Ребята, это стоит перевести даже если вы плохо знаете английский. Это шедевр.

From: ********************* (***********)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: [NEWS] Minority languages   Was: Re: Stack Comments Considered Harmful
Date: *************************

In <*******************************> ********************************* (***
****) writes:

>I've used Forth for 16 years, and Lisp for 23 years. Also, sad but true,
>here in USENET you'll find the same death of the language talk, and remorse
>over the lack of commercial vendors while programmers are being forced on
>the C++ bandwagon.

That reminds me of a story.  It's very early in the morning so I'm a bit less
focused than usual, please bear with me.

There are a large collection of beetle species that live in cave entrances,
tiny beetles that live among the moist gravel.  They all look almost exactly
alike, with one exception -- they have a wildly varied assortment of penis
shapes.  I think there are several hundred species known from southern
Tennessee alone, and an expert can examine a beetle penis under a microscope
and tell where he came from, sometimes down to the individual cave.

The question naturally came up, why did this happen?  Usually dramatic quick
changes get driven by some sort of selection.  An obvious guess is that it
aids speciation, it keeps them from interbreeding too much.  (Not that this
is necessarily an advantage to them, but when there isn't some sort of
barrier to interbreeding then you don't get separate species to classify.
When there is, you do.)  But these beetle species are separated by many
miles.  (And a few miles is enough to completely keep them apart.  They're
blind and they need moist gravel.)  They shouldn't need a breeding barrier.

The answer is that they all evolved from a single species, one that lives in
moist gravel but outdoors.  And they all need a breeding barrier wrt _that_
one.  Without such a barrier, they'd keep getting genes from it faster than
they could select against those genes.  As it is, the outdoor version wanders
into the caves occasionally and can't compete, and doesn't leave its genes
behind either.

------

Oh, now its later in the morning and I've forgotten how that fit in.
Something about special environments where C is not the best language
technically, and problems because C is the best language to manage.  The C
manager has rules of thumb for how long things should take.  50,000 lines of
C should take so many hours to program and so many hours a year to maintain.
The guidelines might not be very good ones, but it's easier to manage with
known guidelines than without.

Sorry, it's completely slipped my mind how the beetle penises apply to this.
Something about management, maybe.

Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
From: *************************** (***************)
Subject: [NEWS] Re: Minority languages   Was: Re: Stack Comments Considered Harmful
Date: ******************************

*********************  writes:

> Sorry, it's completely slipped my mind how the beetle penises apply to this.
> Something about management, maybe.

This reminds me of the story about the chap who entered a bar and
noticed a man staring disconsolately into an open carton lying on
the bar. The newcomer went over to look, and saw in the carton a
small piano with a little man playing it and producing beautiful
music. "That's the most remarkable thing I've ever seen," he said,
wherever did you acquire that?"

The barfly replied, "I found this old lamp at a bazaar and discovered
that it will grant you one wish if you rub it. Here, since it's no
good to me any more, would you like to make a wish?"

"Gee, thanks!" (rub, rub) "I wish for a million bucks."

Suddenly a deafening quacking broke out, as 10^6 ducks fell into the
barroom and made their way out the door. After the last duck exited,
the man who wanted a million bucks aske "What was that all about?"

The man at the bar replied sadly "Evidently the genie is hard of
hearing. You don't really think I wished for a 12-inch pianist, do you?"

Probably if one pondered a while, this story would also tell us
something about management.


--
***************
****************

From: ********************* (***********)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: [NEWS] Re: Minority languages   Was: Re: Stack Comments Considered Harmful
Date: *************************

In <****************************> ******************************** (*****
****) writes:

>|> >I've used Forth for 16 years, and Lisp for 23 years. Also, sad but true,
>|> >here in USENET you'll find the same death of the language talk, and
>|> remorse over the lack of commercial vendors while programmers are being
>|> >forced on the C++ bandwagon.

>You mean, in c.l.forth and c.l.lisp you'll find this kind of talk?
>Well, if you really enjoy such postings, take a look at c.l.modula:-)
>Last time I looked at least half of the postings there were of this
>sort.

Yes!  I can almost remember why that reminded me about the beetles!  The
different languages are all holed up in their own caves, and C stumbles into
each of them and presents a threat from sheer force of numbers.  I still
don't remember what I wanted to say about that.

Managers wish to replace minority languages with C. Therefore, only those minority languages survive which cannot be replaced by C, neither at once nor gradually. So, if a minority language still exists somewhere, this means that to replace it with C they need to trow away all existing stuff, and that gradual replacement is not possible either.

But this also ensures that one minority language cannot be replaced by another minority language.

An overview of features that prevent managers from replacing minority languages with C would be really interesting...