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).