Richard Stallman: How I do my Computing • Hacker News Board

Re: Richard Stallman: How I do my Computing

#141

Post by slowpoke » Sat, Apr 07, 2012, 10:52 AM UTC

b1daly wrote: post #120

ktizo wrote: post #2

I view Richard Stallman's attitude to this as though he has set himself up as some kind of social/technological guinea-pig for the general public good. Yes, he is fanatical in several senses, especially nasal and botanical, by all accounts ( read Stallman does Dallas: http://stallman.org/articles/texas.html ). But the day that Stallman cannot get on the internet, without compromising his own set of restrictions, is t…

But this idea of having dominion over any computational object (or really any object) is a fantasy. Are you going generate your own electricity riding your generator bike (powered by veggies from your garden) as you code? That's where I think his ideals go off the rails, their totality beyond common sense. FOSS of various flavors is cool. Of course it's not really free though. It's created by people in the context of…

Electricity is a service, and you're free to use electricity however you want. Nobody can (physically) stop you from using electricity in a way that is not "approved" by the provider of your electricity.

Granted, there are other issues with the generation of electricity, such as the issues with nuclear power, and the environmental effects of coal etc. However, electricity itself is Free (as in speech).

Also, you can't interact with electricity on a higher level. You can't really change its behavior, and the way it works is "open source" (physics). Software and, to a lesser degree, hardware, are things which we can deeply interact with, and are a fundamental part of today's society. This is why they need to be completely Free.

Re: Richard Stallman: How I do my Computing

#142

Post by ricardobeat » Sat, Apr 07, 2012, 10:54 AM UTC

krollew wrote: post #50

I don't understand his point. I'd be very sad if set myself so strict rules. Terminal is powerful, but this doesn't mean not to user X11. I like *nix and open source, but why souldn't I use Windows (which i find very nice system since Windows 7). He says Lisp is powerful, I agree. I prefer Scheme, but it's the same strengh. However it doesn't mean I use only C and scheme. I rather use a rule - match programming langu…

> but why souldn't I use Windows

And I thought you were going to say something that made sense...

Re: Richard Stallman: How I do my Computing

#143

Post by ricardobeat » Sat, Apr 07, 2012, 10:56 AM UTC

slowpoke wrote: post #141

b1daly wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But this idea of having dominion over any computational object (or really any object) is a fantasy. Are you going generate your own electricity riding your generator bike (powered by veggies from your garden) as you code? That's where I think his ideals go off the rails, their totality beyond common sense. FOSS of various flavors is cool. Of course it's not really free though. It's created by people in the context of…

Electricity is a service, and you're free to use electricity however you want. Nobody can (physically) stop you from using electricity in a way that is not "approved" by the provider of your electricity. Granted, there are other issues with the generation of electricity, such as the issues with nuclear power, and the environmental effects of coal etc. However, electricity itself is Free (as in speech). Also, you can'…

Just like electricity is completely free. Right? I think I get it.

Re: Richard Stallman: How I do my Computing

#144

Post by xyzzyz » Sat, Apr 07, 2012, 10:58 AM UTC

aangjie wrote: post #128

praptak wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this is the case - Python's REPL (and eval) deals with strings and does not go through an explicit representation of the parsed code, mainly because there is no such representation in Python. There is an ast module that parses Python code but it is an add-on, not at the core of the implementation. That is what I meant by manifestation of deeper differences between Python and Lisp.

This makes me think. I know the ast module is an add-on and not at the core of the interpreter implementation. Has there been any attempts at building a interpreter that does the same(Read, eval,print, loop over data structures and not strings)?? It would be hard i guess, but interesting right?

All interpreters do it on some level, they just don't expose this functionality to user.

As soon as you want to expose it to user in a non cumbersome way, you realize that the thing that stands in your way is the syntax of your language -- converting from textual and structural representation back and forth does not look like the way to go. You need to get rid of one of them for it to make sense. But if you get rid of textual representation, you'll just get another Lisp.

Re: Richard Stallman: How I do my Computing

#145

Post by demetris » Sat, Apr 07, 2012, 10:59 AM UTC

mixmastamyk wrote: post #105

Every time an rms article comes up trolls come out of the woodwork to rally about what a kook he is and all "the horrible things" he's done. "Why the nerve, living a life different than I would choose!? IT MUST BE STOPPED." Snooze. I've been reading this fear-mongering regularly since '97. Why is he so threatening? It's not like you have to share a studio apartment with the guy. Have any complainers contributed 1/10t…

“Why is he so threatening?”

