> From: Paul Prescod <papresco@csclub.uwaterloo.ca>
> Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp; comp.lang.scheme; comp.lang.scheme.scsh;
comp.lang.tcl
> Subject: Re: Ousterhout and Tcl lost the plot with latest paper
> Date: Friday, April 04, 1997 12:37 PM
>
> In article <01bc4117$d256fa20$03d3c9d0@wjh_dell_133.dazsi.com>,
> Bill House <bhouse@dazsi.com> wrote:
>
[snipping earlier msgs]
>
> Let me get this straight: as long as someone *publishes* mistruths or
> half-truths to their web page, you have no right to criticize the
> mistruth or half-truth? That is an amazing attitude, in my opinion. Once
> something is published, it is open to debate and criticism.
I don't want to start yet-another-flame, but I realized that the URL for
this thing was way down in the bowels of Sun, under People, and under JO's
name. I was reacting to it in the context of comp.lang.scheme, as if he
had posted it here. Frankly, I would never have known about it if someone
(was it you?) hadn't reposted it. There's a difference between a person
harboring opinions I disagree with and actually walking up and asking for
trouble.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that, if I had happened by it on JO's Web
page, I *might* have sent the man some e-mail and let that be that. After
all, does everyone who publishes something on their personal page have to
mention Lisp? Anyway, despite the silly stuff in the paper (like
implementation inheritance being a bad idea, etc.), I don't think JO really
deserves to be hunted across the I-Net like some Unix-based Simon Legree.
He's just a very talented software engineer who happens to hold some views
I find outrageously slanted.
OTOH, perhaps I'm just thinking how I would feel if someone posted one of
my less enlightened works in a newsgroup I never visited, had no particular
interest in and didn't realize I was infuriating, and then began to
eviscerate me, point by point. Geez... gives me the willies! What happens
when the Forth guys find out about this, and our failure to include their
language's unique qualities in our discussions? We'll all be hurting then!
A little compassion isn't necessarily a bad thing. Anyway, maybe it's time
for JO to actually drop by and offer his response in "person". It's really
not much fun to deride someone for days when they're not even around to
appreciate it. <g>
Bill House
--
bhouse@dazsi.com
http://www.dazsi.com
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