At any rate, so long as we are still a republic, that means the people are ultimately in control.
What do the NSA and the CIA do? Are "the people" setting their agenda? Do major news outlets report on their activities?
Generally big companies, special intrest groups, etc get what they want because they are the ones that whine to the politicians.
s/whine/donate/
It's all about money and power, as usual.
And I bet you if the FBI starts locking up normal people over things they've been doing for years, people will speak up, and with a loud voice.
The FBI locks up peaceful, productive, taxpaying citizens who happen to smoke marijuana. The United States has the world's largest prison population, and that is due to our insane War on (Some) Drugs. People in prison for possession of marijuana are not criminals. They are political prisoners.
Your accusation is both absurd and offensive, and without support deserves the flaming it was given.
Make an snide post, expect a snide reply.
This debate is not going to go anywhere. I can see how you thought my post was snide, and I apologize for that. It was certainly not my intention to be that way, for I know that in debate, if I offend people then I will not convince them. I am fully willing to retract anything I've said if it means preserving the feelings of the people I want to convince.
Apparently, you don't believe that. It seems you think that if your feelings are hurt, then you have the right to hurt others feelings as well. Do you realize that I will never be convinced to your point of view if you continue to behave in this manner?
No post "deserves" flaming, as you claim. If I make an offensive post, then point out my offensiveness. If I'm an open-minded person, then I will retract what I have said in order to keep the debate civil, and only then might we learn something. If I'm not an open-minded person, then why are you debating with me?
I would like to continue this discussion, but not if you feel entitled to be as rude and insulting as you have been. I am willing to apologize for whatever behavior offended you and treat you with respect. Are you willing to stop your deliberate attempts to treat me in an insulting and condescending manner?
Forgive me, but I thought that I was responding to the person who had originally replied. I was not paying attention and didn't realize that a different individual had picked up the banner. I have attributed some statements to you and that was not intended. If you recognize something that does not apply to you, please ignore it.
I notice that you link to a blatantly political web site. Weren't you just complaining how politicized the issue is?
Yes, I was. Does that mean I'm not allowing to link to sites that happen to contain data from scientists who support my position? I notice that you made no effort to counter any of the dozens of articles on that web page. Do you think you can just sweep them under the carpet because a right-wing webmaster happened to link to them?
You are correct in that there are a few experts who do not believe that the global warming we observe is caused by our emissions. But on the other hand, there are a few experts advocating Creationism, and that's always being brought up in discussions over evolution as a valid argument against the theory.
Your analogy is flawed. People who don't believe in the "global warming" myth do so because of the lack of evidence. People who do believe in creationism do so despite the lack of evidence. One posits skepticism, while the other posits belief. The fact that you don't agree with both of them or feel that they are in the minority is irrelevant.
Science is a multitude of opinions and theories, but in the end it operates kind of like a democracy, the majority wins, until someone comes up with something better.
Do you have evidence to support this statement? You also don't have a clear understanding of what Democracy is. Democracy is "the majority wins," and is not "the majority wins until someone comes up with something better."
To demand that scientists prove something to a point where it can't be argued against is unreasonable, because it would mean we could never capitalize on the knowledge gained.
Since I never made this demand, your argument is a strawman. All I ask is that I be shown that individual behaviors are responsible for global warming.
There will always be people who argue the counterpoint, and that's as it should be. The day you've got a majority of climate researchers on your side, you can go ahead and start polluting without any restriction again.
This is an ad numeram argument.
And finally, the libertarian argument of individual freedom doesn't work in this case. Libertarian freedom isn't absolute, it ends where you negatively impact a third party.
There is no such thing as "libertarian freedom." There is freedom, and there is the absense of it. Libertarians support the former, and I'm guessing you support the latter. Libertarians believe that the only things which should be illegal are those actions which deprive individuals of life, liberty, or property. It has nothing to do with the vague and nebulous concept of "negative impact." If I were to start making false statements about what meterologists do and believe, you would feel wronged and rightly so. Now you are making false statements about what Libertarians do and believe. I ask that you read up on what the party believes before you decide to start discussing it.
We do know pollution does that, on your end you can argue that they will just get dirty laundry when they leave it out to dry, and someone else can argue that the planet is going to hell in a handbasket. But there is a negative impact on a third party wherever you end up on that scale.
This argument is invalid until you define "negative impact."
When I say "you" I don't necessarily mean that those are your personal opinions or actions
That's okay, you made enough personal and insulting remarks in your last post to last through this one. I notice your lack of apology.
By the way when you were going on about "Leftists"
You accuse me of "going on" but have not challenged anything I wrote about leftists. Your words are practically an endorsement of what I wrote.
Some people were protesting that a town had banned Santas from a public ceremony, so they were carrying signs saying "Liberals want to kill Santa".
I infer that you think I'm like those morons. This is yet another ad hominem from you.
So let's look at a few of the things I wrote that you decided not to respond to:
Do you normally treat people with whom you disagree with such condescending, childish behavior? I notice you made no effort to counter my claim that his ad verecundiam argument was self-defeating.
I visited your website and saw no data to support your claim. Will you direct me to the specific pages? (the fact that you chose not to, after I specifically asked you to show me the data, and after you told me to "look at the data," and to "get a life," speaks volumes about your pathetic argument)
Please indicate where I stated that the global mean temperature has not risen in the last 150 years.
I was stating skepticism, not a position. Skepticism does not require research.
where have I "misinterpreted data" and "twisted research" for my own "pathetic agenda"?
Don't you have better things to do then to waste time on people like me, who have "no life"?
Do you really think that treating me like a moron is going to help me believe in your point of view?
I did not write those things just to hear the clicking of my keyboard. I want a response from you. I have showed you the respect of responding to everything you write, while you have dodged questions, ignored points, and shown no mercy in inundating me with insulting personal attacks. Why do you treat me like this? Do you fail to realize that I have outright said that I will be convinced to your position if you show me the data?
May I suggest then that you enumerate exactly what rights you claim reducing greenhouse emissions would infringe on? You haven't done that so far.
This was in response to my statement that indicated that the other respondant was assuming the point in dispute. I don't see how your reply follows. Perhaps you are assuming the point in dispute as well.
You haven't bothered to say exactly what rights emissions control standards would interfere with, choosing to make unsupported ad hominems instead. Given that you decided not to state even vaguely what rights you claim, he chose to point out the fallacies in the "rights" most commonly claimed by those opposed to emissions control.
You don't yet understand. Re-read Amendment 8 to the Constitution:
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
I don't have to state my rights. My argument was countering the flawed argument of, "Since the constitution doesn't say you have that right, you don't have it."
Furthermore, what "unsupported ad hominems" (as if a supported ad hominem were any more valid) have I made? I will retract any ad hominem argument I am made aware of.
Stop being absurd. You, me, and everyone else reading this knows that that "argument" is as specious as "if you're not doing anything illegal...", and is intended to do nothing but distract.
Absolutely wrong. The other post accused me of claiming that I had the right to pay less that one dollar per gallon of gasoline. Since I never made that argument, I correctly identified it as a strawman. Furthermore, the original post claimed that I wouldn't have that right anyway, since it's not mentioned in the constitution, and that idea runs contrary to the eighth amendment. When he then claimed that he had the right to breathe clean air, I showed how the argument that he believed in ("You don't have the right if it's not mentioned in the constutition") could be turned on him. In other words, he was being a hypocrite. I apologize if you felt distracted by this, but it is not specious nor do I see how it is related to the "if you're not doing anything illegal..." argument.
