Job Market for Lisp and Haskell programmers, serious question.

Some entity, AKA Kenny <kentilton@gmail.com>,
wrote this mindboggling stuff:
(selectively-snipped-or-not-p)


>> What would
>> be a english saying for this situation?
>
> "staying out of it".

Quietly stepping aside to watch the squeaking puppy being devoured.

Cor

--
Mijn Tools zijn zo modern dat ze allemaal eindigen op 'saurus'
(defvar My-Computer '((OS . "GNU/Emacs") (IPL . "GNU/Linux")))
SPAM DELENDA EST http://www.clsnet.nl/mail.php
1st Law of surviving armed conflict : Have a gun !

"xahlee@gmail.com" <xahlee@gmail.com> writes:

> On Aug 21, 1:44 pm, Kenny <kentil...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Don Geddis wrote:
>> > Kenny <kentil...@gmail.com> wrote on Thu, 21 Aug 2008:
>>
>> >>xah...@gmail.com wrote:
>>
>> >>>Don Geddis wrote:
>>
>> >>>>Not the power of a "language". The power of a language's _syntax_.
>> >>>>Recall, _you_ are the one making the claim, that the irregularities
>> >>>>"reduce [the] syntax's power".
>>
>> >>>In lisp, the comment is done by the char “;” running to end of line.
>> >>>Note that this does not allow nested comment. So for example, if you
>> >>>have multi-line code, and you want to comment out them all, you have
>> >>>to prepend each line by a semicolon.
>>
>> >>I use a feature like #+nicetrybozo or #+chya for multi-liners.
>> >>For print statements that are getting distracting but which may prove useful
>> >>in the future I use #+shhhh
>>
>> > And also:
>> > #|
>> > ...<multiline code> ...
>> > |#
>> > is another easy way to quickly comment out multiple lines.
>>
>> Easy? Now I have to keychord to the end of the block, type in a separate
>> delimiter, and when I want to restore take out two things.
>>
>> You must like typing.
>>
>>
>>
>> > So, Xah, Kenny and I have shown you two different ways, in standard Common
>> > Lisp, to easily comment-out multi-line code.
>>
>> > On this narrow topic, can you admit that you were in error, and this isn't
>> > a "fundamental problem of Lisp" after all?
>>
>> The Xah cannot be in error any more than Picasso can screw up by putting
>> both eyes on one side of the face.
>>
>> kt
>
>
> Kenny, is this Rainer Joswig and this Don Geddis truely idiots? or
> they just fucking around?
>
> Seriously, their IQs can't be at the idiot level. I do think they are
> a bit of fucking around attitude, due to my returning insults.
> However, i think overall they are still sincerely thinking they have a
> point, even though i think they are beginning to see that my criticism
> has valid points. I think what's really going on, is that their common
> lisp fanaticism blinded their judgement.
>

Oh Xah, it has just been so entertaining!

However, this takes the biscuit. You see, the only two people who were
actually taking your claims at all seriously are Don and Rainer. Kenny
on the other hand is just stirring the pot and playing with you. I'm
surprised that a genius such as yourself hasn't realised this.

With respect to your claims regarding your writing being better than the
average english professor or journalist, I have to say your sadly
mistaken. Your expressive style actually confuses and detracts from your
arguements. You seem to believe your style is a new radical form of
expression and those that criticise it are just morons who don't
appreciate your great talent. Such an arguement may have merit in a work
of fiction in which you are trying to push the boundries. However, it
simply detracts from what your trying to express when your dealing with
issues of fact or arguements regarding issues of technology, sociology,
philosophy or belief. If you honestly want to address such issues, you
need to express them in a clear concise manner that presents your
arguments without the distractions of unfamiliar style. I persoanlly
always asumed your poor grammer was due to english not being your native
tongue. If this is not the case, then I'd just have to assume you were a
student who was above average at math, but below average in
english. This is not uncommon. Many students find the more precise
nature of maths easier to grasp than the less precise rules of english
grammer (noting that english is often cited as the most difficult
language to learn because of its inconsistent and complex grammatical
structure). If your aim is to communicate and educate, then yu need to
write in a style that makes your points clear. Your claim that you are a
genius with a new style of expression is just a poor excuse for not
having a good grasp of english grammer and an inability to honestly edit
yourself to assist the reader rather than stroke your own ego. Rather
than an intelligent and philosophical genius, you come across as an
extremely insecure, lonely and bitter individual who has trouble fitting
in and blames everyone else rather than considering that their own
actions and personallity may have some baring on the situation.

In this current thread, I believe I can understand your arguement and I
even think Don and Rainer have missed your point. However, this is
primarily because of how you have tried to express it. I can
appreciate what your saying about the irregularities intriduced by
the 5 characters you reference. I agree that new users may be a little
confused at first and I agree that to a limited extent, editors could
parse the code easier at some levels without them. However, these are
not fundamental limitations to the language and I disagree they have
fundamentally limited or restricted the development of the
language. Your criticism is in fact quite shallow and certainly doesn't
identify anything fundamental. To disprove this, you need to make a
distinction between using the language, in the sense of actually coding
with it and all the associated tools, editors and convenience and the
actual power of the language i.e. what you can do with it - the types of
problems you can solve and how difficult/easy this is with the
language.

