1 Programmers who lock onto a design decision and cling to it in the face of
2 contradictory new information -- well, that's almost everyone in my
3 experience, so I better not say what I think of them or people will start
4 saying bad things about me on c.l.l.
7 This reminds me of the NYC cabby who accepted a fare to Chicago. When
8 they got there and could not find the friend who was supposed to pay the
9 fare he just laughed and said he should have known.
12 >> Actually, I believe that Aikido, Jazz and Lisp are different appearances
14 Yes, the Tao. /Everything/ is a different appearance of the tao.
17 "Ken, I went to the library and read up on Buddhism, and believe me, you
21 That absolutely terrifies the herd-following, lockstep-marching,
22 mainstream-saluting cowards that obediently dash out or online to
23 scoop up books on The Latest Thing. They learn and use atrocities like
24 Java, C++, XML, and even Python for the security it gives them and
25 then sit there slaving away miserably, tediously, joylously paying off
26 mortgages and supporting ungrateful teenagers who despise them, only
27 to look out the double-sealed thermo-pane windows of their
28 central-heated, sound-proofed, dead-bolted, suffocating little nests
29 into the howling gale thinking "what do they know that I do not know?"
30 when they see us under a lean-to hunched over our laptops to shield
31 them from the rain laughing our asses off as we write great code
32 between bong hits.... what was the question?
35 Shut up! (That last phrase has four or more syllables if pronounced as
39 Nonsense. You'll be using it for the GUI, not protein-folding.
41 (responding to a comment that LTK was slow because it
44 Continuations certainly are clever, but if we learned anything from the
45 rejection of the cover art for "Smell the Glove", it is that "there is a
46 fine line between stupid... and clever".
49 Ah, there's no place like academia for dispassionate, intellectually
50 honest discussion of new ideas on their merits. Thank god for tenure
51 giving your bold antagonist the protection they needed to shout down
52 your iconoclastic..... hang on...
55 Whoever objected must be in my killfile, ...
58 From memory (but I think I have it right):
60 "But Jesus said, Suffer captured variables, and forbid them not, to come
61 unto thine macro bodies: for of such is are DSLs made."
66 Awareness of defect is the first step to recovery.
69 You made a bad analogy (there are no good ones, but you found a new
73 Yes, it is true that Kent Pitman was raised by a closet full of Lisp
74 Machines, but the exception only proves the rule.
76 (in a postscript after positing that computer
77 languages are not learned in infancy)
79 I suggest you try bartender's school to support yourself, start
80 programming for fun again.
82 (responding to a comment that 98% of anything to do
83 with computers was not interesting code)
85 You could add four lanes to my carpal tunnel and I still could not
86 write all the code I am dying to write.
89 Neutrality? I want to bury other languages, not have a gateway to them.
92 Ken: "Cute puppy. Did you get it for companionship or to pick up chicks?"
93 Simon: "Hunh? My puppy /always/ gives me companionship."
95 (on how he was understood by a native english speaker)