Erik Naggum Quotes (118 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

Erik Naggum: 118 quotes2 likes

Famous Erik Naggum Quotes

“I believe that structure is a product, not a process.”

Re: In- and Out-of- core editors http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/865c7dadceb68cbb (Usenet article). Usenet articles, Miscellaneous

“The secret to feeling great about yourself is not to be found in searching for people who are less than you and then show yourself superior to them, but in searching for people who are more than you and then show yourself worthy of their company.”

Erik Naggum

Re: CLL statistics for 2002 (was: Looking for Lisp compiler) http://www.xach.com/naggum/articles/3250612397276876@naggum.no.html (Usenet article). Usenet articles, Miscellaneous

“Well, I think comparing Common Lisp to Scheme is prima facie evidence of ill will, even if Common Lisp wins. It is somewhat like a supposed compliment like "man, you are even smarter than George W. Bush."”

Erik Naggum

Re: Setting a property in a symbol http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/80bdf64552957f61 (Usenet article). Usenet articles, Lisp

“Please note: if you think the above is offensive, it is of course a joke and you did not get it. If you do not find it offensive, it is of course not a joke, and you did not get it. This is not a joke. Get it?”

Erik Naggum

Re: Preventing a class from being instantiated http://www.xach.com/naggum/articles/3216091792432486@naggum.net.html (Usenet article). Usenet articles, Miscellaneous

“This is your brain. This is Perl. This is your brain on Perl. Any questions?”

Erik Naggum

Re: can lisp do what perl does easily? http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/fc76ebab1cb2f863 (Usenet article). Usenet articles, Perl

“A word says more than a thousand images. Exercises for the visually inclined: illustrate "appreciation", "humor", "software", "education", "inalienable rights", "elegance", "fact."”

Erik Naggum

Re: Emacs inferior to XEmacs? http://groups.google.com/group/comp.unix.programmer/msg/716a6bf5d03226a1 (Usenet article). Usenet articles, Miscellaneous

Erik Naggum Quotes about people

“Look at Unix. It was essentially open source before anyone invented the term, and that caused a large number of ways to solve the same problem and left the market to sort them out, which they didn't (the market never will sort out bad quality in anything but the single most important property of the products), and Unix got itself into a position where some horribly demented crapware from Microsoft could compete with it and fool a whole bunch of people for a while.”

Erik Naggum

Re: source access vs dynamism http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/e10a8b07a244d7fa (Usenet article). Usenet articles, Miscellaneous

“Historically, labor unions arose when people had gotten a taste of a different lifestyle and were willing to pay a lot more for their basic livelihood and had gotten into a fix they couldn't get out of – because they had accepted the unacceptable to begin with. Accepting something you have to form a labor union to fight after the fact only tells me that people were acting against their own best (or even good) interests for a long time. I don't see any rational, coherent explanation for this sort of behavior in humans, but it's all over the place.”

Erik Naggum

Re: source access vs dynamism http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/9f52849f233672f4 (Usenet article). Usenet articles, Miscellaneous

“I may be biased, but I tend to find a much lower tendency among female programmers to be dishonest about their skills, and thus do not say they know C++ when they are smart enough to realize that that would be a lie for all but perhaps 5 people on this planet.”

Erik Naggum

Re: In praise of Java. http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/f0f59b2b18124881 (Usenet article). Usenet articles, C++

“The clumsiness of people who have to engage their brain at every step is unbearably painful to watch, at least to me, and that's what the novice-friendly software makes people do, because there's no elegance in them, it's just a mass of features to be learned by rote. However, this suits people a hell of a lot better than setting out at age 6 to become a great ballet dancer and achieving their goal 20 years later after every tendon and muscle and joint has been asked to perform just a little bit more than nature ever intended over and over and over again. To most people, this is insanity. But in reality, it's art, and it's the art in what we do that makes us human.”

Erik Naggum

read the fine manual, please http://groups.google.com/group/comp.emacs/msg/821a0f04bab91864 (Usenet article). Usenet articles, Miscellaneous

“I have come to believe that large print, thick and heavy paper, and wide margins and oversize leading is indicative of the expected intelligence of the reader. … Compare children's books and books on Web Duhsign or other X-in-21-days books. If the reading level of a specification is below college level, chances are the people behind it are morons and the result morose.”

Erik Naggum

Re: "Well, I want to switch over to replace EMACS LISP with Guile." http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/6b361a9c756dc9a1 (Usenet article). Usenet articles, Miscellaneous

“Structure is nothing if it is all you got. Skeletons spook people if they try to walk around on their own. I really wonder why XML does not.”