The only possible merit in your arguement is that if all the language
had followed the nested syntax properly, we may have more consistent
formatting of code and maybe more sophisticated development
environments. However, it is also important to note that most of the
people I've seen comment on this who have actually used rigid structured
editors have ended up not liking them. I also feel that what you are
talking about is an abstract theoretical advantage which you imagine is
superior, but which has never existed with any general purpose language
(there are some special purpose domain specific languages that have done
this, but that is a different and more precisely defined environment and
therefore easier to do and less likely to be inconvenient).

While Don and Rainer may not have understood your arguement, you have
totally failed to appreciate what they have been saying. You
immediately take the position that anyone who doesn't automatically
agree with your arguement is just a tech geek moron who can't appreciate
your great genius. This arrogance on your part makes you blind to the
valid points they are making and makes you appear insecure and
defensive. Rather than viewing alternative positions and criticisms of
your arguuement as a personal attack, start by assuming they are genuine
and attempt to address them in a genuine manner.

As an example, you argue that due to the irregularities introduced by
the characters you refernce, lisp has lost the opportunity of having
powerful and automatic formatting. I imagine you dream of a development
environment in which you can just express the ideas and the environment
will take care of all the formatting and we will have a utopian world of
consistently formatted code which everyone can easily
udnerstand. However, as has already been pointed out to you, the nested
syntax is not sufficient for this. While s-expressions do provide a lot
of convenience and while they may be sufficient for formatting pure
data, they are not sufficient for good formatting of code. This is where
your comparison with XMl falls down. A clear example of this difference
was provided in an earlier post in this thread (which I note you failed
to respond to directly and instead attacked by stating the poster was a
moron. As they say, you should play the ball and not the player)

Your claim that these irregularities reduce the power of the language
and are a fundamental problem with the language are also misguided. As
pointed out many times in this thread, these irregularities are handled
by the reader and are gone by the time the code is evaluated. for this
reason, its not a fundamental limitation in the power of the
language. However, it could be argued that it does make it harder to get
consistent formatting by the editor or that it causes confusion for new
users and this may have impacted on the adoption of the language (though
I don't believe this has in fact had any real impact and that in fact
these irregularities actually make the language more convenient and
easier to use for the experienced programmer). It cold also be argued
that because of these so called irregularities, the user is required to
put effort into formatting the code (e.g. hitting tab, enter etc) that
could be handled automatically. However, having used systems that do
this type of thing, I find such 'convenience' inconvenient. More of a
problem is that I rarely think in completed well formed
s=expressions. My code is often 'broken' as I move from an incompleted
s-expression to modify an earlier piece of code because I've realised a
minor change earlier makes what I'm doing next easier. A structured
editor would make this more difficult and not easier. I can fully
appreciate that others may adopt a different style of progrmming and for
them, a structured editor may be more convenient. But this just
emphasises that we all come from different perspectives and what may
appear to be a valuable alternative to one may be irrelevent or of
little value to someone else. this is a point you seem unable to
appreciate and assume anyone who doesn't agree with your perspective is
a moron or fuckwit. Someone who is a genius or at least a little smart
should be able to realise this and acknowledge that different people
have different priorities and requirements.

Whatever your pespective, arguing that the irregularities impact on the
power of the language is simply incorrect. If it was true, it would be
easy to show a straight-forward example of something you can do with a
purely nested syntax language that you cannot do with the existing
language. Don and others have asked you to show such and example. You
have failed to do so. All you have done is repeatably reference your
existing 'essays' - if these had such proof, people wouldn't continue to
ask you to provide one.

I have noticed a theme in many of your posts and essays. On the whole,
they seem to be inspired by frustration and anger at what you find
difficult and beleive should be easier. On one hand, this is fair
enough. However, you often lable and describe the problem in a
misleading and aggressive manner that writes the whole thing off because
of one or two issues. You also tend to attack a specific existing language or
technology when the problem is really across the whole discipline. for
example, your arguement about lisps irregularities in syntax is less
compelling when you consider that lisp probably has the most consistent,
straight-forward syntax of any language. I suspect your real issue is
with inconsistency in syntax generally and not specific to the lisp
family of languages. If you had written a well thought out and
structured essay on why many programming languages ar difficult to use
because they lack a consistency of syntax, you would likely have found
many would have supported your ideas and commended you on writing such
thought provoking material. Remember, if your real goal is to educate
then you want people to both hear what you are saying and think about
it. Presenting yor arguements in poorly structured grammer with lots of
emotional over-loading just causes 'line noise' and makes you appear to
be nothing more than an emotional dumb ass venting over what they find
frustrating about whatever current thing they are working with.

Your arguements are often undermined by the obvious fact that many of
your posts and essays are written from the perspective of a new user
with little experience with or in the language. You have freely admitted
you don't know common lisp and you make lots of examples out of emacs
lisp, which is a specialised dialect of lisp with a specific goal and
not a general purpose lisp implementation. It is also very much an older
style lisp dialect and not a good basis for making any judgement on the
current state of lisp as a language family. to have any real credibility
in arguing about the lisp family, you need to show a higher than average
familiarity with the main language implementations in the lisp family,
including more than just a couple of hours 'playing' with each. You
indicate you don't have time for such things and thats fine. However, if
you don't hae the time to learn, then you don't have the credibility to be
listened to either.

