Subject: Re: Question: macros and lambdas From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.no> Date: 28 Sep 2002 03:22:30 +0000 Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp Message-ID: <3242172150150705@naggum.no> * Jacek Podkanski | I thought that someone would know anyway. Someone replied to me: | "the whole point of macros is that they let you do things that *cannot* be | done with functions". I think he is right, please correct me if I'm wrong. Sorry, but this is a game that I will simply refuse to play. You appear to believe that other people can determine exactly what you mean by vague statements and "correct" you if you are "wrong", but they have no idea what you interpret these statements to mean (i.e., which consequences they have for your thinking and understanding), what you would need to be told to see something a different way, or where you went wrong, such that you could be corrected in an efficient and productive way. | Please do not get me wrong. I do not want to start any Word War II, but it's | a bit like catch 22. Whenever you see a Catch-22-like situation, you must realize that such situations do not actually exist and that you have become satisfied with their existence because you believe they may exist. Your whole philosophical take on understanding the world around you is broken if you get into a Catch 22 situation. Zoom out, and you see the circularity that confused you and how feedback loops actually have other inputs, too. | * It is meaningless until you are experienced, | * you can't get experience as long as things are meaningles This is so stupid there is no point in trying to help you. | I thought I understood it before I saw this statement about lambdas and | macros, I wanted to make sure I understand it right. Like so many other people who have trouble understand something, you appear to believe in acontextual knowledge and acontextual acquisition of same. There is no way you can resolve this problem except to understand how all knowledge is contextual and its acquisition is also contextual. Random bits of knowledge that are not properly connected will work for quite a while because the human brain is fortunately so wired that it makes both context and connections implicit until you reach a certain level of abstractness of the things you want to learn and cope with. When you cease to learn by doing, which contrary to popular belief is the single most inefficient way to learn anything, but can learn from understanding, which takes much learning by doing to become possible, your connections and contexts need to be made explicit and you need to think in terms of them. You appear to be in some sort of in-between position where you just need to sit down with yourself and study how you know what you know and learn what you learn. Eagerness is good, but so is letting things come to you in a timely manner. -- Erik Naggum, Oslo, Norway Act from reason, and failure makes you rethink and study harder. Act from faith, and failure makes you blame someone and push harder.