Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!das-news.harvard.edu!news2.near.net!MathWorks.Com!europa.eng.gtefsd.com!howland.reston.ans.net!pipex!lyra.csx.cam.ac.uk!warwick!uknet!festival!edcogsci!jeff
From: jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
Subject: Re: Lisp advocacy (Was Re: another take on "C is faster than lisp")
Message-ID: <Cw31oK.6px@cogsci.ed.ac.uk>
Sender: usenet@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (C News Software)
Nntp-Posting-Host: bute.aiai.ed.ac.uk
Organization: AIAI, University of Edinburgh, Scotland
References: <778955109snz@wildcard.demon.co.uk> <vrotneyCvutoq.MLt@netcom.com> <779204788snz@wildcard.demon.co.uk>
Date: Tue, 13 Sep 1994 19:19:31 GMT
Lines: 21

In article <779204788snz@wildcard.demon.co.uk> cyber_surfer@wildcard.demon.co.uk writes:

>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.

What's with this psychological analysis?  "Insecure"?  How do
you know why they do it?

Also, how did defending a choice get turned into advocacy?
Surely advocacy is more "active" than that.

I tend to defend the reasonableness of choosing Lisp against
claims that it's not reasonable.  But I don't say Lisp is better
than other languages or go into random newsgroups trying to
convert people.  I don't say "you should use Lisp for this
because...".