Support, please.
You're right, I was fortune-telling, and I retract my statment "Burning every drop of oil on the planet will happen no matter what you or I do." However, the rest of that paragraph, which you conveniently ignored, is still valid. The other post was most certainly treating me as if I was personally responsible for the "burning every drop of oil on the planet." Kind of strange considering she/he has never met me and doesn't know my driving habits, don't you think?
Really? Why are they different? It seems like a pretty decent analogy to me. And, given the snide little "leftist" lies in the post he was responding to, whining about ad hominems is quite hypocritical.
It's a shitty analogy, and I'll explain to you why it is:
The original post read: Why is it so hard for some people to grasp that burning nonrenewable resources like petroleum is like driving through the desert in a car with half a tank of gas and NO gas stations ahead.
Driving through the desert is a specified trip with an expected duration. This is not comparable in any way to the myriad of ways in which fossil fuels are used, given that humanity's use of fossil fuels is not a time or space limited event. It is also not comparable because in the "driving through the desert" example, the only fuel available is gasoline, while humanity uses a myriad of fossil fuels as well as renewable resources to fuel society. Furthermore, humanity is also constantly researching new ways to provide locomotion and energy that do not rely on fossil fuels, while in the "driving through the desert" example, no such research was mentioned.
Hence, the two are obviously different, and the analogy sucks.
Also, since you have accused me of lying, I demand that you state where I have lied. And you had the nerve to accuse me of ad hominems!
Given that the main thrust of your post seems to be "I didn't say that!", why don't you actually say what you do believe, rather than expecting us to use our telepathic powers?
What unmitigated gall you have! You called me "snide" in the previous paragraph, and then proceed to be just that. Furthermore, since my position is skepticism, I don't have to state what I believe. What I am stating is this: I do not believe that individual actions are responsible for global warming, and I will not believe as much until I have seen convincing evidence for it. The burden of proof is on you, not on me. Also, who the hell is "us"? I didn't realize I was debating with a group.
Now, what is most interesting about your post is not what you wrote, but what you didn't write. Here is a list of questions and points I made that you didn't care to address:
Corporations have done more damage to the environment than individuals ever have. The difference is that it's much easier for governments to pick on individuals than it is for them to pick on the corporations who line their pockets.
Evidence? (asking for evidence that Micronesia was being destroyed)
Furthermore, how much responsibility do I have for future generations? I'm not denying that I have said responsibility, I'm just wondering how much.
Why did you choose not to respond to these? My guess is that you wanted to score points by writing such insulting things as, "why don't you actually say what you do believe, rather than expecting us to use our telepathic powers?" In other words, I don't think you're really interested in debate.
You can kill two birds with one stone by providing me with evidence that individual actions are causing global warming. That way, I may be convinced to your leftist point of view, and I'll also be convinced that you're not really a troll.
Ooh, look, somebody took a logic class, and is attempting to snowball intelligent discussion with a show of latin verbosity! I'm impressed!
Of all the things I typed, the only one you decided to respond to was the one where you could score points with a sarcastic comment. Do you normally treat people with whom you disagree with such condescending, childish behavior? I notice you made no effort to counter my claim that his ad verecundiam argument was self-defeating.
(sarcasm mode off) Actually, the "vast majority" he was speaking of was meteorologists. Read the post. And yes, he's right. Atmospheric scientists do agree that the planet has warmed (and I am one and work with more.) There is data.
STFW. Start with the NCDC website http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov [noaa.gov]
I visited your website and saw no data to support your claim. Will you direct me to the specific pages?
The disagreement you hear about is about the
cause of the warming, like he said. If you know of any sources of information that suggest otherwise, that suggest that the global mean temperature has not risen in the last 150 years, then post it.
Please indicate where I stated that the global mean temperature has not risen in the last 150 years.
Try using research to support your arguments, not hot air. Political ranting crap like the stuff you spout fails all tests of logic, regardless of how "educated" you think you are.
I have seen no research come from you yet, so perhaps you'd like to cut down on the "hot air." Furthermore, I was stating skepticism, not a position. Skepticism does not require research. Furthermore, you are attributing a "political rant" to what I said when I was rather plain about the fact that "political rants" are precisely one of the reasons that I am skeptical about global warming! Perhaps you're more on my side than I thought you were, but that didn't stop you from getting in one last dig about my thinking of myself as smarter than I really am. Perhaps if you had a decent argument, you wouldn't have to rely on so many ad hominems.
Fine. Go look at data. Familiarize yourself with the ClueStick of Fact.
I have yet to see the data which suggests that global warming is caused by individual behavior. You act as if this data is freely available, yet all I hear is a lot of the "hot air" which you so detest. I may be convinced to your position if you show me the data.
And remember, when you post rants on/. about
science, you had damn well better know the facts, because scientists are sick and tired of ignorant politically motivated cretins (of of all flavors) misinterpreting data and twisting research to fit their own pathetic agendas.
Your chastizing me looks pretty silly in light of the fact that you have not shown me any data. Furthermore, where have I "misinterpreted data" and "twisted research" for my own "pathetic agenda"? Isn't that exactly what I was accusing the Leftists of doing?
This is the stupidest ad hominem of them all. What does it exactly mean? "I have no life?" Considering you haven't even met me, don't you think that's a bit presumptuous? And furthermore, if I "have no life," then what does that make you, who felt the dire need to spend his/her precious time to lecture me? Don't you have better things to do then to waste time on people like me, who have "no life"?
In conclusion, your argument totally sucks. Next time, try posting more data, more evidence, and less insulting and condescending comments. Do you really think that treating me like a moron is going to help me believe in your point of view?
People keep telling me that the earth is round. I haven't actually taken a trip around this supposed "sphere" myself, so I remain skeptical.
Until it is proven to me that the earth is not in fact an infinite plane, I will exercise my individual "right" to expend as much of its potentially infinite resources as possible.
This argument is so flawed one hardly knows where to begin.
The earth being spherical and global warming being true have nothing in common.
The evidence supporting the earth being spherical is overwhelming despite who takes a trip in a spaceship. The same can not be said for global warming.
No credible scientist in any field of scientific study believes the earth is flat. They all believe it is round. Similar statements cannot be made about global warming.
Leftists politicians are not championing the "earth is spherical" line like they are the "global warming is true" line.
Your analogy sucks. Find a better one, and I might be convinced to your point of view. I do notice that you treat me as if I am a wasteful, self-indulgent slob and you make fun of my rights. What party gets your vote?
Individual rights to piss in everyones bath, as it were?
Re-read my statement about assuming the point in dispute.
The individual right to pollute, the individual right to dump crap in the air that makes life harder for everyone else?
Corporations have done more damage to the environment than individuals ever have. The difference is that it's much easier for governments to pick on individuals than it is for them to pick on the corporations who line their pockets.
The individual right to help destroy Micronesia through sea-level rise?
Evidence?
Where in the Constitution does it say you have the individual right to pay less than a buck for a gallon of gas?
