
Steam Lisp - fogus
http://www.loper-os.org/?p=388
======
stephenjudkins
From reading the author's other posts, the clear implication is that Lisp (and
only the author's preferred flavors of Lisp, not pale imitations like Clojure)
offers the only possibility of breaking out of the hopelessly broken paradigms
accepted by the unwashed masses.

Personally, for all the problems and terrible design decisions that we're all
living with, I find a whole lot of what fellow programmers do amazing and
inspirational. A lot of the stuff they produce with so-called broken and
unproductive tools are amazing products that provide a lot of productivity and
enjoyment for a wide range of people. I've also found that almost any
sufficiently popular language or environment has its share of brilliant,
original thinkers trying to build new tools to make things easier and better
for others. These are people who should be thanked and celebrated for their
contributions.

I looked further into the author's blog posts. The dominant themes are bilious
and scornful attacks on other's work, or lamentations about the sad state of
software today. He claims to be producing a Lisp-based operating system.
Curious to see his progress, I checked the source repository, to find that it
only contains a README indignantly protesting the the treatment he's received
from others.

This guy's combination of arrogance, scorn, and complete lack of demonstrated
competence makes him oddly fascinating. I wonder what kind of social factors
in our industry produce people like this, and how we can work to counteract
them.

~~~
jseliger
_The dominant themes are bilious and scornful attacks on other's work, or
lamentations about the sad state of software today. He claims to be producing
a Lisp-based operating system. Curious to see his progress, I checked the
source repository, to find that it only contains a README indignantly
protesting the the treatment he's received from others._

Funny -- I wrote something more polite but similar to this in 2010 about
another post of his: [http://jseliger.com/2010/09/30/computers-and-network-
effects...](http://jseliger.com/2010/09/30/computers-and-network-effects-why-
your-computer-is-slow/) .

------
oconnore
All innovators are unconventional.

That is a conditional statement, not a biconditional. Which is why for every
single successful innovator, we can often find thousands of nutcases,
inventing floating shoes, helmet mounted rifles, and Forth (just kidding,
mostly). Therefore, an unconventional person should be especially careful that
they do not find themselves on the wrong side of the thin line between genius
and insanity.

~~~
warrenwilkinson
Forth is number 1 on my list of greatest languages -- and I've been coding
Lisp full time for years. If you want to have your mind blown, take a look at
what Moore has done recently with Color Forth. It's tricky to piece together
the story from bits on the internet, but the resulting language is enlightened
in a way no other languages can claim.

~~~
GregBuchholz
This ties in well with ( [http://www.yosefk.com/blog/my-history-with-forth-
stack-machi...](http://www.yosefk.com/blog/my-history-with-forth-stack-
machines.html) )

"What can be said of this? If, in order to 'really' enter a programming
culture, I need to both 'be solving a significant real problem in the real
world' and exercising 'the freedom to change the language, the compiler, the
OS or even the hardware design', then there are very few options for entering
this culture indeed. The requirement for 'real world work' is almost by
definition incompatible with 'the freedom to change the language, the
compiler, the OS and the hardware design'."

~~~
delackner
Only part way through that article you linked to, but it is fascinating. The
part that includes Moore's rant against local variables crystallized an idea
that had been bubbling around in my subconscious for some time. Very often the
only reason I find I am writing a local variable is to make an expression with
several sub-parts easier to see the sub-expression values in gdb. This
wouldn't be quite so necessary if the debugger had a syntax for saying "list
the sub expressions of this statement" and for saying "print sub-expression
#N". For instance, with the debugger stopped just before a line like x =
foo(bar(a,b), blat(c,d)); "list subs" -> "0: bar(a,b), 0.1: a, 0.2: b, 1:
blat(c,d), 1.1: c, 2.1: d." then just typing something like sub0 would print
the value of bar(a,b)."

Of course lacking such a facility I just end up scattering extra locals even
though I end up feeling like the output is rather archaic. a = ...; b = ...; c
= f(a,b);

------
praptak
Yeah, another post praising the greatness of Lisp without any backup in actual
evidence. Dude, you'd be infinitely more convincing having actually produced
something great with Lisp or at least showing how its unique features can be
used for this purpose. "Lisp is great, but the masses just don't get it"
doesn't cut it.

~~~
vixen99
I missed the "Lisp is great, but the masses just don't get it" bit so thanks
for the interpretation. Isn't a short blog comment (take it or leave it)
enough for you? The author's got to produce a thesis with full supporting
documentation on a point you suppose he's making? This is straw dog stuff. I
wonder why it gets you hot under the collar?

------
Luyt
A video of a replica of a Newcomen steam engine, together with the braindead,
repetitive job of the operator: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyLXEK5YwUY>

Imagine doing that all day long, every day.

And here's a version which has been automated with some strings:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ca0Ea_oPto8> and apparently got its inventor
immediately fired.

------
benreesman
cranky, pissed off, lisp, hacker. right or wrong, cool.

------
cafard
Particularly in blogging, hot air makes the world go around...

~~~
sukuriant
You mean steam

