Subject: Re: Stalin is not a cool name ( was: High performance Lisp implementations?)
From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.no>
Date: 1998/11/28
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Message-ID: <3121237725160758@naggum.no>

* hjstein@bfr.co.il (Harvey J. Stein)
| Except that development and operations were largely funded by the DoD,
| AKA The Department of Defense, whose budget in those days was hugely
| bloated by cold war concerns.

  since the U.S. doesn't really have public funding of research, ARPA, now
  DARPA, has had a seminal role in the development of "public" research in
  the U.S.  all the stuff coming 

| We have from
| http://www.oreilly.com/reference/dictionary/terms/A/Advanced_Research_Projects_Agency_Network.htm:

  O'Reilly does many fine things for the computer community, but they are
  _not_ historians, and they make all kinds of simple mistakes that real
  historians unlearn in their early years, such as believing hearsay and
  tertiary sources without confirmation from primary sources.  go see the
  RFCs, instead.  (sorry, I don't have time to guide you right now, but the
  Index is a good start.  the central repository is ftp.isi.edu:/in-notes.)

  in particular, the "survive nuclear attack" part is a _commentary_ on the
  success of the project, not a stated goal at any time in its history.
  that O'Reilly repeats it as such is just an examle of what I'm talking
  about.  another example of their confusion is "DARPAnet" -- it was never
  called that, even when the ARPA changed name to "DARPA".

  consult historic documents or historians for the history, or you yourself
  contribute to the dilution of facts in the history that others will read.

#:Erik
-- 
  The Microsoft Dating Program -- where do you want to crash tonight?