Re: Amazon used lisp & C exclusively?

Ken Tilton wrote:
goose wrote:
Ken Tilton wrote:

goose wrote:

Ken Tilton wrote:

<snipped>

Oh, yeah, this is the other thing you old dawgs cannot be trained off.
Sorry, Charlie. $1425 is /nothing/ comapred to what other craftsmen are
paying for their tools. You want be a serious photographer?
Cabinetmaker? Guitarist? For $1425? PWUUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA!

<snipped>
Would you?

You are confused. Regrettable disparity in the wealth of nations is
being solved in another NG.

There is no confusion; that disparity is what so
neatly invalidates your point about $1425 being
"... /nothing/ compared to what other craftsmen are
paying ...".


You have said you would gladly pay for LW if
you could, so you have not been FSF-infected.

I've paid for dev tools before, doubtless I'll pay
for dev tools in the future.

I am talking about the
poor confused souls who say they do not like to pay for software and so
have been googling for hours trying to find a "free" solution, or get
their "free" Lisp to work, and are all the while bothering other busy
but confused people who gladly offer "free" support.

Well, we all start off on the cheapest thing we can get away
with to learn. I've asked questions on the "free" lisps as
well; see my recent post about cmucl memory leakage/lack
of memory leakage. There is no problem with the free lisps
for me - in my book the price of a commerical lisp had so far
outweighed the /price/ that the free lisps were asking
(i.e. my time, my improvements, my feedback) that it was
a no brainer. Only a fool would consider a months pay
towards the purchase of the cheapest lisp system. I doubt
that *you* would give up a months pay for the cheapest
lisp system that will target only a single platform.


Now your personal estimate of how hard it is to configure and maintain a
Linux system is 120 seconds.....you may be an outlier. :)

No, just very, very lazy :-) I don't like repeating my work
(hence I'm a programmer) and so script everything. I believe
most *nix users do this as well (well, all the ones I know:-)
because its so simple to do.

AFAIK, windows systems tend to be the most time-consuming
to install/setup/administrate, sometimes with each system
requiring almost 30 minutes of human attention just on
install.




Besides, you completely missed the point: gcc is free because someone
gave it away (and continues to develop and give away again) as a
deliberate political act with the intended effect I have already
bemoaned: infecting people with the idea that software has no value (or
that programmer time has no value).


As someone else said, thats possibly Libel!

(a) You guys look so silly when you post these libel warnings, you
really should resist the temptation. :)

(b) You need to read the frickin manifesto again:

" Once GNU is written, everyone will be able to obtain good system
software free, just like air.(2)

Air has no value? Thats news to me ...

(read carefully; you just broke your own argument into pieces)


<snipped>


Ahem. You guys are libelling me by accusing me of libel!

It is interesting to note that out of my entire
*reasoned* response to you, you pick *one* sentence
and devote your entire response to it while quitely
ignoring the issue that I raised:

The FSF software is being sold at a certain price;
if you are not happy with the price, then feel free
not to complete the transaction with them.

Why you are harping on about "FSF infection" is beyond
me; you are free not to do business with them just as
I am free not to do business with a commercial lisp
supplier. I tend to exercise my freedom in this regard.

I imagine you are bitter about confused souls who
want everything for free(gratis), but it would hurt
your argument about FSF infection less you'd stop
stereotyping all of us with the same brush as we
just want things for free(libre).

I, OTOH, am a little bitter than I can't afford
first world tools but you won't see me calling
the tools vendors names, nor will you see me
complain "Th3 bas7ards ar3 ov3rcharging" or
anything similar; I also won't deliberately
(I cannot tell in your case) misrepresent them
or their actions to further my argument.

You are smart, knowledgable and fairly articulate
(I note you weren't as quick to brainlessly flame
like the other poster) so try to understand that
sometimes the price for commercial software really
is too much (in currency and in lock-in), and not
that we are all just freeloaders.

I understand that the commercial systems might
be priced correctly as the vendors are sitting
in a country with strong currency and the $1425
dollars might be as low as they can go without
going out of business. The only way to go lower
would be to move to a country like mine where
cost of living is cheap and therefore they can
charge worldwide users less (there costs are
less).

If they don't move, well, then ... they certainly
will be out of business the minute we catch up,
because then we can charge less than them and still
maintain the same standard of living.


So, for me, each installation takes not more than a minute
of my attention.

How long was the first install?


I've already told you, you snipped it out. The first
*customisation* of the installation media takes
a few minutes. Perhaps you are not familiar with slackware
and tagfiles? They allow you to specify (in textfiles)
what the installation program should install and what
should be left out.

FWIW, I don't even bother with the tagfiles anymore
and just maintain a list of packages in a textfile.
A bash script reads the textfile and installs the
packages. This script has worked since '96 or
thereabouts so I see no need to change now.

AIUI, there is no commercial OS that comes with
an installation that can be customised to be as
slick as slackware (like I described above) can
be made to be.

goose,

.

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