Erik Naggum Quotes - Page 3

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• What people "want" is a function of what they learn is available. If you wish to sell something, you'd better understand that you can't give people what they want in the market today, because what they want today is what they can already get. You have to discover what they really want, and find some way to give that physical shape.

  Erik Naggum

  People, Giving, Wish

  "Creation of lisp machine/lispOS". Usenet discussion groups, groups.google.com. May 1, 1997.

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• From the Latin word "imponere", base of the obsolete English "impone" and translated as "impress" in modern English, Nordic hackers have coined the terms "imponator" (a device that does nothing but impress bystanders, referred to as the "imponator effect") and "imponade" (that "goo" that fills you as you get impressed with something - from "marmelade", often referred as "full of imponade", always ironic).

  Erik Naggum

  Latin, Bystanders, Ironic

  "Polymorphism in Common Lisp". Usenet discussion groups, groups.google.com. August 18, 2001.

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• In Norway, we have a community of people who prefer to use a version of Norwegian that looks very much like lutefisk: Dug up remains from the garbage heap of history and dressed up to look like a tradition.

  Erik Naggum

  People, Community, Looks

  Re: Irish road-signs are now metric (Usenet article), groups.google.com. February 21, 2005.

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• Norway did not even have a revolution at the time the rest of Europe was busy figuring out human rights and stuff, because we were busy fighting over how to spell it.

  Erik Naggum

  Fighting, Rights, Europe

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• You become a serious programmer by going through a stage where you are fully aware of the degree to which you know the specification, meaning both the explicit and the tacit specification of your language and of your problem. "Hey, it works most of the time" is the very antithesis of a serious programmer, and certain languages can only support code like that.

  Erik Naggum

  Support, Degrees, Hey

  "Implementational Portability". Usenet discussion groups, groups.google.com. August 23, 1999.

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• If, however, one factor is too successful, it will continue to be the winning factor regardless of the variation in the other factors over the range of variation in the conditions, and therefore will stifle the development of other advantageous factors until the conditions change sufficiently that it no longer is the winning factor. At this point, the whole population is ill prepared for the change, and may well perish entirely if the winning factor accidentally becomes the matching factor for a disease or a predator.

  Erik Naggum

  Successful, Winning, Population

  "O'reilly subjugated to the Lisp juggenaut". Usenet discussion groups, groups.google.com. January 18, 2004.

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• Microsoft is not the answer. Microsoft is the question. NO is the answer.

  Erik Naggum

  Technology, Microsoft, Answers

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• In C++, reinvention is its own reward.

  Erik Naggum

  Rewards, Reinvention

  "Wretched C++". Usenet discussion groups, groups.google.com. April 23, 1997.

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• The very word "exist" derives from "to step forth, to stand out".

  Erik Naggum

  Steps, Standing Out

  "Lisp advocacy misadventures". Usenet discussion groups, groups.google.com. October 26, 2002.

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• People search for the meaning of life, but this is the easy question: we are born into a world that presents us with many millenia of collected knowledge and information, and all our predecessors ask of us is that we not waste our brief life ignoring the past only to rediscover or reinvent its lessons badly.

  Erik Naggum

  Past, People, Meaning Of Life

  "Knowledge and Information". naggum.no. February 6, 1996.

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• We have no mom-and-pop oil rigs in Norway.

  Erik Naggum

  Mom, Oil, Norway

  "Upper limits of CL". Usenet discussion groups, groups.google.com. June 20, 2002.

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• Unformed people delight in the gaudy and in novelty. Cooked people delight in the ordinary.

  Erik Naggum

  People, Delight, Novelty

  "Ousterhout and Tcl lost the plot with latest paper". Usenet discussion groups, groups.google.com. September 4, 1997.

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• If you want to know why Lisp doesn't win around you, find a mirror.

  Erik Naggum

  Winning, Mirrors, Want

  Re: Java is really convenient. Re: Sun thinks about switching Java to S-expression syntax: Lava (Usenet article), groups.google.com. February 20, 1999.

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• I have a cat, so I know that when she digs her very sharp claws into my chest or stomach it's really a sign of affection, but I don't see any reason for programming languages to show affection with pain.

  Erik Naggum

  Pain, Cat, Affection

  Re: defmacro question (Usenet article), groups.google.com. July 26, 2000.

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• Like many older fans of Free Software and Open Source, I have discovered that it is really only free in the sense that the time you spend on it is worthless.

  Erik Naggum

  Fans, Source, Software

  "The Next Generation of Lisp Programmers". Usenet discussion groups, groups.google.com. August 24, 2002.

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• Languages shape the way we think, or don't.

  Erik Naggum

  Thinking, Shapes, Way

  Re: Search & Replace in sequences (Usenet article), groups.google.com. March 20, 2000.

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• I have argued that a religion or a philosophy cannot speak about facts of the world - if it does, it is now or will eventually be wrong - but it can and should speak about the relevance and ranking of facts and observations.

  Erik Naggum

  Philosophy, Doe, World

  "Philosophy of Lisp programmers". Usenet discussion groups, groups.google.com. June 22, 2002.

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• When all actions are used for feedback, the consequence of making mistakes will be a corrective and appropriate response, because everything everybody does matters. ... The more selective you are in the feedback you accept, the more insane your reasoning will become as you will necessarily reject corrective feedback that would have led to better reasoning.

  Erik Naggum

  Mistake, Insane, Doe

  "Lisp's future". Usenet discussion groups, groups.google.com. January 31, 2004.

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• The only important property of evils of the past is that they not be repeated in the future, in any way, shape, or form.

  Erik Naggum

  Past, Evil, Important

  "Stalin is not a cool name for software". Usenet discussion groups, groups.google.com. November 30, 1998.

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• Once we were Programmers. Maybe our last best hope is a movie.

  Erik Naggum

  Lasts, Hoping For The Best, Programmers

  "PART TWO: winning industrial-use of lisp". Usenet discussion groups, groups.google.com. June 19, 2002.

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• Short of coming to their senses and abolishing the whole thing, we might expect that the rules for daylight saving time will remain the same for some time to come, but there is no guarantee. (We can only be glad there is no daylight loan time, or we would face decades of too much daylight, only to be faced with a few years of total darkness to make up for it.

  Erik Naggum

  Years, Darkness, Guarantees

  "The Long, Painful History of Time" by Erik Naggum, naggum.no. October 11, 1990.

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• 'Code sharing' is an economic surplus phenomenon. It works only when none of the people involved in it are in any form of need.

  Erik Naggum

  People, Needs, Economic

  "Realistic but short and simple LISP examples?". Usenet discussion groups, groups.google.com. December 19, 2001.

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• I believe C++ instills fear in programmers, fear that the interaction of some details causes unpredictable results. Its unmanageable complexity has spawned more fear-preventing tools than any other language, but the solution should have been to create and use a language that does not overload the whole goddamn human brain with irrelevant details.

  Erik Naggum

  Believe, Should Have, Brain

  Re: Checking for Errors Before Run Time (Usenet article), groups.google.com. November 21, 2001.

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• XML is a giant step in no direction at all.

  Erik Naggum

  Giants, Steps

  "Q: parsing strings". Usenet discussion groups, groups.google.com. October 10, 2000.

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• Enlightenment is probably antithetical to impatience.

  Erik Naggum

  Enlightenment, Impatience

  "*Why* is LISP better?". Usenet discussion groups, groups.google.com. August 8, 2002.

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