Erik Naggum

Re: The horror that is XML http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/7d410e0ae791d1cb (Usenet article). Usenet articles, Miscellaneous

Erik Naggum Quotes about the trip

“They are not identical. The aspects you are willing to ignore are more important than the aspects you are willing to accept. Robbery is not just another way of making a living, rape is not just another way of satisfying basic human needs, torture is not just another way of interrogation. And XML is not just another way of writing S-exps. There are some things in life that you do not do if you want to be a moral being and feel proud of what you have accomplished.”

Erik Naggum

Re: S-exp vs XML, HTML, LaTeX (was: Why lisp is growing) http://harmful.cat-v.org/software/xml/s-exp_vs_XML (Usenet article). Usenet articles, Miscellaneous

“Rewarding incompetence and ignorance increases the number of incompetent programmers. Designing programming languages and tools so incompetent programmers can feel better about themselves is not the way to go.”

Erik Naggum

Re: New Lisp ? http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.functional/msg/b69c767370ee7c43 (Usenet article). Usenet articles, Miscellaneous

“Unfortunately, nigh the whole world is now duped into thinking that silly fill-in forms on web pages is the way to do user interfaces.”

Erik Naggum

Re: Pause for keystroke http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/4539e251e76e966a. Usenet articles, Miscellaneous

“Sometimes, the only way to learn something really well is to revert to the state of mind of a novice and reawaken to the raw observations that you have accumulated instead of relying on the conclusions you have reached from the exogenous premises absorbed through teaching and bookish learning.”

Erik Naggum

Re: Guide to Lisp, v1.20 http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/f7bc99564506e851 (Usenet article). Usenet articles, Miscellaneous

“It's not that Perl programmers are idiots, it's that the language rewards idiotic behavior in a way that no other language or tool has ever done.”

Erik Naggum

Re: can lisp do what perl does easily? http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/fc76ebab1cb2f863 (Usenet article). Usenet articles, Perl

“Note that ANSI standards also cost way too much compared to toilet paper, and they're pretty bad quality as toilet paper goes, too.”

Erik Naggum

Re: free lisp compilers? http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/bb2f0a85c0cbf782 (Usenet article). Usenet articles, Miscellaneous

Erik Naggum: Trending quotes

“Gotos aren't damnable to begin with. If you aren't smart enough to distinguish what's bad about some gotos from all gotos, goto hell.”

Erik Naggum

Re: destroying CLOS objects http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/bb32931876c3a7cd (Usenet article). Usenet articles, Miscellaneous

“God grant me serenity to accept the code I cannot change, courage to change the code I can, and wisdom to know the difference.”

Erik Naggum

Usenet signatures

“When all actions are used for feedback, the consequence of making mistakes will be a corrective and appropriate response, because everything everybody does matters. … The more selective you are in the feedback you accept, the more insane your reasoning will become as you will necessarily reject corrective feedback that would have led to better reasoning.”

Erik Naggum

Re: Lisp's future http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/ba8f8f34c16d55f3 (Usenet article). Usenet articles, Miscellaneous

Erik Naggum Quotes

“Once we were Programmers. Maybe our last best hope is a movie.”

Erik Naggum

Re: PART TWO: winning industrial-use of lisp http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/856bccf3eff6ab53 (Usenet article). Usenet articles, Miscellaneous

“Life is too long to be good at C++ – if you had spent all that time to become good at it, you would essentially have to work with it, too, to get back the costs, and that would just be some long, drawn-out torture.”

Erik Naggum

Re: "Well, I want to switch over to replace EMACS LISP with Guile." http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/922b65c2b29cc095 (Usenet article). Usenet articles, C++

“I guess there are some things that are so gross you just have to forget, or it'll destroy something within you. Perl is the first such thing I have known.”

Erik Naggum

Re: can lisp do what perl does easily? http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/fc76ebab1cb2f863 (Usenet article). Usenet articles, Perl

“Computer programming is like the ability or skill to see what Picasso saw from all the different angles at once. If it is an art, the crucial element of art is to look at things from an angle that produces new insight or at least has that potential.”

Erik Naggum

Re: Guide to Lisp, v1.20 http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/f7bc99564506e851 (Usenet article). Usenet articles, Miscellaneous

“We have no mom-and-pop oil rigs in Norway.”

Erik Naggum

Re: Upper limits of CL http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/b3b24fb7512f220f (Usenet article). Usenet articles, Miscellaneous

“If you are concerned about netiquette, you are either concerned about your own and follow good netiquette, or you are concerned about others and violate good netiquette by bothering people with your "concern", as the only netiquette you can actually affect is your own.”

