Subject: Re: Macros and eval
From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.no>
Date: 1999/06/09
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Message-ID: <3137890856326428@naggum.no>

* Eric Scott
| 1) Am I going to hell?

* Kent M Pitman
| Do not think about programming as a religion.  Religious dogma has no
| place in programming decisions.

  I object.  "good", "evil", "heaven", and "hell" are perfectly legitimate
  programming terms.  it's a pity that the early programmers of humans made
  it appear they are religious terms.  "good" is when what you have done
  leads to less work (even though it may be a lot of work).  "evil" is when
  what you have done leads to more work (especially when it is very little
  work at first).  "heaven" is when your program behaves well, your users
  are content, and every change you make has fully predictable consequences
  and changes only what it should change: the result of "good" programming.
  "hell" is when your program fails, your users despair, and every change
  you make is not only wrong, but can not be predicted in how and where the
  wrongness will manifest itself: the result of "evil" programming.

  e.g., C++ is virtually pure evil.  Bill Gates and his entire company is
  in hell because of evil programming in BASIC and C++, and all kinds of
  evil monsters are hoisted upon users from this hell: viruses, general
  protection failures, blue screens, licenses and patents, forced upgrades,
  backward incompatibility disservice packs, DLL interdependencies -- the
  list goes on and on.  a number of these are _literally_ from hell, it's
  not just a feeling anymore.

  once in hell there is no salvation, save to stop programming and using
  evil computers and software from hell.  if you are engaging in evil
  programming practices, you do not necessarily go to hell, but you have to
  absolve yourself through purifying punishment, like reading the manual.

  and when the lambda opened the seventh seal, silence covered the sky.

  hey, this could work.  help make this religious dogma for humans in
  general, and _then_ maybe we can get rid of C++ and all of Microsoft's
  evil software!  (nothing short of a new religion will, I'm afraid.)

#:Erik
-- 
@1999-07-22T00:37:33Z -- pi billion seconds since the turn of the century