XEmacs: jul17.txt

I spent today finishing my Braitenbergian Vehicles plant/insect/bird
simulation reprisal (at the time at the jam, I only managed something
like a proof of
concept). https://screwlisp.small-web.org/lispgames/LCKR-completing-the-simulation/
. You can see me run out of steam by the time I reach making a parrot
with 100% chance to experience mortality in the next tick, and
conclude "I ran out of energy for the conclusion"

This old computer challenge post is the afterlife of that
moment. Sadly I had to use GNU emacs to get slime for that coding,
though it was still a very classic lisp experience (sez me.), since I
also make extensive use of emacs-server when coding at the moment.

More oldly, I responded to a several-years-old article by Roger Sen on
the Mastodon:


https://rogersm.net/posts/the-influence-of-programming-paradigms-on-development-techniques/

https://gamerplus.org/@rogersm@mastodon.social/114864068028816798

Here is part of his reply:

>@screwlisp by ADVICE do you mean the Advice Taker project by McCarthy?
>
> Also, wasn't Gabriel too young to be influential in the 60s?

The article had been about how programming techniques of the day
reflect the programming paradigms of that day.

My Mastodon-toot-character-limit-ly comment had cryptically referenced
Richard Gabriel's essay, Incommensurability which is quite an
old-computer-challenge topic.

https://www.dreamsongs.com/Files/Incommensurability.pdf

Incommensurability was coined to describe the inability to understand
the meaning of writing in a language you know how to speak from the
past because implicit norms and knowledge have changed.

Even though you probably use all the same words, in the same
situation, the subtle (or unsubtle) differences add up, and - in the
case that rpg was writing about - several respected but young
scientists wrote an article saying that lisp can't do mixins - when in
practice, they had just not successfully read Sonya Keene's book which
they referenced or managed to click with other sources.

Prior to getting into old computer stuff, I personally had a
completely erroneous vision of what computers were like prior to my
own initial encounter with windows 3.1. I /was right/, in a sense,
that prior to the release of windows 3.1, people had not used windows
3.1. However, the idea that graphics, 3D and scientific computing at
all had been concommitant with the latecoming but now-pervasive
Micro$oft Windows experience is just wrong, despite my university
having implicitly taught something like that.

I imagine someone younger than me who never as a young child witnessed
an adult unironically using word perfect- well, I don't need to
imagine them. Go to a university- they never experienced life before
Microsoft 365 Office and Google Cloud Documents. I am very impressed
with everyone even later than me who is pulling themselves up by their
own bootstraps into old computing, and/or my dear lisp though I repeat
myself.

Alright, I really was out of steam.

Oh, the article I was referencing before was titled:

The Structure of a Programming
Language
Revolution

and the leading quote is

"I don't want to die in a language I don't understand" - Jorge Luis Borges

> Teitelman's dissertation was about a programming system called Pilot which assisted human programmers. His
> early version of mixins was called "advice," and even today in aspect-oriented programming we hear that term.

So not Sen's reference to McCarthy's advice, I had been trying to
second-ordered-ly reference Teitelman's disertation in this case.

My point had been that modern lisp programming techniques arc back to
the 60s, with the examples of advice and pure lisp (from the late 60s,
it was noticed that a large subset of lisp used on its own was a first
order logic very amenable to analysis, became modern ACL2 directly).

Alright, I'm really out of steam everyone. Seeya tomorrow.

Old computer challenge:

http://occ.deadnet.se/

My web home page:

This txt article, there:

https://screwlisp.small-web.org/occ/25/jul17.txt

See you on the mastodon if you are thusly inclined
https://gamerplus.org/@screwlisp (HairyLarry's instance).