Recent Entries

Wed | 23 July 2003

Commentary: Graham on `Beating the Averages'

11:03 EDT | In this paper Graham argues that the way to `beat the averages is to use Lisp or languages like Lisp. I find the argument (very) unconvincing.

Wed | 23 July 2003

Commendary: Graham on `Hackers and Painters'

11:03 EDT | In this paper Graham discusses how `hackers' share a lot with painters. I find the argument poor.

Mon | 19 May 2003

Why Postscript Sucks

00:52 EDT | This is another in the series of reconstructions of old papers. This paper was written in 1991 and addenda were added in 1996. I will be adding commentary over the next few weeks. The thrust of this paper is that while I happen to like Postscript there is still a lot of reason to criticize it.

Sat | 3 May 2003

Snctns isnt Pwr

11:47 EDT | Graham's paper on `Succinctness is Power' deals with the problem of succinctness in programming in an inadequate way. This paper attempts to broaden consideration, raising the general questions of what is succinctness and what is its role in the practice of programming. This paper is one of the papers listed in Design Notes.

Tue | 29 Apr 2003

Commentary: Graham on `Succinctness is Power'

11:09 EDT | Paul Graham has written another paper on design. This note discusses the relationship between the succinctness of the language and its power and is found at Succinctness is Power. This is a Commentary on that paper. It is one of the papers listed in Design Notes.

Sun | 13 Apr 2003

Commentary: Graham on `The Hundred-Year Language'

19:30 EDT | Paul Graham has written another paper on design. He focusses on the design problem by looking at the notion of an ideal computer language as it might be found 100 years from now. The Hundred-Year Language. This is a Commentary on that paper. It is one of the papers listed in Design Notes.

Sun | 13 Apr 2003

Commentary: `TeX in a Commercial Environment'

10:30 EDT | A decade and a half ago (1987) I wrote a piece: The Use of TeX in a Commercial Environment. This is a Commentary on that paper. It is one of the papers listed in Ancient Runes.

Tue | 11 Mar 2003

Commentary: `Mid-Summer RBIs'

23:03 EST | (draft) In the middle of 2002 I wrote a piece: Mid-Summer RBIs. This is a Commentary on that paper.

Mon | 10 Mar 2003

Commentary: `World of Ends'

11:16 EST | (draft) Searls and Weinberger have written a piece: World of Ends. This is a Commentary on that paper.

Thu | 13 Feb 2003

Card (Drupelet) Examples

01:50 EST | These examples are the beginning of some experiments with using Drupelets to produce cards. There is a description of the cards currently available. This probably requires IE 5.5+ to run well.

Wed | 12 Feb 2003

Cities Documents

23:24 EST | The conversion of some of the documents about cities is beginning to take place. The first documents converted are being tested, and the documents are listed.

Sun | 9 Feb 2003

What's in a Blog?

01:49 EST | This is a (slight) rewrite of a paper that previously appeared as a part of the Piled Higher and Deeper Section of my old Home Page. The new paper is here and the previous version is there.

Fri | 7 Feb 2003

Real-izations

00:08 EST | Some facts about the net have been becoming more and more clear as time has passed. Now some of these have cumulated to be come clear enough that they can be realized and faced.

Tue | 4 Feb 2003

What's Old with Chandler?

20:21 EST | Mitch Kapor's Chandler appears to be pretty much old hat. A draft of a paper discussing this piece of software has been developed and presented here.

Sat | 1 Feb 2003

Blogs and PIMs

16:40 EST | I am beginning to reconstruct some earlier work on both Blogs and PIMs. It will be released here as soon as drafts are ready.

Fri | 31 Jan 2003

Chandler: More soft soap?

11:21 EST | Chandlers used to sell soap. Mitch Kapor may not have been selling soap, but he tried to sell a little Chandler at Stanford recently. This provided a reason for discussion of his attempt to re-enter the PIM problem domain. Some notes on Kapor's goals are found in his note. Kapor is responsible for Agenda, generally conceeded to have been one of the best earlier attempts at this problem.

I paid some attention to PIMs in an earlier paper. This should now probably be adapted to add some consideration of Chandler. I don't regard the prospects for success as good.

Fri | 31 Jan 2003

Graham on Taste Commentary

00:15 EST | Graham's paper on design was preceeded about a year earlier by a piece that dealt with the subject of `taste'. This paper affords another opportunity for a parallel-ogue on the subject of design and taste issues. Graham's paper is full of interesting speculations, but I happen to disagree with a lot of it, so it seems to be a fruitful place to spend some time and energy.

Thu | 30 Jan 2003

Document Conversion

23:11 EST | Document conversion into a form appropriate to this new format is underway. It will take a while to convert all of the papers, as they will be---at least to some extent---re-written as they are converted.

Conversion consists of translating the papers into a form appropriate for the Drupelets project. A draft of a paper on some of the preliminary experiments with Drupelets will be started soon.

Thu | 30 Jan 2003

New Initial Web Page

13:14 EST | It's time for another cycle of evolution of the web site. Previous versions can be found here and here.

This is a different look, and is an experiment in the early stages....