Subject: Re: type safety in LISP From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.no> Date: 09 Dec 2002 16:42:17 +0000 Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp Message-ID: <3248440937189380@naggum.no> * Pascal Costanza | I have just given the counter-example under the assumption that | Erik meant what he said. You continue to amaze me (which suggests that I should downgrade my expectations, I guess) in not understanding the difference between what people write and what you interpret it to mean, which suggests an absence of understanding, indeed /appreciation/, of interpretive processes. How is this possible? How can anyone fail to grasp that they have had to perform some /mental work/ to arrive at the meaning of what they have read and that this work /necessarily/ embodies the influences of their own context, conceptual framework, and prior participations in the great dialog that is civilization? I fear that the conclusion is that no such work has occurred. | In Guy Steele's example, the type checker obviously accounted for | _all_ potential problems. This is what makes this quote so | interesting. I am fairly confident that that is /not/ what he meant, as it would be a fairly retarded interpretation of what he wrote, and although people vary greatly in their performance although they usually have sufficient self-awareness not to publish sheer idiocy (with some glaringly obvious exceptions), I do not wish to insult Guy Steele's intelligence by assuming he meant such a thing. | I didn't intend to disprove Erik's reasoning, I just wanted to | point to an interesting counter-example. Amazing. And you objected to calling it additional information. | Actually I also think that static type checking does not help in | most cases, why would I use Common Lisp otherwise. Because you do not practice what you preach? Oh, sorry, there was no question mark. Smart move. -- Erik Naggum, Oslo, Norway Act from reason, and failure makes you rethink and study harder. Act from faith, and failure makes you blame someone and push harder.