Lisp in any form will never be mainstream. That doesn't mean that Clojure can't establish a survivable niche for itself but it will never be as popular as Ruby or Python, never mind Java.
Maybe he did understand, yet disagreed with your characterization of a large set of people's beliefs. Literally comparing what some view as the cornerstone of their religion with rape does not belong on this board.
What does belong is the heart wrenching story of prioritization of life following the death of a family member, same with complications of a daughter. Many of us are planning on having children soon, so the perspective is very interesting.
As a Catholic I also object to Paul's failure to venerate the Virgin Mary.
You know what I think would make this posting better? If 'pg added a feature I just came up with to HN that allows us to collaboratively edit Paul Buchheit's stories as if they were Wikipedia articles or Stack Overflow answers. I bet, as a group, we'd sure do a great job of capturing what Paul thinks about what's important in life, and also we could better inform people about why they shouldn't use vi because modal editors are relics best left to the 1970s.
I care about the world that my daughter will grow up in, and I think it's important for people to understand that love isn't something that can ever be given or taken by force. It must be a gift.
You phrased that in an ambiguous way. I believe you mean that the gift is being able to feel love, not the love itself. Loving someone may cause you to give "gifts" to that person, but the love itself is not a gift to them. You are the one enjoying that gift from life.
It's not given or taken. It's not a thing. It's not a pie -- in which, once you've eaten it, no one else can.
It sometimes feel like it is a thing, a limited resource that we must hoard. Something made up of hormones and bioenergy. Something precious and delicate that we must protect. But that's fear, not love.
We're born in love. We receive it from our mother and father. But as we grow older, we forget that Love Is. So we attribute it to our parents. Our parents have bad days too. And we learned to seek out attention by doing things. We've substituted need for approval for love.
And then puberty happens.
What is it that the ancients say? A thirsty man stands in the middle of a river, screaming his heart out because he doesn't know what he needs it right there in him.
The gift is in remembering it's always been there. It's not something someone gives you because you've been a good boy. It's not that special: everyone, regardless of sex, race, or faith or lack of faith -- regardless of the acts you've committed, the shame, guilt, fear that tortue you -- everyone is loved. That is the "unconditional" part of "unconditional love."
Yes. Tell Paul what's appropriate in his own, intensely personal, unabashedly honest message from the heart. I'm going through pain in my life and I'm glad he shared it. His honestly about religion was heartwarming, and I knew there'd be people in the Hacker News comments looking to argue about it straight away.
Is he even talking about religion? I thought he was just trying to evoke the purposeful animating idea that people of religion think about when they think about God.
"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?", asks the nerd. "No, for thou art not a day in a particular season and the comparison would make no sense. Also, stop using vi."
Hacker News is not about religion. It shouldn't be.
Sometimes the occasional jab at fundies is overlooked, sometimes the occasional mention of solace in a higher power is tolerated; but the nature of Paul's characterization was beyond the cultural norms of this board.
The strength and appropriateness of someone's statement in areas that are beyond his or her's direct involvement in a particular project or field should come directly from the innate strength of the arguments themselves and from the innate appropriateness of the arguments themselves.
Paul is a great man. He's directly impacted my everyday work flow and many of my ideas - but the closeness of this community is damaged by divisive and potentially offensive claims. If anything he should be setting the standard for what is expected here; and I say this with full knowledge of of how many of his potentially offensive arguments rang truth to my ears.
If someone is in pain and they wish to talk to someone close to them, even with potentially offensive ideas, that is one thing. Writing something on the internet and submitting it to an online forum, however, is an implicit acceptance of the review of others at that board.
I truly believe he is well meaning, civil, caring, etc. But this place will devolve quickly when the subject matter becomes highly subjective and divisive.
I am aware this 'God' concept is very abstract. Maybe I should have emphasized the any in 'any form or idea'. Indeed, I do not understand what it adds to this deep and wise essay.
If you feel the essay is deep and wise, then you got something out of it.
