3 ms·
Interviewer: What important truth do very few people agree with you on? Graham: That the axiomatic approach John McCarthy used when defining Lisp is the optima
by rdiddly 7y ago
Interviewer: What important truth do very few people agree with you on?
Graham: That the axiomatic approach John McCarthy used when defining Lisp is the optimal way to design general-purpose programming languages.
Interviewer (silently): Oh my god what did I get myself into? Next question, quick!
- choonway 7y agoIf I was the interviewer... Me: Really? what metrics do you make that optimality claim on?
- ilrwbwrkhv 7y agoLength of his staff
- rdiddly 7y agoYeah I was curious to have his answer explored further.
- lioeters 7y agoI love it, that statement so perfectly captures how pg has stayed true to his roots and convinctions. Having read numerous articles and books he's written on Lisp, and the recently published source of his Lisp dialect (written in itself of course) - it's a fascination/obsession spanning decades. I respect that "long-sightedness" and a kind of dogged determination, for better or worse, a conscious or natural inclication to persist in pursuing important truths - even if "very few people agree with you" on them.