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From: vrotney@netcom.com (William Paul Vrotney)
Subject: Re: Inner Classes in Java
In-Reply-To: jim@digitalideas.com's message of Wed, 06 Nov 1996 12:19:15 +0000
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Date: Thu, 7 Nov 1996 08:19:41 GMT
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In article <32808216.4BB@digitalideas.com> jim@digitalideas.com writes:

> 
> JAVA is destined IMHO to become the reference language for computer
> programming, and it should be done right. Elegance is not some fancy
> feature, but the expression of well abstracted ideas put in code.
> Programming is about abstraction, at least that is what I think, and it
> is difficult to encapsulate code without such tools. What is so
> atractive about JAVA is that with such capabilities, it becomes possible
> to enhance the productivity, as there has been so much programming
> productivity wasted as we stumbled our way to JAVA.
> 
>  I wept for the death of the lisp machines, and predicted way back then,
> that the concept of a machine that is designed from the ground up
> (processor,operating system,+ top language) around a powerfull language
> was the correct one and will be the future of computing. I was off by
> about 13 years. The only missing part was that I thought that this yet
> to be born language would itself be a target language. It may still come
> to pass. 
> 

Right on!  First I must say that I appreciate someone standing up for
"elegance".  People trapped into using inelegant programming tools tend to
throw this word around like conservatives say the "L word" for "liberal"
(sorry, no offense to conservatives).  It is as if they intend for
"elegance" to import "Man, you are so pie in the sky, the code your kind
produces must be wrong".  Who knows what they are actually thinking when
they say the "E word".  In fact it turns out (fortunately) that elegant code
is usually more efficient and stable.  Einstein's quote on "Simplicity"
applies to programming as well as physics.  The hard part is teaching people
to appreciate the "and no simpler" part and how hard but not impossible that
is to achieve.

Second (and I will get flamed for this since I did years ago when posting
same, but don't care), the reason the Lisp Machine died in the first place,
*IMHO*, is that it was *not* a Lisp Machine.  What I mean by that is that on
the Lisp Machine you still had to compile a program.  Imagine a new Lisp
Machine where you only needed to do a "read" on an expression and the
machine interpreted the translated expression codes.  Could you imagine
advertising a machine where "No Compiles are Necessary yet still Faster than
any RISC or CISC"?  This would give Lisp a new image and elegance would
become a respected word again.  I know that people are going to say "You
left out the "no simpler part"" and "good luck".  Think of it this way,
Kennedy didn't let that bother him when he was crazy enough to proclaim that
Americans were going to put a man on the moon.  Of course he was just one of
those crazy "L words".  And then again there was the "C word" guy that
proclaimed Star Wars.  Oh well.

Sorry for mixing in some politics, but if you think about it, politics has a
lot to do with why Lisp is going through some tough times.  Some of the "D
word" people can tell you that.  And good luck with the JAVA machine, I hope
it doesn't wind up making expresso for the "J word" people.  Ha Ha, no one
can say the "L word" people, that is already reserved by the conservatives.
:-)

-- 

William P. Vrotney - vrotney@netcom.com