While on the topic of credibility, don't refer to yourself as a
genius. Yor obviously not. A true genius dosen't consider themselves a
genius because their superior intellect lets them know how much they
don't know. The label of genius is given to someone by others who are
impressed by the work they do. I suspect your above average intelligence
in some areas and well below average in others - for example, I suspect
you have a very low emotional intelligence. You have an obvious desire
to gain knowledge and don't limit yourself to any specific field or
discipline, which is an admiral trait IMO. However, I would say that
you are more a jack of all trades and master of none than anything
else. This is fine too - there are too many who are experts in just one
limited area and completely ignorant in everything else. A thirst for
knowledge is a very admirable trait, but a belief that such a thirst
makes you in any way superior to everyone else is just proof that your
thirst has failed to really educate you or teach you anything and that
while you may have a broad scope of knowledge, it is shallow and
superficial.

Consider that whenever you argue you have a superior intelligence, you
are really saying you have a superior something which is poorly defined
and for which nobody has ever been able to find a means of measuring in
an objective manner. I have no issue in agreeing you have a superior
poorly defined something that cannot be measured.

tim

--
tcross (at) rapttech dot com dot au

Tim X wrote:
> "xahlee@gmail.com" <xahlee@gmail.com> writes:
>
>
>>On Aug 21, 1:44 pm, Kenny <kentil...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>Don Geddis wrote:
>>>
>>>>Kenny <kentil...@gmail.com> wrote on Thu, 21 Aug 2008:
>>>
>>>>>xah...@gmail.com wrote:
>>>
>>>>>>Don Geddis wrote:
>>>
>>>>>>>Not the power of a "language". The power of a language's _syntax_.
>>>>>>>Recall, _you_ are the one making the claim, that the irregularities
>>>>>>>"reduce [the] syntax's power".
>>>
>>>>>>In lisp, the comment is done by the char “;” running to end of line.
>>>>>>Note that this does not allow nested comment. So for example, if you
>>>>>>have multi-line code, and you want to comment out them all, you have
>>>>>>to prepend each line by a semicolon.
>>>
>>>>>I use a feature like #+nicetrybozo or #+chya for multi-liners.
>>>>>For print statements that are getting distracting but which may prove useful
>>>>>in the future I use #+shhhh
>>>
>>>>And also:
>>>> #|
>>>> ...<multiline code> ...
>>>> |#
>>>>is another easy way to quickly comment out multiple lines.
>>>
>>>Easy? Now I have to keychord to the end of the block, type in a separate
>>>delimiter, and when I want to restore take out two things.
>>>
>>>You must like typing.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>So, Xah, Kenny and I have shown you two different ways, in standard Common
>>>>Lisp, to easily comment-out multi-line code.
>>>
>>>>On this narrow topic, can you admit that you were in error, and this isn't
>>>>a "fundamental problem of Lisp" after all?
>>>
>>>The Xah cannot be in error any more than Picasso can screw up by putting
>>>both eyes on one side of the face.
>>>
>>>kt
>>
>>
>>Kenny, is this Rainer Joswig and this Don Geddis truely idiots? or
>>they just fucking around?
>>
>>Seriously, their IQs can't be at the idiot level. I do think they are
>>a bit of fucking around attitude, due to my returning insults.
>>However, i think overall they are still sincerely thinking they have a
>>point, even though i think they are beginning to see that my criticism
>>has valid points. I think what's really going on, is that their common
>>lisp fanaticism blinded their judgement.
>>
>
>
> Oh Xah, it has just been so entertaining!
>
> However, this takes the biscuit. You see, the only two people who were
> actually taking your claims at all seriously are Don and Rainer. Kenny
> on the other hand is just stirring the pot and playing with you.


You must be honored. Only once a year am I so astonished by the
copiousness of someone's copiousness that I cut and paste it into
software capable of word count: the above error is followed by 2027
words? That is some biscuit.

As for the error, you mistake my persistent good humor in all directions
as directed at Xah, because you are so desperately insecure in your
conviction that your subconscious has dragged me onto your side. And
written 2027 more words.

I am neither pro-Xah nor anti-Xah. That is not why The Xah exists.

As for dictating my emotions for me.... the good news is that the hounds
will not be distrubed, the bad news is that I have /not/ had my shots.

hth, kt

Well, gotta say I'm kinda new to this ng and Lisp in general, but I've
already got enough of this meaningless arrogant troll.

hey, I know you don't like the sound, so check it out: *plonk*

It was fun for a while, Mr. Celebrity.

Kenny <kentilton@gmail.com> writes:

>>
>> However, this takes the biscuit. You see, the only two people who were
>> actually taking your claims at all seriously are Don and Rainer. Kenny
>> on the other hand is just stirring the pot and playing with you.
>
>
> You must be honored. Only once a year am I so astonished by the copiousness
> of someone's copiousness that I cut and paste it into software capable of
> word count: the above error is followed by 2027 words? That is some
> biscuit.
>

Thanks, though I thought it was longer than that

> As for the error, you mistake my persistent good humor in all directions as
> directed at Xah, because you are so desperately insecure in your conviction
> that your subconscious has dragged me onto your side. And written 2027 more
> words.