Strawman.
How about realizing that by polluting you are taking away the individual right to breathe clean air?
This is where I state, "Where in the Constitution does it say you have the individual right to breathe clean air?" You need to be careful about making arguments that can come back and bite you in the ass.
How about realizing that by burning every drop of oil on the planet you are taking away the "individual rights" of future generations ?
Burning every drop of oil on the planet will happen no matter what you or I do. You make it seem as if I am personally responsible. Furthermore, how much responsibility do I have for future generations? I'm not denying that I have said responsibility, I'm just wondering how much.
Why is it so hard for some people to grasp that burning nonrenewable resources like petroleum is like driving through the desert in a car with half a tank of gas and NO gas stations ahead.
The two are obviously different. I suggest you find a better analogy, and leave the ad hominems behind while you're at it.
Wouldn't it be wise to start thinking about alternatives?
How much do you really know about me? Don't you think you're second-guessing me quite harshly?
I must say I find the accussation that Global Warming is over discussed, hyped, etc... bemusing. To me FOOTBALL is overhyped, CELEBRITY is overhyped, the WEATHER is overhyped- each of these are covered in every news bulletin in the world, every day.
This is not a fair statement. The consequence of talking too much about football or celebreties is nothing more than an uninformed populace (which government officials love). The consequence of the "global warming" debate involves (if the leftists get their way) the removal of individual rights. The two are drastically different.
The greenhouse effect (the ability for certain atmospheric gases to trap more heat than others - leading to an overall warmer planet) is a scientific fact. Whether the effect is increasing or not is currently being debated - with the vast
majority saying yes, it is.
Vast majority of whom? Experts? You are trying to roll an ad numeram argument into your ad verecundiam argument, while ignoring the simple fact that destroys the validity of what you claim. The fact is that experts disagree on the subject of global warming. And as long as experts continue to disagree, I'm not going to be convinced. I wonder how you can be so sure of your position.
It's also interesting that the whole global warming argument seems to be brewing within the political sphere. It should not be a political argument, it should be a scientific one. When Al Gore states that the Worst Thing Ever (tm) was the internal combusion engine, it lends credence to the notion that "global warming" is a convenient tool to use to keep individuals from driving cars, riding 4-wheelers, buying Evil Horrible SUVs (like the one Tom Daschle owns), playing with jet skis, and all sorts of other individual activities that leftists just plain hate.
The earth is warmer now than it was 100 years ago.
You can say this all you want, but until I see all the data to draw my own conclusion, it's just words. And even if what you say is true, that does not imply that all of the ramifications tied up into the nebulous political beast named "global warming" are true.
I'm a 'don't piss in the bath' person myself.
Neither do I, but it doesn't matter since you're assuming the point in dispute.
Even if there is no 'National ID card' information, Ellison saved our government lots of money by giving us expensive software.
It is not "saving money" to give "free" software to a newly-created government program. "The program may cost $40 million, but hey, we got a free database!" It seems clear to me that saving money would have happened by never creating the program in the first place.
If we really wanted our government to save money, we'd end the War on (Some) Drugs immediately and release any prisoner who was convicted solely on drug possession charges.
So you trust yourself, but not the government. Fine, the government trusts itself, and but you.
I definately do not trust the government! The government is the only entity with the legal right to use force to acheive its goals. Unless the government is comprised of infallible angels, it needs less power, not more.
In the past 100 years, over 180 MILLION people have been killed by their own governments. What makes you think that current governments are going to be any better? The humans who lead the current governments are drawn out of the same barrel of "fallible humans" that the humans who led the Stalinist, Maoist, Khmer Rouge, and Nazi regimes were drawn from.
You inadvertently receive something you didn't pay for.
You are leaving critical information out of your argument. If you wanted to be accurate, what you should have written was, "You inadvertently received something which can be duplicated infinitely and flawlessly at nominal cost that you didn't pay for." How much is something worth if you can duplicate that something infinitely and flawlessly at nominal cost?
You can't call it "stealing" if no property is missing.
The "so what" is that the argument that *BSD is a threat to Microsoft is bunk. *BSD is a boon to Microsoft because it can be used to improve Microsoft's software. In other words, *BSD developers are, at times, inadvertantly providing free labor to Microsoft. Microsoft has publicly stated that it likes the BSD license, and it's easy to see why: they use BSD code and call it theirs. They can't do that with Linux. Thus, Linux is an enemy.
If anything FreeBSD is a greater threat than Linux in this arena
*BSD is more of a boon than a threat to Microsoft. Thanks to the BSD license, Microsoft can integrate any and all BSD code into its own code. They have publicly stated that they like *BSD for this very reason, and it's well-known that many pieces of their code came from BSD.
They can't steal Linux, though. Hence, it is the enemy.
You bring up some very good points, and you call me to task. You've made me think, and the question I ask myself is this: What are my criticisms of LISP? Well, here is the answer:
The resources for learning LISP on the Internet are scant compared to learning Perl, C++, Python, or Java.
LISP adherents are among the most arrogant people I've ever seen.
LISP has very few "claims to fame." E.g., are there any network stacks, OS kernels, or major software applications written entirely in LISP?
LISP has a very weak installation base. I can sit down at almost any *NIX machine and type "perl" and it will most always be there.
LISP's methods of doing things are often times counterintuitive.
LISP syntax is ugly.
Now, before you berate me, allow myself to critique my own criticisms.
Criticisms 1, 3, and 4 seem to be symptoms of a larger problem, and don't necessarily have anything to do with the language.
Criticism 2 is true, but, then again, that's a criticism of LISP advocates, not of LISP.
Criticism 5 may as well be a criticism of myself. *Nothing* in computing is "intuitive." Just becuase I see something as "counter-intuitive" doesn't mean it's inferior. I may as well find it to be superior once I understand it.
Criticism 6 is completely subjective. I also find @{vals}{qw/$foo $bar $baz/} = @{$snoo->{blah}} to be ugly, but Perl at least allows many different ways to code things to avoid potential ugliness. I can't seem to find any LISP code that doesn't contain strings that look exactly like ")))))))))))))))))". Perhaps that's "easy to manipulate in Emacs," but I don't feel like learning another operating system.;)
So it seems that my biggest problems don't lie with LISP at all. I may find myself a LISP convert yet! Perhaps solving criticism #1 (above) may facilitate that.:)
However, unlike you I don't get all my information from semi-informed Internet rants. I actually prefer to observe software in action.
You call the criticisms of Lotus Notes on iarchitect.com "semi-informed." This is an ad hominem on both me and also on iarchitect.com. Your argument sucks from the get-go.
Furthermore, I was a daily user of that piece of trash "Lotus Notes" for over a year, so your claim that I don't prefer to see software in action is rubbish.
However users get over its idiosyncracies pretty fast if the system is properly deployed and administered.
Does Lotus include this truth in their marketing material? How fast is "pretty fast"? That does amount to training, which is a cost for companies.
The "Hall of Shame" people are pretty much just uninformed, self appointed interface pundits.
Even more ad hominems.
