Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
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Subject: Re: Lisp advocacy (Was Re: another take on "C is faster than lisp")
References: <33vlr1$2ud@info-server.bbn.com> <STEVE.94Aug30141513@baloo.gsfc.nasa.gov> <778584011snz@wildcard.demon.co.uk> <778955109snz@wildcard.demon.co.uk> <vrotneyCvutoq.MLt@netcom.com>
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Date: Sat, 10 Sep 1994 13:46:28 +0000
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In article <vrotneyCvutoq.MLt@netcom.com>
           vrotney@netcom.com "William Paul Vrotney" writes:

> As he goes on ...                (is Cyber a he or a she?)

He. Martin Rodgers. Full details will be available as soon as I get
a WWW home page. Finger doesn't work here.

> As he goes on and on with HIS version of boring stuff ...

It's a small sacrifice. If you don't like this thread, add it to
your killfile. It'll go away soon enough, unlike the advocacy threads,
which recreate themselves every few weeks.
 
> Do you really think the "Great Lisp/C Debate" will be over in 10 years?  In
> my circles it's been ranging for the LAST 10 years and it still doesn't seem
> any MORE sillier. Besides, it's so much fun! If you are a good Lisp
> programmer you can insinuate how stupid C programmers are.  If you are a

I don't give a monkeys about it. I use whatever tools I'm paid to
use. End of story. So far, nobody has offered me a job programming
in Lisp, so I can choose to use it in my own time. Everybody else
wants me to use C++. What else is there to say? The merits are not
that relevant unless you have a choice.

> But seriously, another thing that I liked out of this thread is Jeff
> Dalton's standing up to Lisp bashing. I know, certain parties are going to
> say "If you thought I was Lisp bashing, you didn't understand what I was
> saying". I'm not accusing.  But hey, being critical of Lisp for the sake of
> making Lisp better has a different tone, you know what I mean?

Who needs to bash Lisp/C/whatever? Not me. I have better things to do
with my spare time. The same is true for a lot of people who don't want
to argue about Unix vs OS/2 vs NT. There are advocacy newsgroups for
those who do.

Of course, I could be accused of bashing those who love to bash the
tools chosen by other programmers, or the platforms chosen by other
users. What I find curious about is why these people feel so in
insecure that they feel compelled to defend their choices. I'm not
saying they shouldn't, but I do wish I didn't have to continually
update my killfile. If there was an advocacy flag in the headers,
I'd use that in my killfile.

It proves _nothing_, and changes _nothing_. This thread just _might_.
It could improve the signal to noise ratio of some newsgroups.
-- 
Future generations are relying on us
It's a world we've made - Incubus	
We're living on a knife edge, looking for the ground -- Hawkwind