I should have said '...just stirring the pot and playing' rather than
'just stirring the pot and playing with you' as I didn't mean to imply
you were specifically playing with him in particular. My mistake. My
intention was to emphasise that I thought Xah had it around the wrong
way and interpreted Don and Rainer as playing and you as serious when in
fact I thought your posts were humorous and theirs were serious. I
thought of your contribution as akin to that of the court jester and
didn't actualy consider your motives at all.

Your comments lead me to believe you didn't read what I wrote. thats
fair enough as it was long and it was directed to Xah. However, if you
had, you would have found that I'm not against Xah nor have I taken any
side. In fact, I think he has some valid points, but he expresses them
poorly and in a way that makes his points obscure and easily
misinterpreted. I don't agree with everything he states, but do see
there is some validity in part of what he is arguing, though his
examples and references are misleading and obscured by too much
emotional content.

> I am neither pro-Xah nor anti-Xah. That is not why The Xah exists.

Neither am I.

> As for dictating my emotions for me.... the good news is that the hounds
> will not be distrubed, the bad news is that I have /not/ had my shots.
>

Funny. Luckily my hounds have not been disturbed by your dictating of my
emotions either.

hth, Tim
--
tcross (at) rapttech dot com dot au

Tim X wrote:
> Kenny <kentilton@gmail.com> writes:
>
>
>>>However, this takes the biscuit. You see, the only two people who were
>>>actually taking your claims at all seriously are Don and Rainer. Kenny
>>>on the other hand is just stirring the pot and playing with you.
>>
>>
>>You must be honored. Only once a year am I so astonished by the copiousness
>>of someone's copiousness that I cut and paste it into software capable of
>>word count: the above error is followed by 2027 words? That is some
>>biscuit.
>>
>
>
> Thanks, though I thought it was longer than that
>
>
>>As for the error, you mistake my persistent good humor in all directions as
>>directed at Xah, because you are so desperately insecure in your conviction
>>that your subconscious has dragged me onto your side. And written 2027 more
>>words.
>
>
> I should have said '...just stirring the pot and playing' rather than
> 'just stirring the pot and playing with you' as I didn't mean to imply
> you were specifically playing with him in particular. My mistake.

Ah.

> My
> intention was to emphasise that I thought Xah had it around the wrong
> way and interpreted Don and Rainer as playing and you as serious when in
> fact I thought your posts were humorous and theirs were serious. I
> thought of your contribution as akin to that of the court jester and
> didn't actualy consider your motives at all.

Oh, sure. I got those shots for nothing, then.

> Funny. Luckily my hounds have not been disturbed by your dictating of my
> emotions either.

Your hounds were just by to ask about tutoring in expository writing for
you. (I was not dictating, I was reading accurately.)

peace, k

2008-08-22

Tim X wrote:

> Oh Xah, it has just been so entertaining!

Thanks. LOL. I enjoy being red.

> However, this takes the biscuit. You see, the only two people who were
> actually taking your claims at all seriously are Don and Rainer. Kenny
> on the other hand is just stirring the pot and playing with you. I'm
> surprised that a genius such as yourself hasn't realised this.
>
> With respect to your claims regarding your writing being better than the
> average english professor or journalist, I have to say your sadly
> mistaken. Your expressive style actually confuses and detracts from your
> arguements. You seem to believe your style is a new radical form of
> expression and those that criticise it are just morons who don't
> appreciate your great talent. Such an arguement may have merit in a work
> of fiction in which you are trying to push the boundries. However, it
> simply detracts from what your trying to express when your dealing with
> issues of fact or arguements regarding issues of technology, sociology,
> philosophy or belief. If you honestly want to address such issues, you
> need to express them in a clear concise manner that presents your
> arguments without the distractions of unfamiliar style.

You said it right. The question is, if i want to.

> I persoanlly
> always asumed your poor grammer was due to english not being your native
> tongue. If this is not the case, then I'd just have to assume you were a
> student who was above average at math, but below average in
> english.

Haha.

My newsgroup writings are particularly crafted to entice the tech
geeking morons. If the tech geekers thought that i'm new to english
thus my bad writing, that's exactly what i want them to think. Due to
my persistence and osmosis, they eventually realized that they are the
victim of my advanced craft, and bang, they become my fan.

This is somewhat like orgasm. Those with prolonged foreplay are the
spectacular ones. So, i set out to tease and trap the morons. They
think they got a idiot at hand. But i persist. They find my writings
amiss yet cant resist. Lil' by lil', they sip and fight it. After a
while, they come to a full realization that they are the underskilled
ones, and that's when, they appreciate me more than if i just come out
straight.

> This is not uncommon. Many students find the more precise
> nature of maths easier to grasp than the less precise rules of english
> grammer (noting that english is often cited as the most difficult
> language to learn because of its inconsistent and complex grammatical
> structure).

