Subject: Re: On nil qua false [was: Re: On conditionals] From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.net> Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2001 16:10:44 GMT Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp Message-ID: <3215866242116385@naggum.net> * Andreas Bogk | But I'm seeing a lot of "Common Lisp does it that way and you need to | swallow it", and a lot of people who seem to have forgotten that | Common Lisp is man-made (and even designed by a committee and full of | bad compromises and legacy crap). So are the laws of any given country. You do not break them because you object to them, you enter politics and obey the laws while you change them. If you are the fucking clueless moron who breaks laws you do not like, you are nothing but a retarded criminal. Why the criminal mind is so important to hold up as a role model for social change is beyond me. | We folks from the Dylan community see ourselves as part of the Lisp | community. You seem to be quite alone in this regard, especially considering your hang to insult other Lisp communites and waltz in with stupid concerns that simply are _not_ concerns except to outsiders. As convicted felons protest their innocence, but would not improve unless they accepted that they are guilty and the fate of the guilty, any random outsider who does not accept that complaining about non-issues is stupid or the negative consequences of such actions, will never be part of that community. | We're interested in an honest discussion on what the Right Thing is (and | yes, Dylan has it's shortcomings too). A good start would be to accept the choices people have made. Coming into a new community and accusing people of regarding their standards as "gospel" because you want to be a criminal in that community is not a good start. Strive not to be an outsider. Do _not_ see yourself as an outsider. (There are no "insiders", but people who choose to regard themselves as if they are always doomed to stand outside and look in, have no hope of ever gaining any useful information about what they keep looking at and not understanding. Part of relinquishing the "outsider" status is to accept that other people have accepted certain things, and that they are _not_wrong_ in doing so even if you think it is not right. In time, you will see the wisdom that there are more than one right, that the idea that there is "one right" is wrong, but that this does not mean that one cannot determine that something will always be wrong no matter what is right.) /// -- The past is not more important than the future, despite what your culture has taught you. Your future observations, conclusions, and beliefs are more important to you than those in your past ever will be. The world is changing so fast the balance between the past and the future has shifted.