Re: Amazon used lisp & C exclusively?



goose wrote:
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 ...".

I should have been more explicit about your confusion. :) The perfectly good issue you raise applies to all sorts of things being affordable in one country vs. another. ie, I am asking you to control for income. Otherwise, yes, absolutely, your time is well spent/rewarded yelling and screaming at compiler errors into the wee hours of the morning.

You keep trying to start a new, worthwhile, and important thread about how great it is that RMS had the unintended* effect of letting currency-rate challenged countries have a fine O/S to play with. This would be a typical but regrettable usenet digression from the topic at hand: people who could easily afford Win32 or OS X and LW or ACL pro and who instead beat their heads against the wall trying to get free software to work and continue working after some lib gets upgraded.

*I did not notice it in the manifesto, anyway.





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.

Careful. I paid $5k for a LaserWriter twenty years ago. To use for my business. Remember, the context is "serious craftsperson".



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 ...

Ah, this is the other great way Usenet discussions unravel, people starting to use words differently. Yes, air grows on trees, it has no value. Until George W cuts down the last tree with his timber policy. Hmm, I should buy a compressor and start stockpiling. People here in the US already buy water over the counter.


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

Please, you are good with Linux installs, please try to apply the same intellectual rigor to usenet flamewars. :)




<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...

You know you have the FSF backed into a corner when they start saying "you do not have to use it!".

Dude, all I did was bemoan the FSF giving people the idea that they should not have to pay for software. We get that all the time from people here on c.l.l: "I do not like to pay for tools." or "I need a free library". The FSF obviously is free to do whatever they like, I am just saying how unfortunate it is that so many have followed the Pied Piper and ended up with such a great opportunity expense to themselves and society.

You could yell "libel", if only I had not quoted RMS saying the same thing: software should be free. the funny bit was where he said this would avoid duplication of effort on systems programming. I gotta put that on a bumper sticker.

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).

Hey, I exonerated you in the last article, and in this one I exonerated everyone in a currency-challenged economy.

I snipped the rest where you continue on that other excellent, undisputed thread about how Linux is great for poorer (in some currency respect) countries. I also understand the other poster who said it is a great learning tool. Absolutely. As is building your own computer. Hey, is that a good analogy? Is it possible anymore to come up with a cheaper PC-compatible system than Dell by buying parts separately and assembling them? Even pricing labor at zero?

Anyway, let's hope that Lisp continues to grow and lets vendors come down in price.

I've already told you, you snipped it out. The first
*customisation* of the installation media takes
a few minutes.

Ah, the ambiguity of natural language strikes again. No, I mean the first time you /ever/ encountered Linux. Or did someone pass this install script down to you?


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.

Both win32 and OS X (and AllegroCL) periodically ask me if I want to update my system. I say, "Yes". So far so good.

kenny

--
Cells: http://common-lisp.net/project/cells/

"I'll say I'm losing my grip, and it feels terrific."
-- Smiling husband to scowling wife, New Yorker cartoon
.

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