
Phosphorous, The Popular Lisp [pdf] - asciilifeform
http://jfm3.org/phosphorous.pdf
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rw
> As pointed out in the extensive literature by Paul Graham [CITATION NEEDED],
> the often used COND Lisp form is too verbose by two parentheses per case
> (Θ(2n)^8).

I wish I could wake up to something like this essay every morning.

(Summary: lisp rocks partially because it has not tried to contort to the
latestFadsInProgramming. It seems an immediate target of this satire would be
Clojure.)

~~~
ken
The ^8 is a footnote, and a constant factor inside a theta is meaningless.

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Xichekolas
> At the same time, programmerManagers love Java because everybody else is
> doing it, which means there's one less thing that can be held against them
> when their project finally collapses under the _crushing weight of their
> foolish incompetence_ (original emphasis)

Dear god! It all makes sense now...

Also:

> Two, we will undergo a vigorous ISO standardization eff ort.

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dkarl
It's really lacking in detail. For instance, are those Dogfish Head IPAs the
60 Minute or 90 Minute kind? Or even 120 Minute? That's the problem with all
these "new Lisp" whippersnappers. They spend five years doing Lisp and think
they have it all figured out. Once cruel experience forces them to chase down
all the seemingly trivial details, like which Dogfish Head IPA they're
_really_ talking about, they'll have come full circle back to Common Lisp and
be begging shamefacedly for forgiveness on comp.lang.lisp.

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forinti
"Most modern programmers are smart enough to gure out that there must be
something better than Java.". Funny!

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eplawless
The title presents a contradiction in terms, but it's a fantastic paper
nonetheless.

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ableal
Pet peeve: authors who cannot tell the difference between the noun
'phosphorus' and the adjective 'phosphorous'.

(And even use both indifferently. The 'paper' goes downhill from there, but
today I only want to shave off a few points.)

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mnemonicsloth
"Phosphorus" is Greek for "light bringer."

The Latin equivalent is "Lucifer."

Which is a pretty good summation of how lisp is viewed from the inside and
outside of its user community, respectively.

Pretty brilliant.

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edu
Hilarious!