Being someone with linguistic knowledge far beyond most tech geekers
(i'd say my linguistic knowledge is, better than the average who has a
degree in linguistics), i'd say that the notion of English being the
most difficult language is largely the figment of the wasp.

> If your aim is to communicate and educate, then yu need to
> write in a style that makes your points clear.

actually, the problem is just whether i want to eliminate the brain
washing and insult elements when conversing with tech geeking morons
and fuckfaces.

logical clarity and communicative power is actually the salient
feature of my writing skill.

most of my post in the past month or 2, with my adaption to a chat
style to emulate and appease the tech geekers, are not carefully
written. My posts in the past decade, which i post at a intentionally
limited rate about 1 or 2 messages per week, are usually carefully
written, long, and each took 1 to 6 hours. (for detail, see
http://xahlee.org/Netiquette_dir/why...be_normal.html ) But
even in these posts, typically there are typos, spelling errors, and
many unintended grammatical errors, and some phrasing and structure
that could have been better. These type of errors gets fixed when i
later edit and put them to my website.

So, for example, my lisp criticism about its irregular syntax and cons
business, originally is just a post here as a side effect of aswering
a lisper's question about processing trees. Now, i've edited it
somewhat so it's on my website for more general public consumption:

http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/w..._problems.html

It still contains the fuck words. But say, if one day i decide to
publish my writings in a book, or say, submit to Calculus Esoterica
quarterly, then these writings serve as a draft.

As you know that recently we discussed emacs issues in gnu.emacs.help.
Many of them are on my website now, e.g.

★ Emacs's M-‹key› Notation vs Alt+‹key› Notation
http://xahlee.org/emacs/modernization_meta_key.html

★ Emacs Should Support HTML Mail
http://xahlee.org/emacs/modernization_html_mail.html

★ Emacs's HTML Mode Sucks
http://xahlee.org/emacs/emacs_html_sucks.html

★ Why You Should Not Swap Caps Lock With Control
http://xahlee.org/emacs/swap_CapsLock_Ctrl.html

★ Keyboard Hardware Design Flaws
http://xahlee.org/emacs/keyboard_problems.html

Since these are linked in a more visible section of my emacs & elisp
tutorial, so fuck words are edited out and rantiness are mostly gone.
They are still not book quality though.

you can get a glimps of what my book quality technical writings is
like, and perhaps evaluate it, at my emacs and elisp tutorials.

http://xahlee.org/emacs/emacs.html
http://xahlee.org/emacs/elisp.html

The writing quality of the articles linked directly in that page, are
what i consider perfect technical writing. Though, they still exhibit
full idiosyncracy of me. For example, you will still see things like
the use of “i” for “I”, starting a sentencewith a conjunction, lack
of conjunction at the penultimate position of a sequence, lack of “an”
form, “programing” instead of the more common orthography
“programming”, no use of period for abbreviations or middlenames, use
of nested parens ... and quite a few others. Lol. It's that way
partly because i want to sting and elicit the grammarian and pundit
morons out there, and partly serve as education in general public (the
mechanism is by raising awareness (for example, if some grammar
sensitive moron hit me in some rude way in public, then i'll reply and
explain with a carefully crafted writing. Soon, the discussion will
snowball into a public controversy. Eventually, the world's top
experts in writing, linguistics, literature, comes out, and the
majority are likely to be on my side. This is when, the educational
purpose embedded in my “awkward” english takes effect, in fact carries
the seed of revolution. (as a example, did you notice how i mentioned
the origin of the word “OK” in gnu.emacs.help? The tech geekers
started to discuss about it and learn among themselfs, meanwhile,
reinforced my argument that the situation of the term “buffer” in
emacs isn't what they thought is.)).).

One might ask: “so where can i really see Xah's writings that
demonstrate its quality with respect to conventional English
standard?”. Well, if i write formal letter to strangers, love letter
to studious college girls, correspondence to government, educational
institutions, publishers, math journals, documentations for a company
or contract, personal communication to math professor friends and
acquatances etc, that's where. There are a few that are public that i
can cite, but i don't want to. But if anyone here really want to, you
can hire me to write technical documentation for you. I guarantee
you'll be satisfied or your money back.

O, actually, you can check out this work where orthodox writing is
employed:

“The Discontinuous Groups of Rotation and Translation in the Plane”
(1997)
Xah Lee
http://xahlee.org/Wallpaper_dir/c0_WallPaper.html

Written in 1997. That's before i have become a troll with my fully
developed bag of idiosyncracies. It is linked by math professors and
math institutions around the world, btw. (just ask, i'll show you the
hundreds of urls that link to it)

Btw, this year, i have replaced all proper use of “an” to all just “a”
on that site, in accordance of my kookiness that has developed in my
late recent life. If you want to see the “an” form, you canuse
archive.org . I haven't become nutty enough to replace all “I” by “i”
in that work. Though it's on my mind.

> Your claim that you are a
> genius with a new style of expression is just a poor excuse for not
> having a good grasp of english grammer and an inability to honestly edit
> yourself to assist the reader rather than stroke your own ego.

when it comes to newsgroup, stroke my own ego takes priority than
education.

> Rather
> than an intelligent and philosophical genius, you come across as an
> extremely insecure, lonely and bitter individual who has trouble fitting
> in and blames everyone else rather than considering that their own
> actions and personallity may have some baring on the situation.

