Subject: Re: On nil qua false [was: Re: On conditionals] From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.net> Date: Wed, 28 Nov 2001 07:09:38 GMT Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp Message-ID: <3215920177087226@naggum.net> * Andreas Bogk | The biggest obstacle in automatic translation from elisp to, say, | scheme, is that elisp has dynamic scoping, whereas scheme (or CL for | that matter) employs lexical scoping. Well, you could make all local | bindings dynamic bindings, but the code would be a mess. Nonsense. The biggest obstacle is that any usable Emacs would have to implement an Emacs Lisp so faithful to the original that it would never see any users switch to the new and improved Emacs Lisp who could find even a smidgeon of old Emacs Lisp code to get useful things done, and since the new Emacs would not supplant the old Emacs unless people were confident that their old Emacs Lisp stuff worked in the new, it would one giant project to prove that Emacs Lisp can be hosted on something other than the old C engine, which has approximately as much value to any Lisp community as a Dylan advocate wasting their time with design discussions. _People_ is the main impediment to human progress. I wonder what kind of extraterrestial influences those who do not understand this are under. | A scientific result changed what seemed to be like a heroic task into | something manageable. I fear that you actually believe this, which is pretty tragic. /// -- The past is not more important than the future, despite what your culture has taught you. Your future observations, conclusions, and beliefs are more important to you than those in your past ever will be. The world is changing so fast the balance between the past and the future has shifted.