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I don't disagree with the necessity for fundamental elements ("black boxes") on top of which to build. My only complaint is with the universally shoddy state of

I don't disagree with the necessity for fundamental elements ("black boxes") on top of which to build. My only complaint is with the universally shoddy state of these black boxes. Specifically: http://www.loper-os.org/?p=37 http://www.loper-os.org/?p=37 The modern computer is the first time mankind has built a system which is actually capable of perfection. You are more likely to have a spontaneous heart attack and die at any given moment than the CPU is to perform a multiplication incorrectly. All of the "hairiness" which your computer's behavior exhibits is purely a result of programmer stupidity. It is theoretically possible for the entire stack to work exactly as expected, and for each element to seem as inevitable and obvious-in-retrospect as Maxwell's equations. It is possible to build a system where the black boxes aren't fully black and can be forced to state their actual function on a whim. It is possible to expose the entire state of the machine to programmer manipulation and comprehension in real time: http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/b2c0190dc30c3e5f?hl=en&pli=1 http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/b2c0190dc3... http://www.sts.tu-harburg.de/~r.f.moeller/symbolics-info/development-environment/index.html http://www.sts.tu-harburg.de/~r.f.moeller/symbolics-info/dev... >The cat is already out of the bag. The Lisp Machines existed, and were capable of everything modern, "hairy" systems are capable of, plus much more. You cannot un-create them. They are proof that the entire software-engineering universe is currently "smoking crack" - and I sincerely wish that it would stop doing so.

danbmil99 18y ago
we don't need lisp to know the state of the machine -- in the Linux case, we have source code. We can _theoretically_ debug everyone else's code and know exactly what is going on. "It is theoretically possible for the entire stack to work exactly as expected, and for each element to seem as inevitable and obvious-in-retrospect as Maxwell's equations." Yes, and it is theoretically possible according to the laws of physics for broken glasses to spontaneously reassemble. But they don't. This is basically an issue of entropy.
- asciilifeform 18y ago
  Have you ever actually used a Lisp Machine? There is an emulator available (ask around.) All of these things were actually possible there - not merely theoretically.
  - danbmil99 18y ago
    Maybe I'm not making myself clear. I realize you can in principle debug everything, know the state of the machine completely, etc. What I am trying to point out is that it is too much information to handle at that level of detail. It doesn't matter if it's written in Lisp or Swahili. And the fact remains that even if you convinced 90% of the next generation of programmers to use Lisp, you still have 50 years of legacy code lying around in other langauges. These are practical facts that can't be washed away with a new (or old) programming paradigm.

danbmil99 18y ago

we don't need lisp to know the state of the machine -- in the Linux case, we have source code. We can _theoretically_ debug everyone else's code and know exactly what is going on. "It is theoretically possible for the entire stack to work exactly as expected, and for each element to seem as inevitable and obvious-in-retrospect as Maxwell's equations." Yes, and it is theoretically possible according to the laws of physics for broken glasses to spontaneously reassemble. But they don't. This is basically an issue of entropy.

asciilifeform 18y ago
Have you ever actually used a Lisp Machine? There is an emulator available (ask around.) All of these things were actually possible there - not merely theoretically.
- danbmil99 18y ago
  Maybe I'm not making myself clear. I realize you can in principle debug everything, know the state of the machine completely, etc. What I am trying to point out is that it is too much information to handle at that level of detail. It doesn't matter if it's written in Lisp or Swahili. And the fact remains that even if you convinced 90% of the next generation of programmers to use Lisp, you still have 50 years of legacy code lying around in other langauges. These are practical facts that can't be washed away with a new (or old) programming paradigm.