Slashdot Mirror

I guess you think Larry Wall (creator of Perl) isn't smart

http://www.techgnosis.com/wall1.html

http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/0 8/25/236217&tid=145

It's up to the individual whether you interpret those as millions of years or actual 24hr days, or whatever.

...or whether you assume "and it was so" means "and so macroevolution, a consequence of the architecture of the universe as created by God, coughed up those creatures".

I.e., you're going to have to work a lot harder to come even close to convincing me that objecting to creationism is somehow being "negative towards Christians and Christian ideas".

Now, given that the evidence seems to suggest that whales haven't been around as long as, say, lizards, taking the Bible as being literally true would appear to contradict observation (i.e., it wasn't "sea creatures first, then land creatures") - but you're going to have to work pretty hard to convince me that Biblical literalism is "a Christian idea" rather than an idea some Christians have, or that criticizing or dismissing Biblical literalism is "negative towards Christians" rather than "negative towards Biblical literalists".

Speaking of which, I thought it was a bit amusing that somebody in this subthread had a Larry Wall quote in his signature line. Wall's an evangelical Christian and "[considers] the theory of evolution to be by and large proven", as per an interview with him, although I guess there are some folks who would consider his belief that the theory of evolution is by and large proven to render him not a Christian.

As per your electron commentary, well, that's just "shockingly" stupid and has nothing to do with what I was discussing.

Which part of his comment was "'shockingly' stupid"? He was responding to your statement that "evolution is a theory, not a fact" by noting that many ideas are, in a sense, "a theory", but that doesn't mean that they're merely One Man's Opinion, there's evidence to back them up.

Above in PDF

Sample of an AppleScript in English and Japanese

WikiPedia

Current Apple info

Some discussion on it circa 1994

Note, this should not be confused with OSA (Open Scripting Architecture) dialects, like JavascriptOSA, which are different.

Aside from this, the most linguistically extendable language would probably be Perl (especially Perl 6). Having been written by a linguist, I imagine the most awareness of the linguistic aspects of coding in a different lanugage would be.

I mean really, "coding in another language" doesn't mean replacing "for" loops with "pour" loops, it means taking advantage of concepts (like word genders and verb conjugation) that are specific to that language. Programming "in a French way" could lead to constructs, algorithms, and phrasing very different from "standard C".

Find out who this guy is and don't you ever let him see a doctor :-P Same applies to those who don't agree with the research. Save them in a database and if they ever need the results of the rechearch to survive... Tell them to pray :-P

Heh, here I am. Gee - a religion/atheism benefits race. Mine versus yours. Yay!

By your logic, you should not be at this site.
(Slashcode --> Perl --> Larry Wall)

Or hey, you should not benefits from the research that allows a chip-fab to be built in the first place
(Basic physics--> Issac Newton).

Seriously though, if I am dying, and a doctor says "gee, we've gonna have to use aborted baby parts for stem cells for a transfusion" I'd refuse because of the source of the body parts. And yes, I'd pray. :)

NOTE:

I don't think all stem cells research is evil (eg: baby cord blood stem cells are just great).

I think cloning is fine IF no human life or fetuses were harmed, and the clonee had no genetic problems due to the cloning.

It's just the killing of babies/fetueses that is evil.

Oh no, the invisible man in the sky said no. Listen, the portion of the population that isn't completely insane is trying to solve real problems that praying wont fix. So stop using superstition as a reason to halt progress.

Oh no, look: another scientist-type insufferably arrogant about atheism.

Grow up - the portion that prays also solves real problems and help real people. You know, people like Newton, Pasteur, Faraday, Boyle, Larry Wall...

http://www.techgnosis.com/matrixre.html

FEED: In one of your keynote speeches to the Perl community, you note that you've tried to model the Perl movement on another movement that you're a member of: Christianity. How so?

WALL: That's more difficult to talk about, not because it's embarrassing but because it works at a lower level in my psyche. I was born and bred to it at that level. I've always been on the church scene, and I've seen healthy churches and I've seen sick churches. I have a low-down feel for when things are being healthy and when they're not, particularly in terms of the relationships between people...

A great deal of my theological thinking has been driven by the notion of trying to see truth from God's viewpoint... I consider the theory of evolution to be by and large proven. And if that's the case, then from God's viewpoint, that has to be desirable. Why would God want to do it that way? Why would God want to use a seemingly random process to come up with more complex organisms?

Well, it's a way of being creative. If you look at almost any game that people play, they are sitting there throwing dice. It's also how artists work, particularly fiction writers. A good artist blends random-seeming factors with intentional factors into a pleasing pattern. To me that's the mark of a better artist than somebody who can simply crank out a perfect picture of something you can see. Cameras can do that. But that's still the view people have of how God has to operate. They still think there's only one right way to make the universe, so this has to be it. Essentially that's depriving God of free will -- not to mention us!