Subject: Re: Newbie - 2 MORE Small problems?
From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.net>
Date: Tue, 12 Mar 2002 03:02:11 GMT
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Message-ID: <3224890941376919@naggum.net>

* Bruce Hoult <bruce@hoult.org>
| You confuse information and comparison with unthinking advocacy.

  I wish I did.  If I want to learn about D*lan, I read comp.lang.dylan.
  If I wish to learn about Scheme, I read comp.lang.scheme.  If I do not
  wish to learn about either, I do not read these newsgroup, but thanks to
  people who have no concept of what other people would like to discuss
  where, I have to wade through one "comparison" after another and much
  more "information" about Scheme freaks and their preferences than I would
  like to suffer.

| I've looked for it but in fact you are the *only* person I've ever seen
| who has expressed such hostility.

  This is sheer nonsense.

| Quite the contrary, there are a number of obvious examples of people who
| are or have been active in multiple languages.

  You cannot portray a city as "safe" by pointing to how many nice people
  live in it, and it is quite amazing that you have to go on such a stupid
  propaganda trip.

| The creator of Scheme had a hand in the definition of Common Lisp.  Kent
| Pitman has done work with both.  Many D*lan people have been prominent in
| Common Lisp and I can think of several who post here fairly regularly.

  This proves exactly nothing.

| There does, on the other hand, seem to be a lot of lingering hostility
| from those in the CL community who think that the effort would have been
| better spent on developing CL itself, rather than dividing efforts.

  Perhaps you would arrive at a less self-serving conclusion if you could
  try to remember how D*lan dropped its sensible syntax?

| This is very visible even today, with the recent denouncement from
| several quarters of a Common Lisp stalwart such as Paul Graham.

  Paul Graham is a Common Lisp _stalwart_?  He has spent lots of time and
  effort telling the world he does _not_ like Common Lisp, why loop is bad
  and wrong, and done a remarkable job of re-creating Scheme in Common Lisp.

| It's not a question of *want*.  These languages *are* closely related 
| members of the same family -- far more closely related to each other 
| than any of them is to any other language.
| 
| What is it that makes you *want* to deny that?

  Their remarkably important differences.

| You're welcome to your opinion, but I believe it to be false.

  Of course you do.

///
-- 
  In a fight against something, the fight has value, victory has none.
  In a fight for something, the fight is a loss, victory merely relief.