Live data from Hacker News

I’ve Consed Every Pair

medium.com

21–30 of 228 posts

Re: I’ve Consed Every Pair

#21
post #12

Arc is underrated as an information management tool. There's something to be said for having a web framework that works out of the box. Rails is probably the only other framework that makes it as easy to "just make some forms that pass data around and run some code on that data." But not quite -- I haven't seen arc's closure-storing technique used in any other web framework. The main issue that arc solves is that it…

Some arc code I wrote back in the day, for generating textual descriptions from structured data using a web frontend, is still in production at a previous company of mine (as far as I know). It was indeed a useful tool. It's a shame arc didn't have persistent data structures (besides alists :-) and a native hashmap type though. For those confused, we're talking about this: http://www.paulgraham.com/arc.html

I'm sure somebody has written an ADVENTURE front-end for a LISP debugger.

You are in a CONS cell. The there is a CAR to the left, leading off to another CONS, and a CDR to the right, containing NIL. The garbage collector briefly enters the CONS, marks it, quickly glances at the NIL in the CDR, smiles quietly to itself, and looking relieved, hurriedly sweeps away through the CAR.

>GIVE CONS TO CDR

You give the CONS cell to its CDR, creating a circular list.

Re: I’ve Consed Every Pair

#22

I remember reading something someplace that was something like ... the problem with being old and full of wisdom is it's hard to share that wisdom with the people that need it most without sounding like an old condescending jerk. Plus, they won't listen anyways. The best you can hope for is that when they are old and full of wisdom they'll remember you and think "hey that old guy was right" . I know when I was 25 I w…

The most inwardly digestible lessons are certainly those learned for oneself.

Great teachers recognise this and will give you a task that invites you to make the same errors as they did.

This is the basis of guild apprenticeships, PhD supervision, and 20% time for junior developers.

Re: I’ve Consed Every Pair

#23
post #18

I remember reading something someplace that was something like ... the problem with being old and full of wisdom is it's hard to share that wisdom with the people that need it most without sounding like an old condescending jerk. Plus, they won't listen anyways. The best you can hope for is that when they are old and full of wisdom they'll remember you and think "hey that old guy was right" . I know when I was 25 I w…

> I know when I was 25 I was damn sure I knew better than anyone twice my age. This is why I've long believed voting systems should restrict the voting age to 16-28. After all, whom would you rather have voting: people wracked with doubt and who fear their own ignorance, or people who know everything?

You are starting too late. In my experience 10 years old is when the all-knowing really kicks in. At least that is that age when each of my children gained omniscience. Apparently.

Re: I’ve Consed Every Pair

#25
Man. I miss Johnny Cash.

His cover of NIИ's Hurt is so powerful. June Carter (his wife) died a few months after filming the video, and that just broke his heart. Johnny followed her less than six months later.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AHCfZTRGiI

Trent Reznor admitted that the song was no longer his after watching it.

Re: I’ve Consed Every Pair

#27

I tried writing some of my own verses for this song, but I couldn't think of anything that rhymed with RPLACA and CDADAADR. Speaking of consing every pair, here's a previous discussion about "The Origin of CAR and CDR in Lisp (2005) (iwriteiam.nl)": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16008239 http://www.iwriteiam.nl/HaCAR_CDR.html

Funny you bring up rhymes; my brain keeps matching "I've Consed Every Pair, Man" with "Bicycle Repairman".

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2howud

Re: I’ve Consed Every Pair

#28

I remember reading something someplace that was something like ... the problem with being old and full of wisdom is it's hard to share that wisdom with the people that need it most without sounding like an old condescending jerk. Plus, they won't listen anyways. The best you can hope for is that when they are old and full of wisdom they'll remember you and think "hey that old guy was right" . I know when I was 25 I w…

One thing a number of people told me when I was younger was “you should travel when you’re young and don’t have kids”.

... and I’m happy to have listened and acted on that advice.

Not everyone will listen, but sometimes there’ll be someone that does, or having heard the same advice numerous times from different people it’ll start to sink in at least a little.

Re: I’ve Consed Every Pair

#29
post #18

I remember reading something someplace that was something like ... the problem with being old and full of wisdom is it's hard to share that wisdom with the people that need it most without sounding like an old condescending jerk. Plus, they won't listen anyways. The best you can hope for is that when they are old and full of wisdom they'll remember you and think "hey that old guy was right" . I know when I was 25 I w…

> I know when I was 25 I was damn sure I knew better than anyone twice my age. This is why I've long believed voting systems should restrict the voting age to 16-28. After all, whom would you rather have voting: people wracked with doubt and who fear their own ignorance, or people who know everything?

I'd rather have "people wracked with doubt and who fear their own ignorance" :)

Re: I’ve Consed Every Pair

#30
post #25

Man. I miss Johnny Cash. His cover of NIИ's Hurt is so powerful. June Carter (his wife) died a few months after filming the video, and that just broke his heart. Johnny followed her less than six months later. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AHCfZTRGiI Trent Reznor admitted that the song was no longer his after watching it.

I like mostly metal, industrial, heh even ska, ... bust mostly death metal, but then there is Johnny Cash, and I hate country - though not Johnny - there is something about it - also Willie Nelson (and few other, probably there is more, it's just that I don't like mainstream one...)
Post reply on HN