Re: [9fans] Problem with mk

[Bakul Shah <bakul@bitblocks.com>]

On Wed, 18 Dec 2013 11:28:21 CST Blake McBride <blake@mcbride.name> wrote:
>
> I'd be a better judge if I understood the purposeful, thought out reason
> behind the problems I am experiencing - assuming there is one.  "That's
> just the way it works" or "we do it differently because we are not unix"
> are stupid as hell arguments.

"That's just the way it works" is exactly the right attitude
to take when you are learning a new language or entering a new
culture! Expecting the new language/culture/world to be better
or similar to the old will lead to a lot of frustration and
slow you down quite a bit. So leave your value judgements at
the door and just try to understand things *as they are*.

> I remain confident that there is a thought out, reasonable algorithm
> employed by mk that I am yet ignorant of.

		Tom Knight and the Lisp Machine

    A novice was trying to fix a broken Lisp machine by
    turning the power off and on.

    Knight, seeing what the student was doing, spoke sternly:
    You cannot fix a machine by just power-cycling it with no
    understanding of what is going wrong.

    Knight turned the machine off and on.

    The machine worked.