Thank you in general, for your feedback and views.

Possibly i'll write a reply to the other part of your message
concerning the lisp criticism.

Yesterday, i tried to post a respond to Rainer's valediction and
google groups alerted me that i've exceeded my posting quota for this
account. Lol. I'm the #1 frequent poster in gnu.help.emacs this month
and i'm the 3rd for comp.lang.lisp
(
see
http://groups.google.com/group/gnu.emacs.help/about
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/about
)
That's quite a deed for someone who used to post just few a month in
the past decade. I'm not sure i want to post more. Also, i'm not sure
i want to keep up with the chat style posting like the gaggle of
newsgroup morons. My need to be aloof is tingling. Perhaps Kenny's
right, it's time to cut back on the drinks. (O, but it's so
addictive.)

Xah
∑ http://xahlee.org/

☄

The following are some additions to the my lisp criticism essay, that
are added as a result of this debate.

----------------------------------
Q: You say that lisp syntax irregularities “reduce such syntax's
power”. What you mean by “syntax's power”?

Here's some concrete examples of what i mean by power of syntax.

In lisp, the comment is done by the char “;” running to endof line.
Note that this does not allow nested comment. So for example, if you
have multi-line code, and you want to comment out them all, you have
to prepend each line by a semicolon. However, if you have nested
comment syntax, one could just braket the block of code to comment it
out. This, is a simple, perhaps trivial, example of “power of a
syntax”.

In Python, the formatting is part of the lang's syntax. Many
programers may not like it, but it is well accepted that due to
Python's syntax, python code is very easy to read, and it much done
away about programer preferences and argument about code formatting.
This is example of power of a syntax.

Let me give another, different example. You know that perl's syntax,
often the function's arguments do not necessarily need to have a paren
around it. For example, “print (3);” and “print 3;” are the same
thing. This is a example of power of syntax, when considered as a
flexibity or save of typing, for good or bad. Similarly, in javascript
for example, ending semicolon is optional. (for sample perl and python
code, see Xah's Perl and Python Tutorial)

In Mathematica, the language has a systax syntem such that you can
have fully uniform nested notation, or you have have a uniform postfix
notation, and prefix notation, as well as infix notation, for ANY
function in the language, and you can mix all of the above. This is a
example of power of syntax.

(for detailed explanation of Mathematica syntax and comparison to
lisp's, see: The Concepts and Confusions of Prefix, Infix, Postfix and
Fully Functional Notations )

In general, a computer lang has a syntax. The syntax, as text written
from left to right, has various properties and characteristics. Ease
of input (think of APL as counter example), succinctness (e.g. Perl,
APL), variability (Perl, Mathematica), readibility (Python),
familiarity (C, Java, Javascript, ...), 2-dimentional math notation
(Mathematica), ease of parsing (lisp), regularity (APL, Mathematica,
Lisp, ...), flexibility (Mathematica)... etc. Basically, you can look
at syntax, and programer's need to type them, from many perspectives.
The good qualities, such as ease of use, flexibitity, ease of reading,
ease of parsing, ease of input, etc, can be considered as the syntax's
power.

As a example of syntax of little power, think of a lang using binary
digits as its sole char set.

----------------------------------
Q: If you don't like cons, Common Lisp has arrays and hashmaps, too.

Suppose there's a lang called gisp. In gisp, there's cons but also
fons. Fons are just like cons except it has 3 cells with car, cbr,
cdr. Now, gisp is a old lang, the fons are deeply rooted in the lang.
Every some 100 lines of code you'll see a use of fons and car, cbr,
cdr, or any one of the caar, cdar, cbbar, cdbbar, etc. You got annoyed
by this. You as a critic, complains that fons is bad. But then some
gisp fan retort by saying: “If you don't like fons, gisp has cons,
too.”.

You see, by “having something too”, does not solve the problem of
polution. Sure, you can use just cons in gisp, but every lib or
other's code you encounter, there's a invasion of fons with its cbbar,
cdbbar, cbbbr. The problem created by fons cannot be solved by “having
cons too”.

----------------------------------

Q: I like the cons concept. Even in functional languages like Haskell
it is popular, e.g. when matching in the form of (x:xs), which is the
same like car/cdr in Lisp.

Languages that has a list datatype and First, Rest functions do not
mean it has lisp's cons problem.

One part of the cons problem in lisp is that it forces programer to
think of list in a low-level nested of 2-item construction, with
explicit functions like “cons”, “car”, “cdr”, “caar”, “cadr”, “cdar”,
“cddr”, “caaar”, “caadr” etc.

In other langs, the programer is not forced to think of nested 2-
items.

The other problem with lisp's cons, is that it hinders any development
of tree data structure. For example, one might write a function that
extracts the leafs of a tree. But due to lisp's list made of cons,
there is a different interpretations of what's considered a leaf.
Similarly, binary tree in lisp can be implemented either using cons
natively, or use so-called “proper list” that is implemented on top of
cons. Worse, any proper list can be mixed with improper list. So, you
can have a list of cons, or cons of lists, cons of cons, list of
lists, or any mix. The overall effect of the cons is that it prevents
lisp to have a uniform view of tree structure, with the result that
development of functions that work on tree are inconsistent, few, or
otherwise hampered.