Erik Naggum

Usenet signatures

“I believe C++ instills fear in programmers, fear that the interaction of some details causes unpredictable results. Its unmanageable complexity has spawned more fear-preventing tools than any other language, but the solution should have been to create and use a language that does not overload the whole goddamn human brain with irrelevant details.”

Erik Naggum

Re: Checking for Errors Before Run Time http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/41997404227dcc12 (Usenet article). Usenet articles, C++

“The ultimate laziness is not using Perl. That saves you so much work you wouldn't believe it if you had never tried it.”

Erik Naggum

Re: Lisp as glue language? http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/711dfe3ce115d552 (Usenet article). Usenet articles, Perl

“Excuse me while I barf in Larry Wall's general direction.”

Erik Naggum

Re: Some more misc. Lisp queries http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/d671a424235e9f18 (Usenet article). Usenet articles, Perl

“The past is not more important than the future, despite what your culture has taught you. Your future observations, conclusions, and beliefs are more important to you than those in your past ever will be. The world is changing so fast the balance between the past and the future has shifted.”

Erik Naggum

Usenet signatures

“People search for the meaning of life, but this is the easy question: we are born into a world that presents us with many millennia of collected knowledge and information, and all our predecessors ask of us is that we not waste our brief life ignoring the past only to rediscover or reinvent its lessons badly.”

Erik Naggum

" Knowledge and Information http://naggum.no/erik/knowledge.html".

“C++ is a language strongly optimized for liars and people who go by guesswork and ignorance.”

Erik Naggum

Re: is CLOS reall OO? http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/917737b7cc8510e3 (Usenet article). Usenet articles, C++

“C being what it is lacks support for multiple return values, so the notion that it is meaningful to pass pointers to memory objects into which any random function may write random values without having a clue where they point, has not been debunked as the sheer idiocy it really is.”

Erik Naggum

Re: Allegro CL foreign function interface http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/2ec281a4f469bb35 (Usenet article). Usenet articles

“If GML was an infant, SGML is the bright youngster who far exceeds expectations and made its parents too proud, but XML is the drug-addicted gang member who had committed his first murder before he had sex, which was rape.”

Erik Naggum

Re: S-exp vs XML, HTML, LaTeX (was: Why lisp is growing) http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/9a30c508201627ee (Usenet article). Usenet articles, Miscellaneous

“C is not clean – the language has many gotchas and traps, and although its semantics are simple in some sense, it is not any cleaner than the assembly-language design it is based on.”

Erik Naggum

Re: teaching and learning with LISP/Scheme http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/1c0fd1ffdb5d1b8b (Usenet article). Usenet articles

“In Norway, we have a community of people who prefer to use a version of Norwegian that looks very much like lutefisk: Dug up remains from the garbage heap of history and dressed up to look like a tradition.”

Erik Naggum

On nynorsk, from Re: Irish road-signs are now metric http://groups.google.com/group/misc.metric-system/msg/aaa11856a516419a (Usenet article). Usenet articles, Miscellaneous

“Would you buy a book proudly stating on the cover that its reader is a dummy? Or would you think "of course it's ironic?"”

Erik Naggum

read the fine manual, please http://groups.google.com/group/comp.emacs/msg/821a0f04bab91864 (Usenet article). Usenet articles, Miscellaneous

“Contrary to the foolish notion that syntax is immaterial, people optimize the way they express themselves, and so express themselves differently with different syntaxes.”

Erik Naggum

Re: S-exp vs XML, HTML, LaTeX (was: Why lisp is growing) http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/9a30c508201627ee (Usenet article). Usenet articles, Miscellaneous

“What people "want" is a function of what they learn is available. If you wish to sell something, you'd better understand that you can't give people what they want in the market today, because what they want today is what they can already get. You have to discover what they really want, and find some way to give that physical shape.”

Erik Naggum

Re: creation of lisp machine/lispOS http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/c2fd86a7e43ac7aa (Usenet article). Usenet articles, Miscellaneous

“The theory is the result of listening to the problem. When the theory acquires a life of its own because some people like it more than the real world, all kinds of uninspiring, uninteresting things happen, so the key is both to listen to the problem and to study the theory. But always remember that just as much theory is bunk as there are buggy solutions. There is nothing more wrong with "theory" than "solutions" – both their quality and their applicability are orthogonal to their existence.”

Erik Naggum

Re: "Choose the Right Language" in "Tutorial" by Norvig and Pitman http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/99d41ab4a42978b1 (Usenet article). Usenet articles, Miscellaneous

“Intellectual laziness is punishable by brain death. It is a natural law.”