I suggest examining how the concept of God bothers you in the essay; I'm not saying this to say you don't get it or that you are wrong. That disturbing feeling is the Jungnian shadow speaking when one is trying to reject something. Unconditional love is unconditional: even the concepts and feelings that disturb you.
Though ... if it doesn't bother you, then there's nothing further to say, eh?
Good analysis. I think what maybe bothered me is that Paul mentions mindfulness, being present in the moment, and so on. I personally struggle to explain these concepts to an atheist friend of mine who mixes up these important aspects of everyday being with religious world views. They are separate, and I love to see such elegant essays that do not blend the two dimensions, mindfulness and faith (of any specific or abstract sort).
I can tell you that, if you meditate (mindfully) long enough, you will trip out. Whether what you see while tripping out is something you want to call gods, or God, that is up to each individual. The religions you encountered as a child will frame much of the experiences you have during the trip, whether you want that or not.
There is a big difference between talking about being mindful, and practicing mindfulness. People like talking about it for a variety of reasons, and none of that helps with practice. Being mindful, you are probing into the fundamental nature of things: things come and go, they don't satisfy, and they are not you.
Things come and go: that includes any of the heavenly and angelic beings you might encounter while tripping out meditating. Easy to do if you don't want to believe their realness in the first place. However, that also includes any fears and aversions you might have about religion.
So ... the religious and mindfulness are not really separate. I've written some cheat-sheets and minor how-tos on how to practice mindfulness while avoiding bringing in religion. Because I know a lot of people have hangups that trigger this. (And I want to eat :-)). But essentially: if you are religious, then the attachment you let go is that of slavish worship; if you are not religious, then the attachment is in the aversion to anything smacking of religion. Either way, your actions and thoughts are being controlled by things that happen in the early childhood, ... that's not really being mindful ...
I don't know how to talk about the "first flowering" -- that first time you feel unconditional love while meditating -- without bringing in talk about the wisdom traditions. At best, I say, "practice this, and see for yourself." Usually it is, "practice this so you can feel calmer and be more effective living your life." And if they start blissing, well, let them be even then. They can come to their own conclusions.
I don't know if that helps you talk with your friend or not. I think it will come out better in your own words anyways :-D
@leibniz sound interesting, how about taking this privately by email?
Not I. Paul Buchheit is sharing a deeply personal account of what is most important to him and why. If that includes some form or idea of God, why should he leave it out?
I disagree. If God was integral to his experience, why should he self-censor that? I'd much rather read a truthful account of his experiences than a white-washed one.
Who was stupid enough to take the opposite bet? Of course polluting an otherwise touching and thought-provoking essay with God Talk provokes moans from those of us, thankfully many, who have no wish to see it.
It's as if someone took a few beautiful pictures of picturesque landscapes and then in the last few shots the bottom of the photo included their stinky foot and some empty cans of Bud Light. You could make $20 predicting the moans about that, too.
If your post has a point other than to provoke people, I don't see what it is.
You and I both know there are plenty of people on HN who both believe and don't believe in God, and you had to have known that a comment like this would cause contention and detract from the point of Paul's post.
I think the point of the essay is perfectly made without the final part about God. I found the perfect rhythm of the essay got broken at bit this point, and that's why I'd loved to see it without it.
You could replace it with "Universe" or "everything that exists" or "total consciousness" or "enlightened perception" or "stillness" or any number of words or phrases...
I've come to realize that some people are afraid of the concept of God. This fear manifests it in several ways.
My mother-in-law is afraid of dying. But more than a healthy respect that one might expect with regards to ceasing to exist, so afraid that she cannot talk about it. She cannot utter its possibility, nor conceive thoughts which involve a state of the world in which she is no longer living. It really puts a crimp in estate planning as you might imagine. Here is a person who refuses to write a last will and testament. The will is only a useful document when you are dead, and to think about the things you put into a will you have to start with "ok so when I am dead ..." And for her, she will not think that thought. She cannot even think of being dead in the abstract her fear is that powerful.