Now, you actually chose to challenge one of the problems that iarchitect broght up, and that was about the password entry screen. Iarchitect.com's criticism was valid: why waste time programming a fancy interface to password entry when the programmers could have improved one of thousands of horrible parts of the interface? Here are your defenses:
First of all, I have never heard one user complain about this;
Non sequitur. Did Iarchitect.com ever claim that a user would? Of course not! They were criticizing the developers of Notes for not perfecting something of much higher importance! (Namely, the immeasurably shitty Notes UI.)
Secondly, exactly what e-mail system are people in charge of targeting weapons supposed to use?
Any email application they want! Can you point to any evidence that suggests that the uselessly-fancy password entry dialog of Notes was necessary for those people who are in charge of targeting weapons?
Notes is not an e-mail system. It is a secure platform for managing the handling and flow of potentially sensitive documents within and between organizations.
This is interesting, and attempts to answer the question: "What the hell is Lotus Notes?" You'll get completely different answers, depending on who you ask! Here's some more answers given by Notes developers:
The product is actually a sophisticated non-relational database environment that also provides a rather limited e-mail functionality.
It's not just a mail program like ccMail, but a (said in one breath) document-based-development-platform-with-integrate d-mail-features.
Notes is an applications development environment for tools that facilitate the open exchange of information between geographically dispersed individuals.
Notes is a workflow application
It is a workflow collaboration software [sic].
Louts Notes is not first an email system but rather, a distributed client/server development and deployment environment.
It is NOT an e-mail client, it's a database-manager
Your definition, along with all the other gobbledygook definitions above, were given in the full knowledge that most people who use Notes use Notes for email.
In other words, you should use Notes for the purposes it was intended for, and hire clue-ful administrators who can run the system properly. If you don't need the power of Notes, then hiring and training these people is a waste.
And yet many companies have bought Notes for the sole purpose of running it for email. If this cannot be chalked up to deceptive marketing, then what might the reason be?
There are some other examples where these folks have applied a very shallow level of analysis. I won't defend the Notes UI as a whole, which I dislike, but the "Hall of Shame" people have nothing in particular to be proud of. I don't see any of their perfectly designed applications taking the world by storm.
This is a tu quoque argument.
Overall, your argument totally sucks, and my point stands. Collaborative software depends on a good UI, and Lotus Notes is the pinnacle of horrible UI design. It is wrong to uphold Notes as an example of good collaborative software for this very reason. I offered as evidence for my claim the many points made by iarchitect.com in its in-depth analysis of Lotus Notes. Instead of countering any of these claims, you responded with multiple ad hominems, a non-sequitur, and a tu quoque, none of which have anything to do with whether or not the inteface to Notes sucks (which it does, big time).
In fact, you state:
I won't defend the Notes UI as a whole, which I dislike
In other words, you are actually agreeing with me! Now, do you agree with me that in order for collaborative software to be "a good example of collaborative software", then it would need to have a good UI?
Well, this statement is false on its face, since my interview doesn't say that. And so that isn't all you're hearing. Unless you're only doing selective listening.
I was actually using conversational tone in my written word, so you are correct, the statement is false on its face. A more accurately-written statement would be, "The vast majority of advocacy I hear about LISP is along the lines of, 'LISP is the most elegant language,' and, 'Everyone who doesn't use LISP is an idiot' and similar things."
I have argued (and continue to argue in part 2 of the interview), that people need to know a lot of different languages. I have no deathwish for other languages. I just wish people would stop having a deathwish for the language I choose to use. I find Lisp powerful and useful. Some others have different callings. But the aim oughtn't be be beat each other into not using things. It should be to make people aware of the choices that are available to people who want them.
I want to reiterate that your defense of LISP breaks the status quo of LISP advocacy. The LISP camp needs more like you.
I do not have a deathwish for LISP. My beef is with the arrogant pricks who use it as a cudgel to beat up anyone else in the computing field who doesn't like or use LISP.
Thank you for your non-arrogantly-expressed view of LISP. It's refreshing. It's also a bit short, and I am curious: What made common-LISP your language of choice? What can LISP do that C and Perl can not?
Don't miss out on something cool because of a few lunatics.
The problem with your statement is that the "few lunatics" are the most arrogant and condescending bastards I've ever seen in all of my computing experience, and their words comprise 99% of what I know about LISP. Because of that, I have yet to see "something cool" in LISP. LISP advocates usually talk about how elegant LISP is and how crappy C and Perl are and how much smarter the LISP advocates were than the C advocates. I rarely, if ever, hear "what LISP can do for me."
Compare this to Perl. Perl is one of the most useful computer languages I've ever used. It is so flexible that I can use it for most anything. Often times, if I want to teach something network-related, I want to use Perl to do it, becuase of that flexibility. Does LISP offer me that? How would I know? All I hear from the LISP camp is how "elegant" it is and how stupid everyone else is for not using LISP.
So let's examine your attempt at LISP advocacy:
You're missing out on much more than that: LISP is the most powerful, elegant programming language in the world.:)
Wow! I've never heard that before!
LISP offers some advantages like complete self-introspection, closures, and the ability to scratch together deeply-nested data structures on the fly, that the Algol camp is still struggling with.
I don't know what "complete self-introspection" is, so I can't comment on that. But the latter two benefits you mention are present in other languages. And saying that LISP is better than Algol is no praise of LISP since I have no need of Algol anyway. You might as well have said, "LISP beats befunge and Intercal hands-down!"
Though many have a taste aversion to Perl...
Wow, I've never heard this, either! But maybe you can answer me a question: why do LISP advocates hate Perl?
Oh, and by the way, Emacs is probably the world's most powerful text editor.
You know, the previous 1,000 times I heard this I wasn't convinced. But now I am! Emacs Rulez!
And code bloat being what it is, the Microsoft Word of today is easily many times the size of Emacs. The Emacs model of customization and code reuse also beats COM hands-down.
So what? I don't use Word or Microsoft products.
I've had to deal with arrogant Mac weenies for, like, a decade now and there are quite a great deal more of those than there are rabid LISP fanatics.
I agree, the Mac weenies are, at times, condescending, and there are certainly more of them than there are LISP weenies. But they don't have that special MIT-bred arrogance that LISP advocates wear on their sleeves.
Short version: You're preaching the same line! You need to tell me what's cool about LISP and how I will benefit from it. I have yet to hear that from you.
Almost everyone thinks and says their favorite language is best. But only the Lisp people are RIGHT.:-)
Your emoticon seems to imply that you're joking, and yet I have the impression that you actually believe what you're writing.
I think the only people I've heard who really understand Lisp
This is what I infer: If you really understand LISP, then you would like it and think it's God's gift to everything. Therefore, if you don't like LISP, then you don't really understand it. Is this valid?
Do I need to show you evidence that I think it would be a good idea?
Hell yes you do! If you have no evidence, then what, pray tell, convinced you that your proposition is a good idea?
The reason why I asked is because there is no evidence whatsoever that the federal government would do a better job of managing airport security than private companies would. If you disagree, then I expect that you will be able to show me said evidence.
Incidentally, do you have a citation for that philg quote? I'm curious, he's usually a lot more level-headed than that
No, I do not.
A while back I got into an argument with Philip on Slashdot about LISP. This was after I read his comments about Perl on photo.net. When I went back to photo.net to get a direct quote of his "Perl is 1/10,000th the power of FORTRAN", I could no longer find it. I don't know if he removed it due to the nature of our conversation on slashdot (I was, after all, making the claim that LISP advocates are, generally, arrogant pricks). I wouldn't have put such behavior beneath him, considering the condescending way he treated me in our discussion.
Here are a few of Philip's quotes about LISP, Emacs, and Perl, from his photo.net glossary:
"Lisp is the most powerful and also easiest to use programming language ever developed."
"The best introduction to Lisp is also the best introduction to computer science"
"[Emacs is the] [w]orld's most powerful text editor"
"Lisp programmers forced to look at Perl code would usually say 'if there were any justice in this world, the guys who wrote this would go to jail.'"
LISP advocates would do a service to their language if they distanced themselves from this guy.
For example, Lotus Notes has e-mail, calendar, sure, but it is primarily a general purpose platform for building applications that require managing documents as they move from person to
person.
It is not fair to call Lotus Notes groupware. It is more fair to call it "The Worst Software Ever Written."
One would think that a piece of software designed to help people "collaborate" would have to have a good UI as its backbone. Unfortunately, Lotus Notes is a case study in how *not* to design an interface. One of my favorite sites is iarchitect.com, a site that studies and discusses GUI design. Iarchitect.com has made an "in-depth" study of Lotus Notes and has this introduction to say about it:
We wish we found IBM's Lotus Notes a long time ago. This single application could
have formed the basis for the entire site. The interface is so problematic, that one might conclude that the designers had previously visited this site, and misread "Hall of Shame" as "Hall of Fame".
The following report is, naturally, quite damning. You can read it here.
I agree we need collaborative software, but I think you're totally wrong for upholding Lotus Notes as an example of "good collaborative software."
Slashdot Mirror
Before you say "consistently bad" consider that it was good enough to start a monopoly.
Microsoft's monopoly had very little to do with their UI consistency and very much to do with IBM and MS-DOS.
At any rate, so long as we are still a republic, that means the people are ultimately in control.
What do the NSA and the CIA do? Are "the people" setting their agenda? Do major news outlets report on their activities?
Generally big companies, special intrest groups, etc get what they want because they are the ones that whine to the politicians.
s/whine/donate/
It's all about money and power, as usual.
And I bet you if the FBI starts locking up normal people over things they've been doing for years, people will speak up, and with a loud voice.
The FBI locks up peaceful, productive, taxpaying citizens who happen to smoke marijuana. The United States has the world's largest prison population, and that is due to our insane War on (Some) Drugs. People in prison for possession of marijuana are not criminals. They are political prisoners.
I think you meant to type "a War on some Drugs."
Your accusation is both absurd and offensive, and without support deserves the flaming it was given.
Make an snide post, expect a snide reply.
This debate is not going to go anywhere. I can see how you thought my post was snide, and I apologize for that. It was certainly not my intention to be that way, for I know that in debate, if I offend people then I will not convince them. I am fully willing to retract anything I've said if it means preserving the feelings of the people I want to convince.
Apparently, you don't believe that. It seems you think that if your feelings are hurt, then you have the right to hurt others feelings as well. Do you realize that I will never be convinced to your point of view if you continue to behave in this manner?
No post "deserves" flaming, as you claim. If I make an offensive post, then point out my offensiveness. If I'm an open-minded person, then I will retract what I have said in order to keep the debate civil, and only then might we learn something. If I'm not an open-minded person, then why are you debating with me?
I would like to continue this discussion, but not if you feel entitled to be as rude and insulting as you have been. I am willing to apologize for whatever behavior offended you and treat you with respect. Are you willing to stop your deliberate attempts to treat me in an insulting and condescending manner?
Forgive me, but I thought that I was responding to the person who had originally replied. I was not paying attention and didn't realize that a different individual had picked up the banner. I have attributed some statements to you and that was not intended. If you recognize something that does not apply to you, please ignore it.
Yes, I was. Does that mean I'm not allowing to link to sites that happen to contain data from scientists who support my position? I notice that you made no effort to counter any of the dozens of articles on that web page. Do you think you can just sweep them under the carpet because a right-wing webmaster happened to link to them?
You are correct in that there are a few experts who do not believe that the global warming we observe is caused by our emissions. But on the other hand, there are a few experts advocating Creationism, and that's always being brought up in discussions over evolution as a valid argument against the theory.
Your analogy is flawed. People who don't believe in the "global warming" myth do so because of the lack of evidence. People who do believe in creationism do so despite the lack of evidence. One posits skepticism, while the other posits belief. The fact that you don't agree with both of them or feel that they are in the minority is irrelevant.
Science is a multitude of opinions and theories, but in the end it operates kind of like a democracy, the majority wins, until someone comes up with something better.
Do you have evidence to support this statement? You also don't have a clear understanding of what Democracy is. Democracy is "the majority wins," and is not "the majority wins until someone comes up with something better."
To demand that scientists prove something to a point where it can't be argued against is unreasonable, because it would mean we could never capitalize on the knowledge gained.
Since I never made this demand, your argument is a strawman. All I ask is that I be shown that individual behaviors are responsible for global warming.
There will always be people who argue the counterpoint, and that's as it should be. The day you've got a majority of climate researchers on your side, you can go ahead and start polluting without any restriction again.
This is an ad numeram argument.
And finally, the libertarian argument of individual freedom doesn't work in this case. Libertarian freedom isn't absolute, it ends where you negatively impact a third party.
There is no such thing as "libertarian freedom." There is freedom, and there is the absense of it. Libertarians support the former, and I'm guessing you support the latter. Libertarians believe that the only things which should be illegal are those actions which deprive individuals of life, liberty, or property. It has nothing to do with the vague and nebulous concept of "negative impact." If I were to start making false statements about what meterologists do and believe, you would feel wronged and rightly so. Now you are making false statements about what Libertarians do and believe. I ask that you read up on what the party believes before you decide to start discussing it.
We do know pollution does that, on your end you can argue that they will just get dirty laundry when they leave it out to dry, and someone else can argue that the planet is going to hell in a handbasket. But there is a negative impact on a third party wherever you end up on that scale.
This argument is invalid until you define "negative impact."
When I say "you" I don't necessarily mean that those are your personal opinions or actions
That's okay, you made enough personal and insulting remarks in your last post to last through this one. I notice your lack of apology.
By the way when you were going on about "Leftists"
You accuse me of "going on" but have not challenged anything I wrote about leftists. Your words are practically an endorsement of what I wrote.
Some people were protesting that a town had banned Santas from a public ceremony, so they were carrying signs saying "Liberals want to kill Santa".
I infer that you think I'm like those morons. This is yet another ad hominem from you.
So let's look at a few of the things I wrote that you decided not to respond to:
I did not write those things just to hear the clicking of my keyboard. I want a response from you. I have showed you the respect of responding to everything you write, while you have dodged questions, ignored points, and shown no mercy in inundating me with insulting personal attacks. Why do you treat me like this? Do you fail to realize that I have outright said that I will be convinced to your position if you show me the data?
This was in response to my statement that indicated that the other respondant was assuming the point in dispute. I don't see how your reply follows. Perhaps you are assuming the point in dispute as well.