Erik Naggum

Usenet signatures

“If the syntax is good enough for the information, it should be good enough for the meta-information.”

Erik Naggum

Re: XML and lisp http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/4917ba734ce860c4 (Usenet article). Usenet articles, Miscellaneous

“Like many older fans of Free Software and Open Source, I have discovered that it is really only free in the sense that the time you spend on it is worthless.”

Erik Naggum

Re: The Next Generation of Lisp Programmers http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/e239591cbc9eb18d (Usenet article). Usenet articles, Miscellaneous

“Environmentalists are much too concerned with planet Earth. Their geocentric attitude prevents them from seeing the greater picture – lots of planets are much worse off than Earth is.”

Erik Naggum

Usenet signatures

“I'm bothered by the fact that stupid people don't spontaneously combust, which they should.”

Erik Naggum

Re: A draft business plan for free software LISP vendors http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/3bb9094cbc310a0f (Usenet article). Usenet articles, Miscellaneous

“Optimization is generally detrimental to future success, but it is the only way to accomplish present success in competition with others who are equally interested in short-term results.”

Erik Naggum

Re: O'reilly subjugated to the Lisp juggenaut http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/a10d0e7d8e7354b2 (Usenet article). Usenet articles, Miscellaneous

“Elegance is necessarily unnatural, only achieveable at great expense. If you just do something, it won't be elegant, but if you do it and then see what might be more elegant, and do it again, you might, after an unknown number of iterations, get something that is very elegant.”

Erik Naggum

Re: Filk, puns, and other time wasting. http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/4bda6a98e5cf0bce (Usenet article). Usenet articles, Miscellaneous

“Enlightenment is probably antithetical to impatience.”

Erik Naggum

Re: *Why* is LISP better? http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/56b07583ed1eb1de (Usenet article). Usenet articles, Miscellaneous

“Short of coming to their senses and abolishing the whole thing, we might expect that the rules for daylight saving time will remain the same for some time to come, but there is no guarantee. (We can only be glad there is no daylight loan time, or we would face decades of too much daylight, only to be faced with a few years of total darkness to make up for it.)”

Erik Naggum

The Long, Painful History of Time http://naggum.no/lugm-time.html.

“What I actually admire in Perl is its ability to provide a very successful abstraction of the horrible mess that is collectively called Unix.”

Erik Naggum

Re: Using Lisp to Call another program in linux? http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/7c588cdb91a10d4d (Usenet article). Usenet articles, Perl

“Act from reason, and failure makes you rethink and study harder. Act from faith, and failure makes you blame someone and push harder.”

Erik Naggum

Usenet signatures

“Just as other information should be available to those who want to learn and understand, program source code is the only means for programmers to learn the art from their predecessors. It would be unthinkable for playwrights not to allow other playwrights to read their plays, but only be present at theater performances where they would be barred even from taking notes. Likewise, any good author is well read, as every child who learns to write will read hundreds of times more than it writes. Programmers, however, are expected to invent the alphabet and learn to write long novels all on their own. Programming cannot grow and learn unless the next generation of programmers have access to the knowledge and information gathered by other programmers before them.”

Erik Naggum

" Programming http://naggum.no/erik/programming.html", cited in the preface of Physically Based Rendering (2004) by Matt Pharr and Greg Humphreys.

“Suppose we blasted all politicians into space. Would the SETI project find even one of them?”

Erik Naggum

Usenet signatures

“Norway did not even have a revolution at the time the rest of Europe was busy figuring out human rights and stuff, because we were busy fighting over how to spell it.”

Erik Naggum

Re: PART TWO: winning industrial-use of lisp: Re: Norvig's latest paper on Lisp http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/6cce7cd281ff6126 (Usenet article). Usenet articles, Miscellaneous

“Shed the idea that you were programming in an OO style. There is no such thing. You were only programming a particular object system. Now you get to program a different object system.”

Erik Naggum

Re: How much use of CLOS? http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/60f4c36a707db3fe (Usenet article). Usenet articles, Miscellaneous

“If, however, one factor is too successful, it will continue to be the winning factor regardless of the variation in the other factors over the range of variation in the conditions, and therefore will stifle the development of other advantageous factors until the conditions change sufficiently that it no longer is the winning factor. At this point, the whole population is ill prepared for the change, and may well perish entirely if the winning factor accidentally becomes the matching factor for a disease or a predator.”

Erik Naggum

Re: O'reilly subjugated to the Lisp juggenaut http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/a10d0e7d8e7354b2 (Usenet article). Usenet articles, Miscellaneous

“The very word "exist" derives from "to step forth, to stand out."”