I've met people who respond that way thinking about God. Abstract or not, conversational or theological, just can't go there. My Dad is like that. Its because he has combined the notions of "God" (sort of the abstract concept that Paul talks about of forgiveness and love) with "Religion" which Paul talks about as using Fear and Greed to exhort behaviors.
It is sad when being unable to think thoughts about a subject causes hurt to those you love. Their love prevents them from bringing it up, and the circle is complete.
Interesting point. As a teen-aged atheist and Ayn Rand fan, I was so determinedly atheistic that I couldn't use the word "god" even in a metaphorical way. Perhaps I was afraid of the concept (or afraid of what devout believers would do to me). My literalism probably interfered with effective communication at times.
Nowadays I aim to focus on the underlying intent, rather than the literal meaning. God is a fairly abstract, catch-all word that can mean a lot of different things to different people.
It should, make it meaningless, and thus it should be possible to talk about the various meanings like you talk about kitten pictures on the Internet.
What I have observed however that talking about God locks some people up. Sometimes in an actively un-responsive way. So for them the word is associated with a meaning they are running away from. And you can't talk about their meaning because, well they are running away. The is the circle I alluded to in my original comment.
Before reading the God part, I wanted to forward the essay to family members who you might refer to as belonging to "most people." Because of the God part, I did not.
Interesting that you name them 'together'. On the surface, they are doing quite different things. On a deeper level, it seems to me, they approaching things in a very similar manner. I think what they share is a style of work very detached from the hectic, local improvement approach, which is usually forced upon us in industry for efficiency reasons. They inspiringly take their time to dig deep to identify hidden assumptions to get to the root causes of problems. Quite in the sense of the artist or scientist Bertrand Russell thought of. http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/rmhttp/radio4/transcripts/1948_re...
At a deeper level they are both pragmatic philosophers. They think at a high level but they are hands-on and have their feet firmly on ground realities. Inventing on principle is Bret Victor's contribution, but Rich Hickey surely lives it; and Hammock-Driven Development is Rich's notion, but there wouldn't be "Inventing on principle" without HDD on Bret's part. These two are awesome.
The mini-bio of Gerald Sussman on the right-hand side states that "Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs .. is universally acknowledged as one of the top ten textbooks in computer science".
I'm curious why they explicitely speak about the top ten.
This is a misunderstanding. You can read my question as "According to [..] the SICP is one of the top 10 CS books. Which, do you think, are those?"
I'm just interested because it seems SICP is THE book on programming, and I wonder: Which other CS books are that prominent? The only one I can think of, is "Artificial Intelligence - A Modern Approach" by Russell and Norvig.
This is probably going to devolve again into a long discussion, but here's the books with an academic bent that I was most impressed with (many of them 25 years ago, of course):
"Compilers: Principles, Techniques, and Tools" by Alfred V. Aho, Ravi Sethi and Jeffrey D. Ullman (a.k.a the "Dragon Book")
"The Art of Computer Programming" by Donald Knuth
"Introduction to Automata Theory, Languages and Computation" by John E. Hopcroft and Jeffrey D. Ullman
An amazing book, despite the fact that the core thesis of the first edition, that we were on the verge of permanent world domination by RISC architectures, turned out to be dead wrong:
"Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach" John L. Hennessy and David A. Patterson
Two books by Niklaus Wirth (A bit out of fashion, maybe because they were written in the "wrong" languages, and maybe because they were TOO concise in today's world of shovelware books. Wirth is the Strunk & White of CS writers):
"Algorithms and Data Structures" by Niklaus Wirth
"Compiler Construction" by Niklaus Wirth
This book might be the one that impressed me most in my undergraduate studies, although I can't say I've done much with what I read there:
"Parallel Program Design: A Foundation" by K. Mani Chandy and Jayadev Misra
A true developer is a competent, intelligent, caring enthusiast. The author presents himself as true developer of the first (computer industry) generation. His language of choice is Common Lisp, which has an unhealthy community full of negativity and egos. Since the author is enthusiastic about CL, he insists that each community member should be a true developer and help CL succeed.