You haven't bothered to say exactly what rights emissions control standards would interfere with, choosing to make unsupported ad hominems instead. Given that you decided not to state even vaguely what rights you claim, he chose to point out the fallacies in the "rights" most commonly claimed by those opposed to emissions control.
You don't yet understand. Re-read Amendment 8 to the Constitution:
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
I don't have to state my rights. My argument was countering the flawed argument of, "Since the constitution doesn't say you have that right, you don't have it."
Furthermore, what "unsupported ad hominems" (as if a supported ad hominem were any more valid) have I made? I will retract any ad hominem argument I am made aware of.
Stop being absurd. You, me, and everyone else reading this knows that that "argument" is as specious as "if you're not doing anything illegal...", and is intended to do nothing but distract.
Absolutely wrong. The other post accused me of claiming that I had the right to pay less that one dollar per gallon of gasoline. Since I never made that argument, I correctly identified it as a strawman. Furthermore, the original post claimed that I wouldn't have that right anyway, since it's not mentioned in the constitution, and that idea runs contrary to the eighth amendment. When he then claimed that he had the right to breathe clean air, I showed how the argument that he believed in ("You don't have the right if it's not mentioned in the constutition") could be turned on him. In other words, he was being a hypocrite. I apologize if you felt distracted by this, but it is not specious nor do I see how it is related to the "if you're not doing anything illegal..." argument.
Support, please.
You're right, I was fortune-telling, and I retract my statment "Burning every drop of oil on the planet will happen no matter what you or I do." However, the rest of that paragraph, which you conveniently ignored, is still valid. The other post was most certainly treating me as if I was personally responsible for the "burning every drop of oil on the planet." Kind of strange considering she/he has never met me and doesn't know my driving habits, don't you think?
Really? Why are they different? It seems like a pretty decent analogy to me. And, given the snide little "leftist" lies in the post he was responding to, whining about ad hominems is quite hypocritical.
It's a shitty analogy, and I'll explain to you why it is:
The original post read: Why is it so hard for some people to grasp that burning nonrenewable resources like petroleum is like driving through the desert in a car with half a tank of gas and NO gas stations ahead.
Driving through the desert is a specified trip with an expected duration. This is not comparable in any way to the myriad of ways in which fossil fuels are used, given that humanity's use of fossil fuels is not a time or space limited event. It is also not comparable because in the "driving through the desert" example, the only fuel available is gasoline, while humanity uses a myriad of fossil fuels as well as renewable resources to fuel society. Furthermore, humanity is also constantly researching new ways to provide locomotion and energy that do not rely on fossil fuels, while in the "driving through the desert" example, no such research was mentioned.
Hence, the two are obviously different, and the analogy sucks.
Also, since you have accused me of lying, I demand that you state where I have lied. And you had the nerve to accuse me of ad hominems!
Given that the main thrust of your post seems to be "I didn't say that!", why don't you actually say what you do believe, rather than expecting us to use our telepathic powers?
What unmitigated gall you have! You called me "snide" in the previous paragraph, and then proceed to be just that. Furthermore, since my position is skepticism, I don't have to state what I believe. What I am stating is this: I do not believe that individual actions are responsible for global warming, and I will not believe as much until I have seen convincing evidence for it. The burden of proof is on you, not on me. Also, who the hell is "us"? I didn't realize I was debating with a group.
Now, what is most interesting about your post is not what you wrote, but what you didn't write. Here is a list of questions and points I made that you didn't care to address:
Why did you choose not to respond to these? My guess is that you wanted to score points by writing such insulting things as, "why don't you actually say what you do believe, rather than expecting us to use our telepathic powers?" In other words, I don't think you're really interested in debate.
You can kill two birds with one stone by providing me with evidence that individual actions are causing global warming. That way, I may be convinced to your leftist point of view, and I'll also be convinced that you're not really a troll.
Ooh, look, somebody took a logic class, and is attempting to snowball intelligent discussion with a show of latin verbosity! I'm impressed!
/. about
Of all the things I typed, the only one you decided to respond to was the one where you could score points with a sarcastic comment. Do you normally treat people with whom you disagree with such condescending, childish behavior? I notice you made no effort to counter my claim that his ad verecundiam argument was self-defeating.
(sarcasm mode off) Actually, the "vast majority" he was speaking of was meteorologists. Read the post. And yes, he's right. Atmospheric scientists do agree that the planet has warmed (and I am one and work with more.) There is data.
STFW. Start with the NCDC website http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov [noaa.gov]
I visited your website and saw no data to support your claim. Will you direct me to the specific pages?
The disagreement you hear about is about the
cause of the warming, like he said. If you know of any sources of information that suggest otherwise, that suggest that the global mean temperature has not risen in the last 150 years, then post it.
Please indicate where I stated that the global mean temperature has not risen in the last 150 years.
Try using research to support your arguments, not hot air. Political ranting crap like the stuff you spout fails all tests of logic, regardless of how "educated" you think you are.
I have seen no research come from you yet, so perhaps you'd like to cut down on the "hot air." Furthermore, I was stating skepticism, not a position. Skepticism does not require research. Furthermore, you are attributing a "political rant" to what I said when I was rather plain about the fact that "political rants" are precisely one of the reasons that I am skeptical about global warming! Perhaps you're more on my side than I thought you were, but that didn't stop you from getting in one last dig about my thinking of myself as smarter than I really am. Perhaps if you had a decent argument, you wouldn't have to rely on so many ad hominems.
Fine. Go look at data. Familiarize yourself with the ClueStick of Fact.
I have yet to see the data which suggests that global warming is caused by individual behavior. You act as if this data is freely available, yet all I hear is a lot of the "hot air" which you so detest. I may be convinced to your position if you show me the data.
And remember, when you post rants on
science, you had damn well better know the facts, because scientists are sick and tired of ignorant politically motivated cretins (of of all flavors) misinterpreting data and twisting research to fit their own pathetic agendas.
Your chastizing me looks pretty silly in light of the fact that you have not shown me any data. Furthermore, where have I "misinterpreted data" and "twisted research" for my own "pathetic agenda"? Isn't that exactly what I was accusing the Leftists of doing?
Re-read the post
Why? It has no relevant data.
look at some data
I'd be happy to.
In the meantime, why don't you
and get a life.
This is the stupidest ad hominem of them all. What does it exactly mean? "I have no life?" Considering you haven't even met me, don't you think that's a bit presumptuous? And furthermore, if I "have no life," then what does that make you, who felt the dire need to spend his/her precious time to lecture me? Don't you have better things to do then to waste time on people like me, who have "no life"?
In conclusion, your argument totally sucks. Next time, try posting more data, more evidence, and less insulting and condescending comments. Do you really think that treating me like a moron is going to help me believe in your point of view?
Until it is proven to me that the earth is not in fact an infinite plane, I will exercise my individual "right" to expend as much of its potentially infinite resources as possible.
This argument is so flawed one hardly knows where to begin.
Your analogy sucks. Find a better one, and I might be convinced to your point of view. I do notice that you treat me as if I am a wasteful, self-indulgent slob and you make fun of my rights. What party gets your vote?
Individual rights to piss in everyones bath, as it were?
Re-read my statement about assuming the point in dispute.
The individual right to pollute, the individual right to dump crap in the air that makes life harder for everyone else?