Erik Naggum

Re: Lisp advocacy misadventures http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/a05e5e2737bddd69 (Usenet article). Usenet articles, Miscellaneous

“I have argued that a religion or a philosophy cannot speak about facts of the world – if it does, it is now or will eventually be wrong – but it can and should speak about the relevance and ranking of facts and observations.”

Erik Naggum

Re: Philosophy of Lisp programmers http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/70c2703e68baae46 (Usenet article). Usenet articles, Miscellaneous

“aestheticles: n. The little-known source of aesthetic reactions. If your whole body feels like going into a fetal position or otherwise double over from the pain of experiencing something exceptionally ugly and inelegant, such as C++, it's because your aestheticles got creamed.”

Erik Naggum

Re: Learning curve for common lisp http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/4356934aa0d7c2fe (Usenet article). Usenet articles, C++

“From the Latin word "imponere", base of the obsolete English "impone" and translated as "impress" in modern English, Nordic hackers have coined the terms "imponator" (a device that does nothing but impress bystanders, referred to as the "imponator effect") and "imponade" (that "goo" that fills you as you get impressed with something – from "marmelade", often referred as "full of imponade", always ironic).”

Erik Naggum

Re: Polymorphism in Common Lisp http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/28cb9d4217fe6dc3 (Usenet article). Usenet articles, Miscellaneous

“Suppose you want to convert a bunch of pictures into icons. Suppose you know how to do that with one picture: you click on the file, "drag" it over to the icon-generating program, then "drop" it there. Repeat until thoroughly disgusted with the idiocy of the paradigm of direct manipulation. Suppose instead you were able to communicate your actual desire to the computer, in (gasp!) a language!”

Erik Naggum

Re: RFC: Lisp/Scheme with less parentheses through Python-like significant indentation? http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/308ecb00b29198ba (Usenet article). Usenet articles, Miscellaneous

“If I sound grumpy, it is only because I have come across too many idiots of the "it can't be done" persuasion lately, the kind of managers who have an aquarium in their office because fifteen brains think better than one.”

Erik Naggum

Re: Upper limits of CL http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/b3b24fb7512f220f (Usenet article). Usenet articles, Miscellaneous

“… so as long as you do The Right Thing and forget how you would do it in C, you should be able to get a good grip on this.”

Erik Naggum

Re: Allegro CL foreign function interface http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/2ec281a4f469bb35 (Usenet article). Usenet articles

“A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. I regret that this isn't fatal.”

Erik Naggum

Re: unibyte http://groups.google.com/group/gnu.emacs.help/msg/d767a45084444a5a (Usenet article). Usenet articles, Miscellaneous

“In a fight against something, the fight has value, victory has none. In a fight for something, the fight is a loss, victory merely relief.”

Erik Naggum

Usenet signatures

“Ignoring for a moment the power of the American Medical Association, we still wouldn't see a huge amount of books on neurosurgery for dummies in 21 days or whatever. It's just plain inappropriate, and it's intentionally out of people's reach.”

Erik Naggum

Re: Is LISP dying? http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.misc/msg/63257b85465935eb Usenet articles, Miscellaneous

“Member of AAAI AAAS ACM AMS APS ASA ASL IEEE IMS MAA NYAS PSA SIAM USENIX The United States of America still symbolizes individualism, rationality, and intellectual achievement to me — even though most Americans disagree.”

Erik Naggum

Usenet signatures

“Companies that go bankrupt are a danger to healthy competition. They are able to make their creditors and shareholders pay for their losses and bad management and then to start anew with assets that they essentially got for free, quite unlike the competition that has not gone bankrupt, who have to pay full price for their assets, but quite similar to how their customers have wanted their products, for too little money.”

Erik Naggum

Re: ...and even for those _NOT_ interested... http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/8ff1b48135b78862 (Usenet article). Usenet articles, Miscellaneous

“The Novice has been the focus of an alarming amount of attention in the computer field. It is not just that the preferred user is unskilled, it is that the whole field in its application rewards novices and punishes experts. What you learn today will be useless a few years hence, so why bother to study and know anything well? I think this is the main reason for the IT winter we are now experiencing.”

Erik Naggum

Re: "Well, I want to switch over to replace EMACS LISP with Guile." http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/a6df017072f4c700 (Usenet article). Usenet articles, Miscellaneous

“Getting C programmers to understand that they cause the computer to do less than minimum is intractable. … Ask him why he thinks he should be able to get away with unsafe code, core dumps, viruses, buffer overruns, undetected errors, etc., just because he wants "speed."”

Erik Naggum

Re: Lisp advocacy misadventures http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/52564cc186195b05 (Usenet article). Usenet articles