From ... Path: archiver1.google.com!newsfeed.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.icl.net!npeer.kpnqwest.net!nreader1.kpnqwest.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp Subject: Re: What I want from my Common Lisp vendor and the Common Lisp community References: <3208226254834485@naggum.net> <867kvke4iz.fsf@gondolin.local.net> <3208254606019619@naggum.net> <1f4c5c5c.0108311044.2399e124@posting.google.com> Mail-Copies-To: never From: Erik Naggum Message-ID: <3208363275039616@naggum.net> Organization: Naggum Software, Oslo, Norway Lines: 69 User-Agent: Gnus/5.0808 (Gnus v5.8.8) Emacs/20.7 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Sat, 01 Sep 2001 20:01:21 GMT X-Complaints-To: newsmaster@Norway.EU.net X-Trace: nreader1.kpnqwest.net 999374481 193.71.66.49 (Sat, 01 Sep 2001 22:01:21 MET DST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 01 Sep 2001 22:01:21 MET DST Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.lisp:15352 * Erann Gat > You are wrong, Erik Naggum. Do you really think C++ and Java thrive > because people love them? Ridiculous. Languages thrive because people > *use* them, not because people love them. So Erik, please stop trying to > convince people to love Common Lisp. Your brand of love is poison. Let us look at the "substance" in this claim. There is my argument that there is a love-hate axis on which Common Lisp is not sufficiently loved, and by that it is clearly _understood_ that it is not sufficiently used. In fact, the whole point with the love-hate axis was to explain the lack of use. But this axis is ridiculous, according to master mind Erann Gat. Instead, there is the love-use axis, where the more languages are loved, the less they are used and vice versa, take loathsome language C++ and loathsome language Java as additional examples to support the loved, but not used Common Lisp. In fact, if people express their love for Common Lisp, they would poison something (langauge, themselves, both?) and die or at least not use it. In order to increase the usage of a language, it is precisely the people who defame the language, denigrate the standard and the process that created it, and generally speak ill of any and all features in the language, that truly help. The less people love Common Lisp, the more they will use it, according to master mind Erann Gat, because to him, loathsome language C++ and loathsome language Java set the standard by which Common Lisp should measure its success. In order to be used, you must not be loved. That sounds to me like a recipe for a really, really bad relationship, but despite everything I know about C++ and Java, even its users do not think that way. After all, it is not master mind Erann Gat's lack of love for C++ or Java that drives anybody else to use it. Or maybe those _are_ the languages they choose when they have been driven away by false alarms about Common Lisp companies being out of business and other random and assorted evil perpetrated against Common Lisp and its user community by master mind Erann Gat. Of f*ing _course_ C++ and Java thrive because people love them, you twit! (Politeness master Erann Gat has approved "you twit" as non-insulting.) It requires an evil mind of biblical proprotions to believe that those who sat down to create C++ and Java failed to understand that they had to draw on the _excitement_ of its user community, and instead thought they could start off with people _using_ their stuff. Bjarne Stroustrup's own accounts of how this started and got rolling is a virtual roller coaster of excitement and user satisfaction. How do people start using something? How do people continue to use something? Even if somebody orders them them around, they have to be _ordered_ by someone. Unless you are master mind Erann Gat, I must presume, you do not choose things you hate. You do not even choose things towards which you are indifferent. You choose things according to a value scale, and preferably the topmost value if you can get it -- and if not, something else has higher value that makes the topmost thing lose value, such as being an out-of-budget experience. What I am doing here is revoking people's "license to hate Common Lisp", or at least trying to. John Foderaro set up this whole stupid election thing and wanted to see the community split into those who supported him and those who supprted me. I do not want _personal_ support, however. I want people to support Common Lisp and cease and desist in negative and destructive marketing practices. Like Erann Gat thinks it is important to warn the world against me because _he_ picked a fantastically stupid fight and lost, some of the people who have a deep desire to warn the world against Common Lisp have staged fights or even wars and lost, and cannot get over it. Such people have no business trying to destroy any other person's appreciation for what they dislike, but that is what such vengeful, negative people do. This community is not big enough to be able to drown such individuals in an ocean of enthusiasm and positive feedback, and thus they make things worse out of proportion. The love-use axis is _obviously_ wrong. It has absolutely no predictive power and just assumes that "use begets use" at best, "use begets hatred" at worst. People who think this is smart or even good should have their head examined by a professional. ///