Corporations have done more damage to the environment than individuals ever have. The difference is that it's much easier for governments to pick on individuals than it is for them to pick on the corporations who line their pockets.
The individual right to help destroy Micronesia through sea-level rise?
Evidence?
Where in the Constitution does it say you have the individual right to pay less than a buck for a gallon of gas?
Strawman.
How about realizing that by polluting you are taking away the individual right to breathe clean air?
This is where I state, "Where in the Constitution does it say you have the individual right to breathe clean air?" You need to be careful about making arguments that can come back and bite you in the ass.
How about realizing that by burning every drop of oil on the planet you are taking away the "individual rights" of future generations ?
Burning every drop of oil on the planet will happen no matter what you or I do. You make it seem as if I am personally responsible. Furthermore, how much responsibility do I have for future generations? I'm not denying that I have said responsibility, I'm just wondering how much.
Why is it so hard for some people to grasp that burning nonrenewable resources like petroleum is like driving through the desert in a car with half a tank of gas and NO gas stations ahead.
The two are obviously different. I suggest you find a better analogy, and leave the ad hominems behind while you're at it.
Wouldn't it be wise to start thinking about alternatives?
How much do you really know about me? Don't you think you're second-guessing me quite harshly?
I must say I find the accussation that Global Warming is over discussed, hyped, etc... bemusing. To me FOOTBALL is overhyped, CELEBRITY is overhyped, the WEATHER is overhyped- each of these are covered in every news bulletin in the world, every day.
This is not a fair statement. The consequence of talking too much about football or celebreties is nothing more than an uninformed populace (which government officials love). The consequence of the "global warming" debate involves (if the leftists get their way) the removal of individual rights. The two are drastically different.
The greenhouse effect (the ability for certain atmospheric gases to trap more heat than others - leading to an overall warmer planet) is a scientific fact. Whether the effect is increasing or not is currently being debated - with the vast
majority saying yes, it is.
Vast majority of whom? Experts? You are trying to roll an ad numeram argument into your ad verecundiam argument, while ignoring the simple fact that destroys the validity of what you claim. The fact is that experts disagree on the subject of global warming. And as long as experts continue to disagree, I'm not going to be convinced. I wonder how you can be so sure of your position.
It's also interesting that the whole global warming argument seems to be brewing within the political sphere. It should not be a political argument, it should be a scientific one. When Al Gore states that the Worst Thing Ever (tm) was the internal combusion engine, it lends credence to the notion that "global warming" is a convenient tool to use to keep individuals from driving cars, riding 4-wheelers, buying Evil Horrible SUVs (like the one Tom Daschle owns), playing with jet skis, and all sorts of other individual activities that leftists just plain hate.
The earth is warmer now than it was 100 years ago.
You can say this all you want, but until I see all the data to draw my own conclusion, it's just words. And even if what you say is true, that does not imply that all of the ramifications tied up into the nebulous political beast named "global warming" are true.
I'm a 'don't piss in the bath' person myself.
Neither do I, but it doesn't matter since you're assuming the point in dispute.
Even if there is no 'National ID card' information, Ellison saved our government lots of money by giving us expensive software.
It is not "saving money" to give "free" software to a newly-created government program. "The program may cost $40 million, but hey, we got a free database!" It seems clear to me that saving money would have happened by never creating the program in the first place.
If we really wanted our government to save money, we'd end the War on (Some) Drugs immediately and release any prisoner who was convicted solely on drug possession charges.
So you trust yourself, but not the government. Fine, the government trusts itself, and but you.
I definately do not trust the government! The government is the only entity with the legal right to use force to acheive its goals. Unless the government is comprised of infallible angels, it needs less power, not more.
In the past 100 years, over 180 MILLION people have been killed by their own governments. What makes you think that current governments are going to be any better? The humans who lead the current governments are drawn out of the same barrel of "fallible humans" that the humans who led the Stalinist, Maoist, Khmer Rouge, and Nazi regimes were drawn from.
You inadvertently receive something you didn't pay for.
You are leaving critical information out of your argument. If you wanted to be accurate, what you should have written was, "You inadvertently received something which can be duplicated infinitely and flawlessly at nominal cost that you didn't pay for." How much is something worth if you can duplicate that something infinitely and flawlessly at nominal cost?
You can't call it "stealing" if no property is missing.
So what if they do steal code....
The "so what" is that the argument that *BSD is a threat to Microsoft is bunk. *BSD is a boon to Microsoft because it can be used to improve Microsoft's software. In other words, *BSD developers are, at times, inadvertantly providing free labor to Microsoft. Microsoft has publicly stated that it likes the BSD license, and it's easy to see why: they use BSD code and call it theirs. They can't do that with Linux. Thus, Linux is an enemy.
There is one big inaccuracy in your argument:
If anything FreeBSD is a greater threat than Linux in this arena
*BSD is more of a boon than a threat to Microsoft. Thanks to the BSD license, Microsoft can integrate any and all BSD code into its own code. They have publicly stated that they like *BSD for this very reason, and it's well-known that many pieces of their code came from BSD.
They can't steal Linux, though. Hence, it is the enemy.
Now, before you berate me, allow myself to critique my own criticisms.
Criticisms 1, 3, and 4 seem to be symptoms of a larger problem, and don't necessarily have anything to do with the language.
Criticism 2 is true, but, then again, that's a criticism of LISP advocates, not of LISP.
Criticism 5 may as well be a criticism of myself. *Nothing* in computing is "intuitive." Just becuase I see something as "counter-intuitive" doesn't mean it's inferior. I may as well find it to be superior once I understand it.
Criticism 6 is completely subjective. I also find @{vals}{qw/$foo $bar $baz/} = @{$snoo->{blah}} to be ugly, but Perl at least allows many different ways to code things to avoid potential ugliness. I can't seem to find any LISP code that doesn't contain strings that look exactly like ")))))))))))))))))". Perhaps that's "easy to manipulate in Emacs," but I don't feel like learning another operating system.
So it seems that my biggest problems don't lie with LISP at all. I may find myself a LISP convert yet! Perhaps solving criticism #1 (above) may facilitate that.
You call the criticisms of Lotus Notes on iarchitect.com "semi-informed." This is an ad hominem on both me and also on iarchitect.com. Your argument sucks from the get-go.
Furthermore, I was a daily user of that piece of trash "Lotus Notes" for over a year, so your claim that I don't prefer to see software in action is rubbish.
However users get over its idiosyncracies pretty fast if the system is properly deployed and administered.
Does Lotus include this truth in their marketing material? How fast is "pretty fast"? That does amount to training, which is a cost for companies.
The "Hall of Shame" people are pretty much just uninformed, self appointed interface pundits.
Even more ad hominems.
Now, you actually chose to challenge one of the problems that iarchitect broght up, and that was about the password entry screen. Iarchitect.com's criticism was valid: why waste time programming a fancy interface to password entry when the programmers could have improved one of thousands of horrible parts of the interface? Here are your defenses:
First of all, I have never heard one user complain about this;
Non sequitur. Did Iarchitect.com ever claim that a user would? Of course not! They were criticizing the developers of Notes for not perfecting something of much higher importance! (Namely, the immeasurably shitty Notes UI.)
Secondly, exactly what e-mail system are people in charge of targeting weapons supposed to use?