----------------------------------

The full article is at:
http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/w..._problems.html

Xah
∑ http://xahlee.org/

☄

These are old arguments.

xahlee@gmail.com wrote:
> The following are some additions to the my lisp criticism essay, that
> are added as a result of this debate.
>
> ----------------------------------
> Q: You say that lisp syntax irregularities ?reduce such syntax's
> power?. What you mean by ?syntax's power??
>
> Here's some concrete examples of what i mean by power of syntax.
> ...

Although I agree with your original statement, I think your response misses
the point. The stock Lisper response is "Languages like Python lack Lisp's
macros". So you should have said "Mathematica syntax is better and includes
much more powerful support for macros".

> ----------------------------------
> Q: If you don't like cons, Common Lisp has arrays and hashmaps, too.
> ...

Within the limitations of dynamic typing, it is clearly better to globally
replace Lisp's cons cells with arrays, as Mathematica did.

> ----------------------------------
>
> Q: I like the cons concept. Even in functional languages like Haskell
> it is popular, e.g. when matching in the form of (x:xs), which is the
> same like car/cdr in Lisp.
>
> Languages that has a list datatype and First, Rest functions do not
> mean it has lisp's cons problem.
>
> One part of the cons problem in lisp is that it forces programer to
> think of list in a low-level nested of 2-item construction, with
> explicit functions like ?cons?, ?car?, ?cdr?, ?caar?, ?cadr?, ?cdar?,
> ?cddr?, ?caaar?, ?caadr? etc.
>
> In other langs, the programer is not forced to think of nested 2-
> items.
>
> The other problem with lisp's cons, is that it hinders any development
> of tree data structure...

That is caused by typeless programming which is an inevitable consequence of
having a very rudimentary type system. Again, the only people who will
disagree with you will be those unaware of the alternatives.

> ----------------------------------
>
> The full article is at:
> http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/w..._problems.html

Although I agree that Lisp is long since extinct I do take issue with your
claim that it was devoid of merit. Many successful languages have drawn
upon Lisp. Indeed, I would say that Mathematica is what Lisp should have
been.

--
Dr Jon D Harrop, Flying Frog Consultancy
http://www.ffconsultancy.com/products/?u

"xahlee@gmail.com" <xahlee@gmail.com> writes:

> 2008-08-22
>
>> With respect to your claims regarding your writing being better than the
>> average english professor or journalist, I have to say your sadly
>> mistaken. Your expressive style actually confuses and detracts from your
>> arguements. You seem to believe your style is a new radical form of
>> expression and those that criticise it are just morons who don't
>> appreciate your great talent. Such an arguement may have merit in a work
>> of fiction in which you are trying to push the boundries. However, it
>> simply detracts from what your trying to express when your dealing with
>> issues of fact or arguements regarding issues of technology, sociology,
>> philosophy or belief. If you honestly want to address such issues, you
>> need to express them in a clear concise manner that presents your
>> arguments without the distractions of unfamiliar style.
>
> You said it right. The question is, if i want to.

My mistake. I took your other claims of wanting to educate, teach and
open the eyes of 'tech geekers' as genuine. I didn't realise you were
deliberately trying to be annoying and offensive.

>
>> I persoanlly
>> always asumed your poor grammer was due to english not being your native
>> tongue. If this is not the case, then I'd just have to assume you were a
>> student who was above average at math, but below average in
>> english.
>
> Haha.
>
> My newsgroup writings are particularly crafted to entice the tech
> geeking morons. If the tech geekers thought that i'm new to english
> thus my bad writing, that's exactly what i want them to think. Due to
> my persistence and osmosis, they eventually realized that they are the
> victim of my advanced craft, and bang, they become my fan.
>
> This is somewhat like orgasm. Those with prolonged foreplay are the
> spectacular ones. So, i set out to tease and trap the morons. They
> think they got a idiot at hand. But i persist. They find my writings
> amiss yet cant resist. Lil' by lil', they sip and fight it. After a
> while, they come to a full realization that they are the underskilled
> ones, and that's when, they appreciate me more than if i just come out
> straight.

Reasonable rationalisation, but I think your deluding yourself.

>
>> This is not uncommon. Many students find the more precise
>> nature of maths easier to grasp than the less precise rules of english
>> grammer (noting that english is often cited as the most difficult
>> language to learn because of its inconsistent and complex grammatical
>> structure).
>
> Being someone with linguistic knowledge far beyond most tech geekers
> (i'd say my linguistic knowledge is, better than the average who has a
> degree in linguistics), i'd say that the notion of English being the
> most difficult language is largely the figment of the wasp.

Actually, that criticism of english usually comes form those whose
native tongue is not english, especially when they come from culture
where the language has a more consistent grammar.

>
>> If your aim is to communicate and educate, then yu need to
>> write in a style that makes your points clear.
>
> actually, the problem is just whether i want to eliminate the brain
> washing and insult elements when conversing with tech geeking morons
> and fuckfaces.
>
> logical clarity and communicative power is actually the salient
> feature of my writing skill.
>

Not in the way you demonstrate it in these groups.

