He's been bed-ridden for the last year or so, and quite sick before that. I'm not sure what exactly happened, though. I figured you would chime in at some point. ;-)
On 4/19/06, n a <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > >I feel sorry for the progenitor of this thread. The blood is on his hands > >;) > > > >Let the Holy War rage! > > > > I'm staying out of this one but... > > it's funny to see a post by Erik Naggum outside of comp.lang.lisp (the most > ridiculous, flamey usenet group ever). He was like a celebrity there... for > being... well... insane... sharp-tongued, gregarious, long winded... I > wonder what ever happened to him (as you probubly saw, that post was dated > some time in 2000)... he was the guy who said "xml is a giant step in no > direction at all" > > Nick > > ps > > the #: before his name is syntactic sugar in common lisp: it's how you make > the reader generate a symbol without a package (or also how one prints) > > > > > >On Wed, 19 Apr 2006, Brandon Mitchell wrote: > > > >>On 4/19/06, Brian Chrisman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >>>I'm putting that in the 'unlearned criticism file': > >> > >>Based upon that statement alone, I would have to relegate the remainder to > >>same. > >> > >>>If yer handed a data dump from a 70's era mainframe, or a flat text file > >>>from another old database (dbase, pick, whatever), you are going to want > >>>perl. > >> > >>In 1996, I would have said I wanted awk or lisp (assuming you are > >>referring to perl's text-parsing abilities). Now, I would say I wanted > >>ruby or python or awk or lisp. Perhaps *you* would want perl, to the > >>disdain of the poor souls tasked with polishing that turd long after > >>you have come and gone. > >> > >>>I think part of the misunderstanding here is that perl is not designed > >>>to be the best language out there for any apparent task, but rather the > >>>language that is most familiar and easy to adopt by most people in > >>>industry. > >> > >>That syntactical flexibility leads to the trash that perl is known for > >>encouraging. Take, for example, a language that also follows the > >>"TMTOWTDI" motto: ruby. Ruby has a wonderful way of constraining the > >>programmer to syntactic sanity whilst still allowing flexibility and > >>creativity in implementation for any given problem set, and not > >>leaving a bunch of old glue code future programmers will have to > >>scrape off their shoes before tackling the "real" problems at hand. > >> > >>Being programmers, whether by trade, by hobby or otherwise, we are > >>constantly learning and reshaping the way we view any given problem > >>domain. Need or interest will pull us from language to language over > >>time and we will fight the comfortable inertia that holds us to a > >>particular set of paradigms by attempting to form-fit each successive > >>language to one with which we are comfortable. The issue at hand is > >>whether a language should encourage this behavior, especially when we > >>are forced to stick the forms we are familiar with onto the new > >>language with chewing gum. > >> > >>It is common for programmer's learning about a new algorithm or an > >>interesting form in another language (lambda expressions in python > >>anyone) to start forcing the rest of their world through that prism. > >>Perl, and to some extent ruby, encourages that behavior, despite the > >>inelegance of the result. This leads to code that will, for the most > >>part, be a snapshot of any given programmer's experiences at that > >>point in time, which becomes the 'anathema' of future maintainers, > >>documenters and students of that code. > >> > >>Erik is referring to perl's inherent promotion of the 'easy' or > >>'hackish' way out of a given problem domain, without consideration for > >>the existence of a correct, canonical solution that would (as Erik > >>asserts) be easier to implement and maintain. > >> > >>-- > >>If UNIX doesn't have the solution you have the wrong problem. > >>UNIX is simple, but it takes a genius to understand it's simplicity. > >> > >>_______________________________________________ > >>RLUG mailing list > >>[email protected] > >>http://lists.rlug.org/mailman/listinfo/rlug > >> > > > >_______________________________________________ > >RLUG mailing list > >[email protected] > >http://lists.rlug.org/mailman/listinfo/rlug > > _________________________________________________________________ > Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - it's FREE! > http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/ > > > _______________________________________________ > RLUG mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.rlug.org/mailman/listinfo/rlug > -- If UNIX doesn't have the solution you have the wrong problem. UNIX is simple, but it takes a genius to understand it's simplicity. _______________________________________________ RLUG mailing list [email protected] http://lists.rlug.org/mailman/listinfo/rlug
