Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
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Subject: Re: Lisp advocacy (Was Re: another take on "C is faster than lisp")
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Date: Thu, 15 Sep 1994 20:31:06 +0000
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In article <19940914T001942Z.erik@naggum.no> erik@naggum.no "Erik Naggum" writes:

> just to second Jeff Dalton on this one.  between two debaters, nothing may
> appear to change, but as soon as you consider the "lurkers", and consider
> the e-mail that either participant receives, it is obvious that opinions
> change all over the world from a debate involving strong factual points,
> even flamefests have positive effects even far removed from USENET itself.

This could still be done in an advocacy newsgroup. If there's a
reason why this would _not_ be possible, then please explain it
and I'll shut up.
 
> don't be tricked into believing that USENET is only those who post here
> because those are the only ones you see.  to take one example: Norwegian
> politicians recently have referred to statements that have been expressed
> on USENET about electronic availability of the text of our laws.  if this
> is not changing people's opinions, I don't know what would be!  note that
> they don't post followups.

See above. I don't see the connection, but I'm hoping that you can
explain it to me. I'm not against advocacy, or any other kind of
debate. I'm simply suggesting that it could have its own newsgroup.
That seems innocent enough to me, and shoudln't hinder it in any
way. At the same time, it would leave comp.lang.lisp free for those
who are interested in discussions of purely Lisp issues. If that's
a bad idea, please explain why. Surely "Lisp vs C" advocacy threads
would still be read by those who want to read them?

-- 
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
