Subject: Re: Lisp in the "real world" From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.no> Date: 1997/07/01 Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp,comp.lang.scheme Message-ID: <3076789076329920@naggum.no> * Martin Rodgers -> Hrvoje Niksic | Are you saying that it can be done, then? Have you done it? Why have | Harlequin or Franz not done it, if it's so simple? if it were that simple, even you could have done it, and no Lisp vendor would need to waste time on it. however, it is obviously non-trivial, but doable. this means it costs time and money to do it. if nobody offers a vendor to buy the product (or otherwise cover the costs), it could be a week's worth of coding to get it done, and _still_ it would never happen. it's as simple as that. | For all I know, you're just dismissing this as a "Windows problem", and | you can't be bothered to deal with it. look, Martin, it's obvious that you have some sort of inferiority complex on behalf of Windows, but Windows in whatever incarnation or version or build or whatever Microsoft ships it is _completely_irrelevant_ to this discussion. this is _not_ a discussion about Windows, pro or con, it's an attempt to make you understand that Windows is not by itself an argument for anybody to do anything. (yeah, I know, the Windows world tends to think that market share is the be-all-end-all argument, but people who aren't into selling good old products in new wrappings just because some fresh-out-of-school MBA aced the "retargeting the market" class will see the _problems_ of addressing the Windows world, namely that you have to be a big player to overcome the marketing threshold of the Windows market, you have to prepare an organization to ship thousands of copies a day once you hit the right marketing channels, and you have to have a gargantuan support system to handle all the dimwits who buy the product and lack every conceivable clue yet expect to get free help on the most trivial of issues. sure, anybody can sell a small volume to the Windows market, but if you don't ship at least a hundred thousand copies, at the ridiculously low prices they are willing to buy, you're not going to be able to _afford_ to stay in business. the real reason I don't want Lisp vendors to go into the Windows market is that I want them to stay alive. substantial companies have crashed and burned trying to sell niche products to the Windows market. the Lisp world doesn't have the luxury of any expendable vendors.) get your head out of Bill Gates' rear and start to realize the demons that you invoke with your misguided propaganda against Lisp in the guise of being in favor of Lisp-on-Windows are so mind-bogglingly costly for vendors and developers that you are a direct threat to the very existence of Lisp if anybody is stupid enough to listen to you. to be successful in the Windows market, you _have_ to get very, very comfortable with Microsoft, and Microsoft is a company that is known far and wide to eat it partners alive and kill those who offend them. there are many documented cases of Microsoft changing systems internals to screw their past partners, IBM in particular. Microsoft is a _predator_, and Bill Gates doubly so. Lisp has survived in the underbrush (niche markets) for many decades, and will in all likelihood continue to survive for many more decades, but those who venture into the open field _will_ fall prey to Microsoft's fraudulent business practices until Microsoft itself rots and dies, which I predict happens between the years 2005 and 2010. unlike the Windows world of predators and prey ruled not by ethics but by whoever runs faster, the _real_ world is not in their hurry. substantial projects still need to be completed, vast amounts of information still need to be computerized and made accessible to software that will need to run for decades to come. the kinds of fools who are upset with EXE or DLL or whatever this week's hottest TLA is, are of no consequence, because they are willing to sacrifice their _information_ at the slightest hint from Redmond that something new and improved is coming out. people who invest in _information_, with a touch of longevity, simply don't use Microsoft products, because Microsoft stands to earn billions of dollars every time the idiots who used Microsoft for their important files need to upgrade to stay abreast with all the others, and Microsoft can't allow they to use their old files and their old software, because there would be no money in that for Microsoft. if you get married to Microsoft, the life expectancy of your information and your software investments drops precipitously. for a programming language that has survived the coming and going of lots of inferior languages, multiple dialects and standardization of itself, and still has an active community of programmers, the short-term flirts with the here-today-gone-tomorrow community of Microsoft is _not_ a value, and, I maintain, _will_ kill it. that's why Martin Rodgers (and, god forbid, more people like him) should pay for the development of Windows-friendly Lisps, not sit back and demand that Lisp vendors commit suicide so that they can produce one stinking DLL and decide "nah, Lisp isn't for me, anyway". you yourself have claimed that you're waiting for Dylan to meet your needs, Martin, so it is hardly unfair or overly harsh to ask you to shut the fuck up about your Windows shit and let people earn their living as best they can, _without_ the enormous costs that sleeping with Microsoft will entail. Microsoft _will_ die, and I give them a decade, but Lisp must _not_ go down the drain with them or be sacrificed to keep Microsoft alive a few more months. C++ is already slated to die with Microsoft's defeat, and Java will take over for a while, until people discover that it would be neat with some actual performance, after all. something new will come along to kill Java, too, in a few years' time, when Microsoft has invalidated all investment with a broken, incompatible, our-way-only JVM implementation that changes faster than Microsoft stock changes hands. puerile impatience is deadly unless you have parents that do the long-range planning for you. the Microsoft market is parented solely by Bill Gates, and he does _not_ plan for _your_ best interests. if he could kill Lisp, he would, and _that's_ the reason Lisp vendors should not flirt with him. he's made it abundantly clear already that he has _no_ soft spot for good ideas or elegant design. it's time people understand that he is no good. and like all predators that run out of prey, he'll starve to death, soon. #\Erik -- if DUI is "Driving Under the Influence" then GUI must be "Graphics Under the Influence"