Re: Seeking computer-programming job (Sunnyvale, CA)

[Kenneth Tilton]

I find this kind of article really grossly unacceptable. I am sure I am
not alone in now requiring a new keyboard as my current one is now full
of coffee. Much worse, some people may have been typing while reading...

Really? I presume you are not referring to my hunt and peck typing
skills or you would have said reading while typing the former following
the latter for hunt and peckers. My presumption thus proved, we are left
with people writing while reading and I am concerned this suggests one
can talk while listening, the hard part there being listening in so much
as few people are capable of listening. Where was I?

hth, kt

ps. It took you dweebs this long to suss Expansion's uselessness? Our
skills are fading. k

 

[Tim Bradshaw]

ps. It took you dweebs this long to suss Expansion's uselessness? Our
skills are fading. k

It's true. In the golden age of CLL he would have been a gibbering
wreck in some asylum by now. (But, may be, he is, who could tell?)

 

[fortunatus]

No, the dictionary.

OK, this is straight from Mirriam-Webster, since you mentioned them as
being the ultimate reference:


Main Entry: macro
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural macros
Etymology: short for macroinstruction
Date: 1959
: a single computer instruction that stands for a sequence of
operations


That easily includes Lisp style macros, I think.

 

[Series Expansion]

No, but I do have some paper handed to me by Webster's with a
definition of the word.

[insult deleted]

Most illogical.

 

[Series Expansion]

YES - the first one - that's the reason Lispers like the Lisp macro,
because it isn't one? How ridiculous. Redefining things and then
acting all shocked and flamey when people call you on it. Really now.
Lisp has been calling them "macros" since they were originally proposed in
1963. [rest of irrelevant digression deleted]

[calls me a liar]

No, you're the liar.

This is not even effective trolling any more.

Of course not, because IT NEVER WAS.

 Mr. Expansion is now flying randomly around the room like a rapidly
deflating balloon.  He'll eventually come to rest behind the sofa, where
we'll find him when cleaning house next fall.

I recommend that you consult a physician. I suspect you may have
picked some bad mushrooms.

 "What the heck is this?", someone will say, holding up
the scrap of limp shriveled rubber he has become.  "Oh", someone else will
answer, "that's what's left of Series Expansion.  He wasn't fun for very
long.  Just throw it out."

This suggests a callous disregard for your fellow human beings. I
recommend you seek counseling.

 

[Series Expansion]

I find this kind of article really grossly unacceptable.

Yes -- it is sad when people post while stoned. He'll be embarrassed
by it later. I am mystified that people frequently seek to impair
their reasoning, judgment, and decision-making faculties by
intentionally inebriating themselves with ethanol and psychotropic
drugs, even after having embarrassing photos turn up on Facebook, or
videos on YouTube, after a previous bender.

 

[Series Expansion]

Really?

Yes, Alan was indeed high on something when he wrote that. And the
White Album it isn't.

ps. It took you dweebs this long to suss Expansion's uselessness?

I am not useless, so it's hardly surprising that people don't quickly
jump to the conclusion that I am.

 

[Series Expansion]

It's true.  In the golden age of CLL he would have been a gibbering
wreck in some asylum by now.

Is that a threat?

Regardless, I am not useless.

(But, may be, he is, who could tell?)

Nor am I crazy.

 

[Series Expansion]

: a single computer instruction that stands for a sequence of
operations

That easily includes Lisp style macros, I think.

That one is clearly flawed. It would cover a function call, operator,
or almost anything else.

 

[Tim Bradshaw]

Is that a threat?

No, it's an elegy

 

[Series Expansion]

Is that a threat?

[calls me a liar]

How ridiculous of you.

 

[Series Expansion]

I guess I have to thank Series "The Troll" Expansion

I am not a troll.

for creating a
situation wherein I inadvertantly learned that the #1=OBJ syntax is
useful for more than just circular lists. Thank you, my dear troll.
Now go home and RTFPCL.

You are being rude, incoherent, and irrational.

 

[Series Expansion]

No, I just keep assuming certain baseline, safe assumptions, one of
which is that source code is vanilla ASCII or, at worst (Java),
Unicode.

The whole problem with this series of threads is that you keep [lying]

I do not. You do.

By the way, nice attempt to badmouth me behind my back. It failed.

When experienced lisp programmers [call me names], you then persist in
trying to defend

As would any rational individual that came under attack.

[trimmed a lot of melodrama about how I'm "doomed"]

your limited imagination
your ignorance
you then miss

Argumentum ad hominem again? So tiresome.

the objections were problems that either never existed or for which
problems were found long ago.

Oh, yes indeedy, problems were indeed found for your earlier problems.
And those in turn were on earlier problems, and so on and so on ad
infinitum.

I suppose that would be quite a hoax, if the lisp folks could pull it
off.  To have a language that doesn't really work, but for which we have
a wide array of talented people who seem to agree that it really does
work.  And to have them agree in their description in so much technical
detail is truly astonishing.

