Erik Naggum: Quotes about the trip

“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

People , Fools , Way , Problem

“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

Way , Learning

“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

Way

“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

People , Way , Optimism

“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

People , Way , Understanding , Learning

“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

Way , Optimism , Success , Future

“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

Way , Behavior

“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

World , Way , Thinking

“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

Life , Way , Feeling

“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

Way , Feeling

“The only important property of evils of the past is that they not be repeated in the future, in any way, shape, or form.”

Erik Naggum

Re: Stalin is not a cool name for software http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/428b1f0fb729d6c7 (Usenet article).
Usenet articles, Miscellaneous

Way , Evil , Past , Future

“Languages shape the way we think, or don't.”

Erik Naggum

Re: Search & Replace in sequences http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/baafc407b4bd66f5 (Usenet article).
Usenet articles, Miscellaneous

Way , Thinking

“If car manufacturers made cars according to spec the same way software vendors make software according to spec, all five wheels would be of widely differing sizes, it would take one person to steer and another to work the pedals and yet another to operate the user-friendly menu-driven dashboard, and if it would not drive straight ahead without a lot of effort, civil engineers would respond by building spiraling roads around each city.”

Erik Naggum

Re: What obstacles do Common Lisp programmers face? http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/47a3832fab496eda (Usenet article).
Usenet articles, Miscellaneous

Cars , Way , Effort , Personality

“Part of any serious QA is removing Perl code the same way you go over a dilapidated building you inherit to remove chewing gum and duct tape and fix whatever was kept together for real.”

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

Way , Parting