Subject: Re: On nil qua false [was: Re: On conditionals] From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.net> Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2001 04:35:30 GMT Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp Message-ID: <3215997328977784@naggum.net> * Tim Bradshaw | Here's another example: SunOS 4 to 5. [...] It must have been horrible | for Sun. But SunOS 5 took *years* to be accepted, because lots of people | had all sorts of stuff which really depended on SunOS 4 and *really* did | not want to change things, because from the user level 4.1.3 / 4.1.4 | worked really OK, and early SunOS 5 was buggy and slow. While we are telling stories: Some bigwhig from Sun made a bet at a conference that there would be no more SunOS 4 versions after 4.1.3. Then a new version came out, so he lost his bet. Lots of people never figured out the joke in its version designation, so allow me to repeat this even though lots of people _did_ get it. It was called 4.1.3_U1. Get it? (Pronounce it. Get it now? :) | Finally, the question is *why*? [...] I mean there must be *millions* | of things you could add to CL which would not break a single line of | existing conforming CL code and would provide cool new stuff. Tie down | the MOP, for instance. Design and get agreement on a MP interface. | URIs. Standard sockets. FFI. Defsystem. I can just keep typing these | things in for ever. *Why* are you worrying about some trivial little | design issue when you could be doing something cool and new? Come on, | get *over* it, this is just *STUPID*. Because it is the only contribution these feebleminded morons can make. It is based on some theoretical foundation that is just plain _wrong_, and that means it violates an artificial "pattern of design" that some people are so unbelievably anal about adherence to that they simply go nuts if somebody does something else. /// -- 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.