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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 exact
by 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 agoHave 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 agoMaybe 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.