Subject: Re: Packages From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.net> Date: Sun, 17 Mar 2002 13:46:37 GMT Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp Message-ID: <3225361609543715@naggum.net> * "Joe Marshall" <prunesquallor@attbi.com> | In the years I have been hacking lisp, I have on many occasions cursed | the package system, mainly for making me restart my lisp to undo whatever | random damage happened when I read something in the wrong package. On | the other hand, I have *never once* had the occasion to say `Wow, damn | glad that package system saved my ass on *this*!' How could it? You have obviously never actually set it up so it _could_ have saved your ass. But what I keep wondering, however, is why "save my ass" is a criterion for the value of something. I have heard a few people argue that if they are bumbling fools and resoundingly incompetent, they are "saved" by some feature or another, and this is somehow valuable. I think the opposite: I think if people are bumbling fools and resoundingly incompetent, they should crash and burn, the sooner the better, because saving them does only one thing: it makes it possible for them to continue to be bumbling fools and resoundingly incompetent. Have you ever heard anyone say "Man, I am so glad I have studied mathematics and acquired a mathematical way of thinking! That has _really_ saved my ass!"? If not, let us tear down the mathematics department at every university and burn the math books! How would you rate a medical doctor who exclaimed "I'm really happy I know the spleen. That really saved my ass!". I would rate him as dangerously incompetent, just as I rate your comment. But you are a Scheme freak, are you not? /// -- 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.