🚀 go-pugleaf

In gnu.misc.discuss, Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.no> writes:

    ... you go off the deep paranoid end ...

    ... is that what you're afraid of, Tom?

    your own political reasons ... is [sic]
    shining through a little too strongly.

    who the hell is talking ....

    only in your nightmares ...

    take your nightmares to your shrink, Tom.

    to be honest, Tom, I think _you're_ broken and need fixing.

    ...they go on such insane rampages.  

    pity you waste all that energy on yours on being afraid of 
    other people's success.

You will note that Erik is attacking the messenger, rather than disputing
the message.  Could this be projection?  In any event, let me now ignore
the libelous ad hominem spitting contest and treat instead with matters
technical -- as is more befitting this medium.  

As I've said before, what I'm afraid of is not being given the choice,
that any GNUware will require that we use gnuscript.  This is a matter of
political strongarming, and no one will put up with it.

I'm not afraid of a better technical offering, if and when it occurs, but
I'm not holding my breath.  If we get a glorified dynamically-loading awk
with a C API and one or two I/O bugs fixed fixed that translates into
lisp, it won't be a tremendous technological advance.

If in fact RMS does not want to stop us from writing software that uses
other extensions languages *EVEN FOR GNU SOFTWARE*, then fine -- and vice
versa.  Remember, this isn't just anti-tcl; it's anti anything that
doesn't turn into lisp or scheme.  If we see edicts mandating rewriting
working any software that uses something other than gnuscript, like
dejagnu using tcl, mailagent or clip using perl, the new (perl) debugger
using tk, or various products that employ ptyhon, then it's not fine at
all.  It's a useless waste of time driven by political pressure, just as
much as demanding that gnuscript be used on gnu software would also be.

When all the huffing and puffing is done, only technical and convenience
considerations will (or at least, should) prevail.  Freedom of choice is
something that we MUST NOT SURRENDER.  If that's not in danger, but just
that RMS has pre-announced a better scripting language (for his version of
better, but perhaps not the rest of ours), then fine -- we're happy to
have another choice.  But it certainly didn't seem that way.
	
I still haven't been convinced that anything is broken, and judging from 
the email responses I've received from individuals flamebashed into 
avoiding posting, neither have they.

--tom
-- 
Tom Christiansen      Perl Consultant, Gamer, Hiker      tchrist@mox.perl.com


   "Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced."