Re: Xah on Lisp

This is a discussion on Re: Xah on Lisp within the Scheme forums in Programming Languages category; 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....

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  #11  
Old 08-22-2008, 02:45 AM
namekuseijin
Guest
 
Default Re: Xah on Lisp

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.
Reply With Quote
  #12  
Old 08-22-2008, 03:51 AM
Tim X
Guest
 
Default Re: Xah on Lisp

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
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  #13  
Old 08-22-2008, 07:09 AM
Kenny
Guest
 
Default Re: Xah on Lisp

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
Reply With Quote
  #14  
Old 08-22-2008, 08:42 AM
xahlee@gmail.com
Guest
 
Default Re: Xah on Lisp

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/



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  #15  
Old 08-22-2008, 04:11 PM
xahlee@gmail.com
Guest
 
Default Re: Xah on Lisp

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/


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  #16  
Old 08-22-2008, 04:39 PM
Jon Harrop
Guest
 
Default Re: Xah on Lisp


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
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  #17  
Old 08-22-2008, 08:43 PM
Tim X
Guest
 
Default Re: Xah on Lisp

"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
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  #18  
Old 08-23-2008, 07:32 AM
xahlee@gmail.com
Guest
 
Default Re: Xah on Lisp

Tim X wrote:

> 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.


My “deliberately trying to be annoying and offensive”, as you put it,
can be likened to, say, the beautiful pussy Hypathia. She got dragged
naked to death by the Christans.

You can see a naked picture of her at:
http://xahlee.org/Periodic_dosage_di..._Mitchell.html

> 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.


i can't say it's a achievement or not. It's odd to even think of it
that way. In fact, the very existance of the concept, and the term,
“troll”, i take to be socially damaging. For detail, see:

“On Ignoring Trolls” (2002) by Xah Lee.
http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/w...ignorance.html

Quote:

«
I'll find a day to massacre them all,
And raze their faction and their family...
—William Shakespeare, in Titus Andronicus

magic a scissor i wish
so sharp and so cross
so that i can chop
chop off brainless heads

i would like to swing
a giant ax swing
off with their heads
of priests and deans

evil wish i be
hatred i behold
the righteous and the main
torture with no death
befalls to them

— Xah Lee
»


Tim wrote:
«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.»

O Tim, ease up on painting me.

Check out this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master-slave_morality

quote:
«Master morality weighs actions on a scale of good or bad consequences
unlike slave morality which weighs actions on a scale of good or evil
intentions. »

Xah
http://xahlee.org/



Reply With Quote
  #19  
Old 08-23-2008, 08:16 AM
Kenny
Guest
 
Default Re: Xah on Lisp

xahlee@gmail.com wrote:
> Tim X wrote:
>
>
>>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.

>
>
> My “deliberately trying to be annoying and offensive”, as you put it,
> can be likened to, say, the beautiful pussy Hypathia. She got dragged
> naked to death by the Christans.


Oh those whacky Christians. I missed that bit in her biography when I
was building the medal set for the Algebra software.

Not good.

>
> You can see a naked picture of her at:
> http://xahlee.org/Periodic_dosage_di..._Mitchell.html
>


That will make a better medal.

kt
---
http://www.theoryyalgebra.com/
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