RE: My current readings in Category Theory

[Fisher Mark]

Tim May writes:
> * object-oriented systems. In my view, this one _has_ 
> basically lived up 
> to its billing, largely because it works for building more complex 
> systems (and is arguably how Mankind has usually built 
> complex systems 
> like bridges and skyscrapers and chips). But some of the 
> bolder claims 
> about "reusable software" and "software ICs" have yet to be realized.

I wouldn't go that far - the Comprehensive Perl Archive Network (CPAN,
http://www.cpan.org/) has been able to provide me with code for dealing with
everything from database connections to Win32 API calls to OPML (outlines
expressed in XML).  When I can work in Perl (which isn't all the time), I'm
usually assembling software ICs rather than creating the transistors,
flip-flops, etc. on my own.  It can get to be painful -- it takes about 35
CPAN downloads to get Slashcode, the code behind http://slashdot.org/,
running -- but that is several boatloads of code that I didn't have to write
to get a weblog with authentication, discussion groups, polls, RSS feeds,
and God knows what else going (I'm still in the exploration stage).

Why it is that Perl has this large of a community is probably really OT for
cypherpunks, though...
===============================================
Mark Leighton Fisher            [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Thomson multimedia, Inc.        Indianapolis IN
The Illuminati are not dead --
they're just pining for the fnords...