> most of my post in the past month or 2, with my adaption to a chat
> style to emulate and appease the tech geekers, are not carefully
> written. My posts in the past decade, which i post at a intentionally
> limited rate about 1 or 2 messages per week, are usually carefully
> written, long, and each took 1 to 6 hours. (for detail, see
> http://xahlee.org/Netiquette_dir/why...be_normal.html ) But
> even in these posts, typically there are typos, spelling errors, and
> many unintended grammatical errors, and some phrasing and structure
> that could have been better. These type of errors gets fixed when i
> later edit and put them to my website.
>
> So, for example, my lisp criticism about its irregular syntax and cons
> business, originally is just a post here as a side effect of aswering
> a lisper's question about processing trees. Now, i've edited it
> somewhat so it's on my website for more general public consumption:
>

On the whole, its not the spelling, typos or even small grammatical
errors that make it difficult to understand your arguments. Your
phrasing is often poorly structured and actually makes it quite
difficult to determine exactly what your arguement is. this causes
confusion, which you obviously enjoy. However, it doesn't contribute to
your stated goal of teaching and educating. However, from this post, I
realise this isn't really what you want to achieve. It seems your more
interested in your own notoriety and ego stroking. Its what the English
would call 'being a wanker'. I'm sure you will like that label and all
credit to you if thats what you want. Personally, I find it difficult to
understand how the opinions of lots of faceless usernet users is of any
value. As the cartoon said, on the internet, nobody knows your a dog.

>
> It still contains the fuck words. But say, if one day i decide to
> publish my writings in a book, or say, submit to Calculus Esoterica
> quarterly, then these writings serve as a draft.
>

Others may disagree, but the 'fuck words' are not anything I have an
issue with. they are just words and in fact, I find it amusing we use a
word as an insult that represents something we all (or most of us) like
to do as often as possible.

>
> The writing quality of the articles linked directly in that page, are
> what i consider perfect technical writing. Though, they still exhibit
> full idiosyncracy of me. For example, you will still see things like
> the use of “i” for “I”, starting a sentence with a conjunction, lack
> of conjunction at the penultimate position of a sequence, lack of “an”
> form, “programing” instead of the more common orthography
> “programming”, no use of period for abbreviations or middle names, use
> of nested parens ... and quite a few others. Lol. It's that way
> partly because i want to sting and elicit the grammarian and pundit
> morons out there, and partly serve as education in general public (the
> mechanism is by raising awareness (for example, if some grammar
> sensitive moron hit me in some rude way in public, then i'll reply and
> explain with a carefully crafted writing. Soon, the discussion will
> snowball into a public controversy. Eventually, the world's top
> experts in writing, linguistics, literature, comes out, and the
> majority are likely to be on my side. This is when, the educational
> purpose embedded in my “awkward” english takes effect, in fact carries
> the seed of revolution. (as a example, did you notice how i mentioned
> the origin of the word “OK” in gnu.emacs.help? The tech geekers
> started to discuss about it and learn among themselfs, meanwhile,
> reinforced my argument that the situation of the term “buffer” in
> emacs isn't what they thought is.)).).

While I agree there are some people who are far too up tight regarding
grammar and can come across as grammar nazis, there is a point to having
structure - to enable clear expression of thoughts, ideas and points of
arguement in a way that is less likely to be misinterpreted due to
different understanding of what the text means and instead allow discussion,
arguement and debate over the content. From what you write, I can see
what your aim is, but I think your trying too hard or trying to be too
clever. However, it all probably depends on what your real motives
are. I had assumed you were more genuine and that was my mistake.

>
> Written in 1997. That's before i have become a troll with my fully
> developed bag of idiosyncracies. It is linked by math professors and
> math institutions around the world, btw. (just ask, i'll show you the
> hundreds of urls that link to it)
>

I don't understand why you feel its an achievement to be a troll. There
is little skill in achieving such a badge - in fact, many achieve it
without wanting to or even trying.

> Btw, this year, i have replaced all proper use of “an” to all just “a”
> on that site, in accordance of my kookiness that has developed in my
> late recent life. If you want to see the “an” form, you can use
> archive.org . I haven't become nutty enough to replace all “I” by “i”
> in that work. Though it's on my mind.
>
>> Your claim that you are a
>> genius with a new style of expression is just a poor excuse for not
>> having a good grasp of english grammer and an inability to honestly edit
>> yourself to assist the reader rather than stroke your own ego.
>
> when it comes to newsgroup, stroke my own ego takes priority than
> education.

so it would seem. Unfortunate perhaps. At least your intentions are now
clear and others may now have more insight into how to respond.

>
> Possibly i'll write a reply to the other part of your message
> concerning the lisp criticism.
>

I wouldn't bother. As I stated before, I believed you were genuine in
your claims to want to enducate and teach. I'm not interested in helping
you stroke your ego or feed your fantasies regarding being some sort of
usernet 'celebrity'. I will often give people the benefit of the doubt,
which may mean I'm more naive than I should be, but I now know
better. Thanks for at least coming clean and making your true motives
clear.

Tim

--
tcross (at) rapttech dot com dot au