Apparently you've never gone to a Star Trek convention.

Regardless, I never claimed that it couldn't work at all. That is your
straw-man. I merely claimed that there were some difficulties that
were going to be difficult to avoid, other than by abiding by the age-
old advice, "avoid macros".

 

[Series Expansion]

The whole problem with this series of threads is that you keep [lying]

I do not.

A ``safe assumption'' is in fact another word for a ``fact''. All other
assumptions are mere suppositions pulled from thin air (or, in worse
cases, from someone's ass: hence ass-umption).

This vulgarity is not helping your case, or your credibility. I do not
understand why several of you are apparently incapable of disagreeing
with someone in a civil fashion, without resort to name-calling or
expletives.

Series Expansion cannot tell the difference between a fact, and something
he pulled from his ass.

This is incorrect.

When experienced lisp programmers [call me names], you then persist in
trying to defend

As any rational person would.

Not really. The above is the behavior of the Seamus MacRae identity.

Why do you refer to people named X as "the X identity"? Normal human
beings will simply use the name X.

This one works slightly differently.

Please don't tell me you are some sort of paranoid or delusional
psychotic who believes all the other people in the world are
"identities" of some single master entity constantly plotting against
you?

Because I don't think we have a cure for that one yet.

It accepts those facts, but then it [etc.]

I am a human being, not some pod person from outer space. Please refer
to me as "he".

The game plan is obvious: treat the debate as a game of chess, in which
the only information content is the current configuration of the board,
your color, whose turn it is, and the set of legal moves.

Is that what you're doing? It explains a few things, though it also
leaves much still mysterious.

In making your next move, heuristics is fair game. Sacrificing truth
here and there is like losing a pawn.

That would explain why you and Thomas show a penchant for lying,
especially about me.

The name Series Expansion, in fact, is deliberately chosen to represent this
behavior.

No, it is not. How could I possibly have anticipated your behavior
when I first created the account, years ago? I'd never heard of people
behaving like you do at that time.

[insults]

These tiresome personal attacks do not constitute a rational argument
in favor of either Lisp or Java, Kaz.

How about ``Seamus Macrae''?

How about him? I don't see that he's at all relevant here.

The given name portion is cleearly a deliberate farce, since the name
means ``modest'' or ``bashful''. MacRae is probably a play on the word
macro (another reference to expansion, note).

Teleology now? By what mechanism are you proposing that his parents,
however many decades ago, would have anticipated this turn of events
and given him a name that resembles "macro"? Or rather, his ancestors
perhaps thousands of years back, whenever the MacRae clan got its
start in the mists of Ireland or Scotland or wherever it is that
MacRaes come from.

Doctor Who's TARDIS?

Gimme a break.

[calls Seamus names]

Why? He isn't here, he isn't bothering you, why attack him like that?

Your behavior is truly baffling. It will take a major research efforts
by the world's top psychiatrists to figure out what makes you tick.

 

[Series Expansion]

It is not. I had no idea that you existed, let alone would exhibit
"this behavior", when I chose that name.

[namecalling, aimed at myself and, in absentia, at Seamus MacRae]

Another comp.lang.lisp first - deconstructionist literary criticism of
troll posts. Brilliant!

His is certainly a troll post, but I did not see any deconstructionist
literary criticism of it.

 

[Series Expansion]

I have proven mathematically that if the internal representations ARE
isomorphic to the source file then your asserted miraculous properties
of gensyms are physically impossible.

Well, [namecalling]

Nice try, but I periodically check other newsgroups than
comp.lang.java.programmer so you can only forestall my rebutting a
post full of personal attacks for a short time by trying to hide it
away in a newsgroup I don't read regularly.

 

[Series Expansion]

[namecalling]

The moral of the story is that you have to be very careful about designing
challenges like this.

I think the moral here is to be careful when 'fixing' things, as you
might break them.

I think the moral here is that it is not polite, or wise, to badmouth
someone behind his back. Doubly so if it turns out he has very good
hearing.

 

[Series Expansion]

(e-mail address removed) (Thomas A. Russ) writes:
[name-calling]
The moral of the story is that you have to be very careful about designing
challenges like this.

I think the moral here is to be careful when 'fixing' things, as you
might break them.

I will note that you may have been confused by the style warning that
you get with #2 (in sbcl at least).

Namecalling isn't a matter for style warnings, but for etiquette
warnings, IMO.

 

[Tim Bradshaw]

Is that a threat?

[calls me a liar]

How ridiculous of you.

Actually, the text you replaced above with "[calls me a liar]" was
"No, it's an elegy".

 

[Kenneth Tilton]

On 2009-07-03 20:45:43 +0100, Series Expansion <[email protected]> said:

Is that a threat?

[calls me a liar]

How ridiculous of you.

[falsely accuses me]

You will be hearing from my attorneys.

kenny