kennethtilton

5 ms·

1.
by kennethtilton 13y ago
Hey, thanks ruling out the 60s as too old even to consider. :) I think anyone who is a seat-filler has a problem. But if one codes for fun, if one sees new technology and just DLs a tutorial and starts using it, if one is always thinking ab
2.
by kennethtilton 13y ago
<g> Your exercise may be the take-off point. You sound like you know how to code. Can you talk a little more about how the algorithm you were confronting made the effort of getting a Scheme platform working worthwhile? Understood if t
3.
by kennethtilton 13y ago
Maybe somewhere in between. The imperfections are so small that even a modest effort would never get undertaken. Something folks need to realize is that Lisp truly is a metalanguage: I think both Graham and Norvig knocked off quick and dirt
4.
by kennethtilton 13y ago
Good gosh, no. For example, I am with Einstein: make everything as simple as possible, but no simpler. ie, There is a right amount of everything. I guess I am also with Goldilocks, then. I said, "More comfortable", but Americans h
5.
by kennethtilton 13y ago
My first thought was that the question cannot be answered without knowing what we must fail at inevitably for life to be futile. I looked up futile to be sure: "incapable of producing any useful result; pointless." As I feared, it
6.
by kennethtilton 13y ago
Exactly. We Common Lispers created Clojure as a firewall when we realized The Great Unwashed were headed our way. Seems to be working.
7.
by kennethtilton 13y ago
"CL is an abject disaster"? I need a red card over here.
8.
by kennethtilton 13y ago
Nonsense. The standards process is a beast, so no one is going to kick it off for anything other than a good solid rethink. As others have noted, the language and spec are done, aka pretty much ideal. Go write some code, people. ps. Love el
9.
by kennethtilton 13y ago
...because it was a bad idea. I did some serious work with a Lisp-1 (Arc) and it was a PITA with no discernible win to it.
10.
by kennethtilton 13y ago
Thanks, your query led to my belated discovery of http://cs.stanford.edu/jmc And this: http://library.stanford.edu/collections/john-mccarthy-papers... Agreed, tho, the links should be salvaged.
11.
by kennethtilton 13y ago
ps. Have him take a crack at protein-folding so he does not get bored.
12.
by kennethtilton 13y ago
First: http://www.paulgraham.com/onlisp.html Then, once he is frothing at the mouth: http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/ Then for the love of god protect him from Emacs: http://www.franz.com&#x
13.
Web newspaper recreates paper newspaper(app.nytimes.com)
1 points by kennethtilton 13y ago|0 comments
14.
Ask PG: Do you still consider character count a good Prime Directive for an HLL?
9 points by kennethtilton 13y ago|3 comments
15.
by kennethtilton 13y ago
The interesting thing to this old fart as a newcomer to HN is that it really does not make much difference whether or not he is a troll. Unless of course he opens that PayPal account. What I am fascinated by is the unquestioning support fro
16.
by kennethtilton 13y ago
Where's the beef? If it is a Web design company, web prefab is an issue because that's their beef. If the company sells something else and the site looks/works great, I would only give them credit for saving time/money&#
17.
by kennethtilton 13y ago
I pulled out of my dive before going broke, but not by much. Licked my wounds, got a job, built up my savings for three years and now can try again, this time much wiser (and less risky) for the experience. Survival is success, I was told e
18.
by kennethtilton 13y ago
Sold or just first serious app? Sold would be Mastermind for the Apple II. Integer Basic. Made a few hundred bucks. Even in 1979 that was not a lot.
19.
by kennethtilton 13y ago
It was a long time ago, but I used a golf scoring gadget to keep count of my daily driving excesses. Counting a behavior changes it. The awareness broke the habit. Improvements of course were to the number of points on my license and the sa
20.
by kennethtilton 13y ago
A double shot of espresso is great, I have a million ideas all at once and am juiced to do it all. I get absolutely nothing done until it wears off and then I need a nap. hth.
21.
by kennethtilton 13y ago
We had someone do amazing work for just a couple of months and it was disappointing to lose him to a start-up but we appreciated the two months of output. But that would be the exception. It can take quite a few months to get up to speed on
22.
by kennethtilton 13y ago
You did not include one iota of information about the "awesome new" language, let alone a link to it. If you have that little interest in this alleged language, I do not think the word awesome means what you think it means. But I
23.
by kennethtilton 13y ago
Oh. They actually want to step up their testing game? So why this thread? <g> btw, I am glad no one asked the alternative to testing -- it would have been more a textbook on software development. <g>
24.
by kennethtilton 13y ago
I hear a lot of talk about agile these days but it all looks like waterfall to me. The development and QA teams need to do whatever it takes to support the business, including dealing with the fact that go-live has magical powers to generat
25.
by kennethtilton 13y ago
Reading between the lines, you should be quite nervous about ending up living in a van down by the river (thank you, Chris Farley, rip) and you should forget completely about taking on the financial responsibility of starting a family. Your
26.
by kennethtilton 13y ago
Good question. Even when I take a break I head for a sports bar. Drive time is ... oh, I just quit to concentrate on my startup. Getting older, don't sleep as much. Fifteen?
27.
by kennethtilton 13y ago
That's fine. My point was that for you automated testing is a litmus test that turned you against a successful group of great guys. What I do in those situations is check my presuppositions. Maybe I can learn something. Did you ask the
28.
by kennethtilton 13y ago
OK, I'll stop saying TDD. :)
29.
by kennethtilton 13y ago
I am just waiting for someone to ask, "How else can one achieve correctness?" :) But cults do not do that, they just accuse non-believers, in this case, that they do not care about correctness. That's like saying Messner and
30.
by kennethtilton 13y ago
Get over it. They are successful without TDD. It is extremely possible, and then one does not have to slave over a hundred lines of tests when one decides to write ten lines of code. TDD has its place, but it is a relatively small place (an

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