Any email application they want! Can you point to any evidence that suggests that the uselessly-fancy password entry dialog of Notes was necessary for those people who are in charge of targeting weapons?
Notes is not an e-mail system. It is a secure platform for managing the handling and flow of potentially sensitive documents within and between organizations.
This is interesting, and attempts to answer the question: "What the hell is Lotus Notes?" You'll get completely different answers, depending on who you ask! Here's some more answers given by Notes developers:
Your definition, along with all the other gobbledygook definitions above, were given in the full knowledge that most people who use Notes use Notes for email.
In other words, you should use Notes for the purposes it was intended for, and hire clue-ful administrators who can run the system properly. If you don't need the power of Notes, then hiring and training these people is a waste.
And yet many companies have bought Notes for the sole purpose of running it for email. If this cannot be chalked up to deceptive marketing, then what might the reason be?
There are some other examples where these folks have applied a very shallow level of analysis. I won't defend the Notes UI as a whole, which I dislike, but the "Hall of Shame" people have nothing in particular to be proud of. I don't see any of their perfectly designed applications taking the world by storm.
This is a tu quoque argument.
Overall, your argument totally sucks, and my point stands. Collaborative software depends on a good UI, and Lotus Notes is the pinnacle of horrible UI design. It is wrong to uphold Notes as an example of good collaborative software for this very reason. I offered as evidence for my claim the many points made by iarchitect.com in its in-depth analysis of Lotus Notes. Instead of countering any of these claims, you responded with multiple ad hominems, a non-sequitur, and a tu quoque, none of which have anything to do with whether or not the inteface to Notes sucks (which it does, big time).
In fact, you state:
I won't defend the Notes UI as a whole, which I dislike
In other words, you are actually agreeing with me! Now, do you agree with me that in order for collaborative software to be "a good example of collaborative software", then it would need to have a good UI?
Well, this statement is false on its face, since my interview doesn't say that. And so that isn't all you're hearing. Unless you're only doing selective listening.
I was actually using conversational tone in my written word, so you are correct, the statement is false on its face. A more accurately-written statement would be, "The vast majority of advocacy I hear about LISP is along the lines of, 'LISP is the most elegant language,' and, 'Everyone who doesn't use LISP is an idiot' and similar things."
I have argued (and continue to argue in part 2 of the interview), that people need to know a lot of different languages. I have no deathwish for other languages. I just wish people would stop having a deathwish for the language I choose to use. I find Lisp powerful and useful. Some others have different callings. But the aim oughtn't be be beat each other into not using things. It should be to make people aware of the choices that are available to people who want them.
I want to reiterate that your defense of LISP breaks the status quo of LISP advocacy. The LISP camp needs more like you.
I do not have a deathwish for LISP. My beef is with the arrogant pricks who use it as a cudgel to beat up anyone else in the computing field who doesn't like or use LISP.
Thank you for your non-arrogantly-expressed view of LISP. It's refreshing. It's also a bit short, and I am curious: What made common-LISP your language of choice? What can LISP do that C and Perl can not?
Don't miss out on something cool because of a few lunatics.
:)
The problem with your statement is that the "few lunatics" are the most arrogant and condescending bastards I've ever seen in all of my computing experience, and their words comprise 99% of what I know about LISP. Because of that, I have yet to see "something cool" in LISP. LISP advocates usually talk about how elegant LISP is and how crappy C and Perl are and how much smarter the LISP advocates were than the C advocates. I rarely, if ever, hear "what LISP can do for me."
Compare this to Perl. Perl is one of the most useful computer languages I've ever used. It is so flexible that I can use it for most anything. Often times, if I want to teach something network-related, I want to use Perl to do it, becuase of that flexibility. Does LISP offer me that? How would I know? All I hear from the LISP camp is how "elegant" it is and how stupid everyone else is for not using LISP.
So let's examine your attempt at LISP advocacy:
You're missing out on much more than that: LISP is the most powerful, elegant programming language in the world.
Wow! I've never heard that before!
LISP offers some advantages like complete self-introspection, closures, and the ability to scratch together deeply-nested data structures on the fly, that the Algol camp is still struggling with.
I don't know what "complete self-introspection" is, so I can't comment on that. But the latter two benefits you mention are present in other languages. And saying that LISP is better than Algol is no praise of LISP since I have no need of Algol anyway. You might as well have said, "LISP beats befunge and Intercal hands-down!"
Though many have a taste aversion to Perl...
Wow, I've never heard this, either! But maybe you can answer me a question: why do LISP advocates hate Perl?
Oh, and by the way, Emacs is probably the world's most powerful text editor.
You know, the previous 1,000 times I heard this I wasn't convinced. But now I am! Emacs Rulez!
And code bloat being what it is, the Microsoft Word of today is easily many times the size of Emacs. The Emacs model of customization and code reuse also beats COM hands-down.
So what? I don't use Word or Microsoft products.
I've had to deal with arrogant Mac weenies for, like, a decade now and there are quite a great deal more of those than there are rabid LISP fanatics.
I agree, the Mac weenies are, at times, condescending, and there are certainly more of them than there are LISP weenies. But they don't have that special MIT-bred arrogance that LISP advocates wear on their sleeves.
Short version: You're preaching the same line! You need to tell me what's cool about LISP and how I will benefit from it. I have yet to hear that from you.
Almost everyone thinks and says their favorite language is best. But only the Lisp people are RIGHT. :-)
Your emoticon seems to imply that you're joking, and yet I have the impression that you actually believe what you're writing.
I think the only people I've heard who really understand Lisp
This is what I infer: If you really understand LISP, then you would like it and think it's God's gift to everything. Therefore, if you don't like LISP, then you don't really understand it. Is this valid?
Do I need to show you evidence that I think it would be a good idea?
Hell yes you do! If you have no evidence, then what, pray tell, convinced you that your proposition is a good idea?
The reason why I asked is because there is no evidence whatsoever that the federal government would do a better job of managing airport security than private companies would. If you disagree, then I expect that you will be able to show me said evidence.
No, I do not.
A while back I got into an argument with Philip on Slashdot about LISP. This was after I read his comments about Perl on photo.net. When I went back to photo.net to get a direct quote of his "Perl is 1/10,000th the power of FORTRAN", I could no longer find it. I don't know if he removed it due to the nature of our conversation on slashdot (I was, after all, making the claim that LISP advocates are, generally, arrogant pricks). I wouldn't have put such behavior beneath him, considering the condescending way he treated me in our discussion.
Here are a few of Philip's quotes about LISP, Emacs, and Perl, from his photo.net glossary:
LISP advocates would do a service to their language if they distanced themselves from this guy.
person.
It is not fair to call Lotus Notes groupware. It is more fair to call it "The Worst Software Ever Written."
One would think that a piece of software designed to help people "collaborate" would have to have a good UI as its backbone. Unfortunately, Lotus Notes is a case study in how *not* to design an interface. One of my favorite sites is iarchitect.com, a site that studies and discusses GUI design. Iarchitect.com has made an "in-depth" study of Lotus Notes and has this introduction to say about it:
The following report is, naturally, quite damning. You can read it here.
I agree we need collaborative software, but I think you're totally wrong for upholding Lotus Notes as an example of "good collaborative software."