> On Aug 24, 6:13 pm, Ali gmail.com> wrote:
>

>> I believe he meant "timeless". Timeless might imply that it was very
>> important to provide a decent language for encoding algorithms,
>> and not so much to the initial size of libraries at year 0. Whether or
>> not the language is great for encoding algorithms (or any other
>> timeless qualities) is largely matter of opinion, as you have stated
>> previously.

>

>>>> there are all sort of problems rendering the term or notion almost useless.

>

>> This page may be of use,http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html,
>> although I'm guessing you've already read it and maybe even have an
>> essay for it.

>
> i red the jargon file, perhaps some 70%% of it, in late 1990s online.
>
> At the time, i appreciate it very much.
>
> But today, i have came to realize that the maintainer Eric Raymond is
> a selfish asshole.
>
> For example, Wikipedia has this to sayhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jargon_file
>
> quote:
>
> «Eric S. Raymond maintains the new File with assistance from Guy
> Steele, and is the credited editor of the print version, The New
> Hacker's Dictionary. Some of the changes made under his watch have
> been controversial; early critics accused Raymond of unfairly changing
> the file's focus to the Unix hacker culture instead of the older
> hacker cultures where the Jargon File originated. Raymond has
> responded by saying that the nature of hacking had changed and the
> Jargon File should report on hacker culture, and not attempt to
> enshrine it.[2] More recently, Raymond has been accused of adding
> terms to the Jargon File that appear to have been used primarily by
> himself, and of altering the file to reflect his own political views.
> [3]»
>
> Eric, one of the guy largely responsible for the Open Source movement
> and plays a role a antagonistic to FSF.  He also created a hacker logo
> to sell himself.  He's essay the Cathedral and Bazzar, which i read in
> late 1990s, i consider stupid. You can often read his posts or
> argument online in various places, and from those post you can see
> he's often just a male ass.
>
> Wikipedia has some illuminating summary of him:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_S._Raymond
>
> basically, a money hungry and selfish ass.
>
> It used to also talk about how he supports the iraq war with some
> racist undertone or some remarks he made about blacks ... i forgot the
> detail but can be easily found in the article's history log.
>
> He used to have a page on his website, not sure if it's still around,
> about what he demands if people wants him to speak. Quite rude.
>

>> In fact, I wouldn't go looking for a dictionary style definition,
>> since he used the word "hacker" to convey what he thought a hacker
>> was, so his article on "great hackers" would be very relevant:
>>http://www.paulgraham.com/gh.html

>
> Paul is a interesting guy. I mean, his lisp achievements and credits
> is quite sufficient for me to find him intelligent and interesting.
>
> However, his's essays related to hackers i just find quite
> wortheless... not even sufficient enough for me to scan ... as
> comparison, i'd rather read text books related to sociology or
> psychology.
>
> ... many famous people write essays. Philosophers, renowed scientists
> of all areas, successful businessman, famous award laureates ...
> often, perhaps majority, of such essays are rather riding on fame and
> worthless in quality when judged in the long term like decades or
> centuries ...
>

>> Those language qualities you listed do seem to be a good measure for a
>> good language though.
>> It seems to me that Arc has the first 2 qualities but not the third.

>
> i wouldn't say arc is good at all with respect to ease of use or
> power.
>
> for ease of use... first of all it uses lisp syntax, and still has
> cons business. These 2 immediately disqualifies it for the masses as
> easy to use. Even if we take a step back, then there's Scheme lisp, so
> in no way arc is easier to use than say Scheme 5.
>
> for power... i doubt if it is in any sense more powerful than say
> Scheme lisp or common lisp. In comparison to the profileration of
> functional langs like Haskell, Ocaml/f# and perhaps also erlang, Q,
> Oz, Mercury, Alice, Mathematica ... the power of arc would be a
> laughing stock.
>
> ... adding the fact such controversies as using ascii as char set (as
> opposed to unicode), using html table as web design, no name space
> mechanism (all these i gathered as hearsay or on Wikipedia) ... arc to
> me is totally without merit. (NewLisp and Qi, yay!)
>
> see also...
> Proliferation of Computing Languageshttp://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/writ/new_langs.html
>
>   Xah
> ∑http://xahlee.org/
>
> ☄