Subject: Re: Computer Science Education From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.net> Date: Thu, 06 Dec 2001 07:54:00 GMT Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp Message-ID: <3216614037971523@naggum.net> * cubicle584@mailandnews.com (Software Scavenger) | The nervous system is massively parallel. When will we have computer | hardware with the same advantage to the same degree? When humans are willing to accept that a computer may be smarter than they are. We have a situation today where the opposite willingness manifests itself in how people respond to a computer that has "insulted" them by pointing out that they are factually wrong about something or have made illogical arguments or committed fallacies. A simple statement of fact that would make nobody defensive in the real world, tends to make some people massively irritated when their computer is the messenger, and even simple error messages or failure to do what the user wants, however stupid or irrational, does not infrequently lead to the untimely demise of the hardware. If the computer were ever to _volunteer_ criticism to your average user, even in the form of actually helpful suggestions, you can be certain that it would be among the very last things it performs. | Such as making it easier to program the computer by making the computer | do a larger share of the work of programming. When I first believed that it would be feasible to write an Emacs on top of a commercial Common Lisp system (and hoping the non-commercial ones would catch on as necessary), part of the rationale for wanting to undertake this herculian task was that it would afford intimate ties between the Common Lisp world and the source code in progress. Doing this today, even with Allegro CL's Emacs-Lisp Interface, would drown in interprocess communication, reading and writing Lisp objects. /// -- 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.