Re: Lisp is Sin

Harald Hanche-Olsen <hanche@xxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

> + Bill Atkins <NOatkinwSPAM@xxxxxxx>:
>
> | Common Lisp is an invention, no doubt about it, but I'm not sure if
> | mathematical notations are "invented" or "discovered" or none of the
> | above.
>
> The boundary between invention and discovery is surely a fuzzy one.
> You can say that every invention is a discovery: The discovery that a
> certain solution works and works well.
>
> When Leibniz wrote “Utile erit scribit ∫ pro omnia” back in 1675
> (“It is useful to write ∫ instead of omnia” – please pardon my
> Unicode), he is clearly expressing the discovery of the usefulness of
> a shorter notation for the integral, while at the same time inventing
> the particular symbol we are using today.
>
> I think it may be useful to think of an invention as more of a
> discovery if it is necessary or very much better suited than any
> alternative to the task at hand.

I think that since we have on line dictionnaries, there's no excuse
not to read it more, and constat that to invent is synonym of to
discover and to discover is synonym of to invent.

You can use these terms interchangeably.

--
__Pascal Bourguignon__ http://www.informatimago.com/

"Logiciels libres : nourris au code source sans farine animale."
.

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