Why [not] X?

[Mike McDonald]

>From: Jordan Henderson <jordan@Starbase.NeoSoft.COM>
>Subject: Re: Why [not] X? 
>To: lispos@math.gatech.edu
>Date: Thu, 22 May 1997 22:06:47 -0500 (CDT)
>
>> From: Mike McDonald <mikemac@titian.engr.sgi.com>
>> 
>>   Actually, his initials are, *ahem*, MRM. :-) I just think you guys
>> have dived off the high board head first with Henry and Fare judging
>> the dives. Only problem is no one bothered to check to see if there
>> was any water in the pool!
>> 
>>   Mike McDonald
>>   mikemac@engr.sgi.com
>> 
>> 
>
>Now, THIS, I agree with.  
>
>I may be guilty of it myself sometimes (see my recent ranting about
>the superiority of NeWS to X), but this list is really just becoming
>a big waste of bandwidth.  As Patrick Logan has said "I'm just trying
>to figure out what this thing you are trying to build >IS<."

  Ranting has its place too. But the never ending arguing about what
the optimal first step is is never going to move us away from where we
currently are, namely, nowhere. Even a random walk has a chance of
getting you to your goal whereas sitting on our collective butts
isn't going to do it.

>Nobody has a direction or a goal in mind here.  So far I think we want a
>POS-based, completely reflective, minimally dependent on Unix/C, 
>high-performance, completely portable, reimplementation of LispMs,
>OODB integrating, immutable cons-box sporting, scheme & CL & Eulisp & Dylan,
>supporting all known high-level languages as programmatic transformations
>to a "basic Lisp", thread supporting, network transparent, web browsing, 
>no file system as we know it, Artificially Intelligent, Lisp OS/Environment 
>with it's own VM.  Sorry if I left anyone's strongly favored features out.

  You forgot continuations. :-)

>I still think my proposal archive is a good idea.  If people have specific
>proposals for some implementation issue/feature/application, send them to me
>and I'll put them up at http://www.neosoft.com/~jordan/LispersAnonymous.  
>Then, people can read the proposals and send their comments to the author of
>the proposal.  I would hope that this would lead to Birds-of-a-feather 
>groups forming and teams going.  

  That was my suggestion about a thousand messages ago. I listed a
bunch of ideas for projects but only one person expressed any interest
in any of them.

  I'm currently working on CLIM, although Kelley is trying to talk me
into doing something else. (I somehow have this strange idea it's
going to have something to do with the web. :-)

  What are YOU doing? (not just Jordon!)

>But, I don't know.  I'm beginning to think
>that nothing will come of all this talk, just as no palpable progress is
>being made on similar projects you can find out there.

  That's my fear too.

>Don't mind me, I haven't had my medication today.
>

  We smoke our's out here! :-)

  Mike McDonald
  mikemac@engr.sgi.com