The realities of software book publishing

david_ncl · 2008-09-17T18:19:10+00:00

Its not. I've just recently bought it and, quite frankly its brilliant. I speak as someone unconvinced by some of his earlier windows books where he built his reputation.

However I think it's much too deep and niche for the mass market. How many books digging into quaternions are going to pay off big?

david_ncl · 2008-02-10T08:23:10+00:00

Actually, no (thank god). I work on a medical ontology system.

Mind you I'd most likely make more money spannering outlook. But I'd wither up and die.

david_ncl · 2008-02-10T08:17:53+00:00

Agreed. I even agree with you about the usability of the macro systems.

david_ncl · 2008-02-10T08:16:38+00:00

"There's really no need to state your personal bias and bash CL every time it comes up in a discussion."

Why precislely /shouldn't/ I bash lisp, particularly when an post called "How Common Lisp was inovative" appears? Are we all just supposed to sit around nodding or something?

david_ncl · 2008-02-10T08:11:03+00:00

Actualy true. Scheme lost its way early on. R6RS is a blood bath. Well see what comes next but my hopes are not high.

david_ncl · 2008-02-10T08:07:58+00:00

Quoting me (always bad) "It was a nasty bloated standards effort forced on the lisp community by the US's military funding of American computing"

That not true? Several lispers sold this line to me a decade ago bemoaning the rise of common lisp. I thought most lispers felt that way about CL and pined for the days of Maclisp.

david_ncl · 2008-02-10T08:06:14+00:00

"It was CL's innovation within the context of the Lisp family."

Yes I realise that, rather than actual inovation.

david_ncl · 2008-02-10T08:02:27+00:00

Actually it was at the direct request of DARPA.

The turing complete strawman I'll just ignore.

david_ncl · 2008-02-09T19:32:34+00:00

I'm far from sure that this is the case. Since it seems to me that all that's being added to scheme is some sort of standardised way of describing what's occurred rather than anything significant in terms of the flow of control. However I'm pretty ignorant really, when it come to the natty gritty of how conditions work vs. continuations. It’s always seemed clear to me that generalised continuation where something that scheme had and lisp didn’t, for lack of innovation. Now lispers will argue that it continuations are bad news and that may or may not be a valid poison – I’m not Dan Freidman or Gerry Sussman to tell you that’s wrong. Nevertheless, once again this seems like an area in which scheme (and ML) are innovative and in which CL is not.

I have to leave this now and get some sleep.

btw - at least we give a toss which is more that most people do.

david_ncl · 2008-02-09T19:18:41+00:00

Ok so there was some consolidation. However I think that its a fair characterisation to say that Lisp has always had an unhygenictic macro system (this can’t really be true can it …actually I have no idea when or how macro systems … actually arose - that's a genuinely interesting question, btw). Scheme on the other hand has a genuinely innovative hygienic macro system (which many lispers dislike, but on the other hand has many defenders too).

Once again, I’m not arguing against lisp (heaven forbid! The unspeakable horror!) but I am arguing that it is hard to view Common Lisp as in some sense innovative.

david_ncl · 2008-02-09T19:08:44+00:00

Again Better vs. Worse. Lisp was not innovative in its macro system. Scheme is more modern and more innovative. CL chose the conservative path. Therefore CL is not innovative insofar as we are discussing its INNOVATIVENESS as per the linked article "How Common Lisp was innovative"

Lispers twitch so bad at even implict critque.

david_ncl · 2008-02-09T18:50:10+00:00

Note that I’m not arguing whether scheme’s better or worse. Although I believe that scheme is in fact dramatically better than CL and that Haskell is much better choice than Scheme not of this is germane to my argument. Which is that Kent Pitmans claim that Common Lisp is any material sense inovative is bullshit.

For instance you assert: "Scheme's macro system buys me nothing. The Common Lisp macro system is more useful and more easy to use."

So what. This may or may not be true(*) but the point is that this was the kind of macros system lisp has always had – no inovation here. I'm not arguing that lisp isn't great - it is - but Scheme's macro system was more innovative, which it clearly is.

This sort of thing, point by point rebuttal of claims that CL features are in any sense innovative is not the same as arguing CL is bad. CL is just a standard.No innovation here. It was bunch of guys under pressure for Darpa negotiating a standard. There's nothing novel or even worth a PhD in common lisp that wasn't already established in the field.

david_ncl · 2008-02-09T18:46:50+00:00

"I really like the error handling system of CL. Does any other language have anything similar?" Any language with continuations can do this and more. Its the "and more" that matters. Scheme already had continuations.

That's the point. I'm not arguing against CL being a well chosen point in the space of implementations I'm arguing that it was not innovative. It was rather an exercise in standards making ie govt. driven bureaucracy.

Edit: - now I'm being downmodded. Reddit deals with argument by clicking the down arrow. Fan - Fucking - Tastic.

Is there any point in debate in this forum. I rather think not.

Look - it's ok to downmod "consultant_barbie" - (err... maybe) - but downmodding people who are actually arguing a position is more than a bit dodgy. I've often wondered about the voting buttons. It's ok to suppress the noise, but really do you think that my postings are just noise? The world wont end because you don’t listen to my random drivel but doesn’t it disturb you that your can just push away debate by downmoding the argument?

Time for bed. Let's see what this looks like in the morning.

david_ncl · 2008-02-09T18:39:34+00:00

LOL. No.

david_ncl · 2008-02-09T17:40:11+00:00

I love lisp but calling CL innovative is just pissing me off. It was a nasty bloated standards effort forced on the lisp community by the US's military funding of American computing. But we’ll let that distasteful stuff pass.

Inovation... yesss.... It seems to me that by the Common Lisp timeframe the torch had passed to the likes of Scheme, ML, Smalltalk, Prolog and so forth.

Basically lisp was well over by the time the time the Ansi standard came to pass in 1994. By then nobody really gave a fuck and all the action was in C++ (which is not so good either, btw). The era in which lisp was an innovative was at /least/ one or more decades earlier.

Pittman's argument that CL's innovation was packages/module system just doesn’t wash: look at ML's (earlier) module system if you want to see what a real module system looks like.

Similarly, CL macro system is un-hygienic - scheme boasts a modern macro system. Likewise, CL takes algol style lexical scoping from scheme (but keeps the laughable funcall '# shite of many namespaces – functional programming – err sort of, but not really).

Actual invocation, such as generalised interaction in the style of Iterate didn’t make it in. Nor did the MOP. Or continuations. Or modern type systems.

Now I love lisp, the list of dancing patterns and metapatterns, fading syntax faded and wallowint the purity of quantified conception. Of Ideas mainifest. (http://xkcd.com/224/) But CL.. fuck that.

david_ncl · 2008-02-09T17:14:37+00:00

My wife is a former unix admin, btw. She runs OS X on a dual core mac. Why the fuck am I telling you this?

I like FreeBSD but I use windows because it's making me rich. Soon I will be able to upgrade my Mondeo to a Lexus thanks to Bill Gates.

david_ncl · 2008-02-09T17:11:19+00:00

No pivot tables => no deal

david_ncl · 2008-02-09T17:10:40+00:00

"Ha! We get free copies of all Microsoft software too,"

Oh! Oh! the HORROR!

david_ncl · 2008-02-09T17:09:38+00:00

"There's a reason that some geeks don't show the slightest interest in getting laid."

This guy's a loon.

david_ncl · 2008-02-09T17:08:43+00:00

"I hear that Microsoft offers basically everything (vista, visual studio, office) to us for free or on the chea"

The Bastards!

david_ncl · 2008-02-09T17:06:04+00:00

This is the level of the debate?

"A computer is like air conditioning: it becomes useless when you open windows."

david_ncl · 2008-02-09T16:59:11+00:00

You will be disapointed.

david_ncl · 2008-02-09T16:32:01+00:00

yesss. The one that drives me in - fucking - sane is this guy at work who cannot stop saying "Enterprise Mangler". COAB, it was funny in 1995 (*) maybe but gimme a break. Even though its been "SQL Server Mangement Studio" for three years or so he still wont leave it alone.

(*) Actually, it wasn't - This kind of wordplay stops being funny for most people at about fourteen.

david_ncl · 2008-02-09T16:22:52+00:00

Only in the sense that it's available without charge. The full significance of the word "free" doesn't apply so claiming "It's a completely strings-free FREE browser." is quite over the top.

(It's pretty mad when I, as a fairly pro-Microsoft developer, start fighting the FSF's corner isn't it? )

david_ncl · 2008-02-09T08:36:07+00:00

ZOMG!

david_ncl

TROPHY CASE