people who disregard other people's freedom and rights and everything in their zeal to exercise their "freedom" to do something that is frowned upon by other people because it curtails the freedom of others. That word is: CRIMINAL. The reason people object so strongly to what you do is that you have abused the freedom you have to create macros and the like to create one that you have married to a political agenda to destroy and deprecate the standard conditionals, and the open source activity of Franz Inc looks like it has no other purpose than to destroy the standard by creating a community around that requires your if* stunt and your lower-case nonsense to work, and which you ensure will _not_ work without changes to the core Lisp system and patches will not be accepted back into the source with standard conditionals or extended loop. Whether you accept it or not, this is a pretty pathetic case of intimidation of those who want to follow the standard, on par with the "religious" crap you do. If you argue that people should accept your if* stunt because it is within the limits of conformance to add new macros, why do you at the same time argue that people should not use if, when, unless, cond, and extended loop, which are _also_ within the limits of conformance? If I say that people should not use if*, how the hell is that different from _you_ saying they should not use if, when, unless, cond, etc? Why do you invoke "relinquish our freedom" when I tell people not to use if*, but do not even understand that you specifically want to order people around? This does not make sense to me. In fact, it provides me with sufficient information to suspect _seriously_ foul play. Why do you want to take away other people's freedom to use the standard constructs? Do you not _understand_ that this is what people object to in your very political agenda? Why do you fight for if* based on _freedom_ when what you really want is to control what other people can and should do? You _have_ told us that you will even rewrite the code of your colleagues to remove the standard conditionals. What kind of work environment does this create? /// -- Norway is now run by a priest from the fundamentalist Christian People's Party, the fifth largest party representing one eighth of the electorate. -- Carrying a Swiss Army pocket knife in Oslo, Norway, is a criminal offense.