In my view, because he has influence based on credibility that he does not deserve any more, and because he exerts that influence in ways that do not benefit free software.

Re: Richard Stallman: How I do my Computing

#146

Post by konstruktor » Sat, Apr 07, 2012, 11:01 AM UTC

kasbah wrote: post #99

jakeonthemove wrote: post #23

Stallman is a smart man, a genius - that's exactly why his way of computing will never be used by most other people. I do my computing in a terribly inefficient way - Windows and GUI as much as possible to avoid text/code and throw as many apps and resources at a task as possible to make it easier/faster - I've managed to outgrow a T9600 Core 2 Duo in daily use (it's 100% loaded all the time), and now I'm on the way…

>If RMS saw me, he'd probably shoot me on the spot You must be thinking of ESR: http://www.catb.org/~esr/guns/

That is very distasteful. Just because someone is advocating firearms rights doesn't mean he will shoot you if you don't share his opinions.

Re: Richard Stallman: How I do my Computing

#147

Post by prtamil » Sat, Apr 07, 2012, 11:08 AM UTC

wow So many Trolls. its like troll zoo.

Re: Richard Stallman: How I do my Computing

#148

Post by xyzzyz » Sat, Apr 07, 2012, 11:08 AM UTC

kellishaver wrote: post #39

bfrs wrote: post #29

Can someone help me understand what the purpose of this is: I have several free web browsers on my laptop, but I generally do not look at web sites from my own machine, aside from a few sites operated for or by the GNU Project, FSF or me. I fetch web pages from other sites by sending mail to a program that fetches them, much like wget, and then mails them back to me.

Does anyone have any idea what program he's using for this? I would suspect that it's because he feels browsing web pages doesn't need to be instant, in a lot of cases, and he can just fetch pages via email and read them later at his leisure, and also have a convenient archive of them.

Assuming nothing changed in last 3 years, there's a simple script on gnu server that does the trick: you send an email with subject "wget http://websi.te, and get response like this:

http://wklej.org/hash/492f622afed/

Re: Richard Stallman: How I do my Computing

#149

Post by pygy_ » Sat, Apr 07, 2012, 11:09 AM UTC

b1daly wrote: post #134

pygy_ wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look up the definition of conformism. It's about conforming to social norms, not personal ethics.

I'm not being literal! Their are flavors of personal ethics. You can be a non-conformist and have ideals about behavior that don't extend to other people. Really that's the core of my annoyance with his point of view. It's just annoyance. Richard Stallman is a person of influence, but only in a narrow community. So I don't think he is dangerous. He's a person of great accomplishment, and has contributed a huge amount…

He advocates his views loudly, but he's not trying to impose anything to anyone.

He's judgmental towards those who don't share them, though. Maybe that's what you mean when you say he's conformist?

Technology is not all there is to oppression, for sure, but he's doing his part as a programmer to prevent it.

The creation of the GNU movement, and subsequently of the FSF stems from a personal grief: the demise of the MIT AI lab during the Lisp machines wars. You can read more about it here:

http://www.donhopkins.com/drupal/node/109

Re: Richard Stallman: How I do my Computing

#150

Post by reinhardt » Sat, Apr 07, 2012, 11:11 AM UTC

X-Istence wrote: post #67

homosaur wrote: post #42

The one thing I get kind of annoyed with Stallman at is that he keeps mentioning this Leemote machine he has, which runs free software even in the BIOS. He might as well say that he runs Linux on a magical unicorn. I have tried and never been able to get my hands on one of these things. I'd really like to see Stallman jump off his insistence on free for one second and maybe suggest something realistic for users who c…

I've wanted to purchase a Leemote laptop/computer for a while now, and each time I go searching for them I come back empty handed. That being said, a quick Google search did return valid results this time around, particularly that it is for sale on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Screen-Lemote-Yeeloong-8101_B-Netbook/... It is a $499 dollar 10.1" netbook that runs at 1 Ghz with 1 GB of ram and a 160 GB hard disk. With…

"a quick Google search did return valid results this time around, particularly that it is for sale on Amazon."

It's kinda amusing that in your quest for more RMS-inspired freedom you came in contact with two of his companies-non-gratae.