Hey, thanks ruling out the 60s as too old even to consider. :)
I think anyone who is a seat-filler has a problem. But if one codes for fun, if one sees new technology and just DLs a tutorial and starts using it, if one is always thinking about how ones code can be tighter, such that every time one looks at ones code one rewrites it, one will be OK.
No need to stop coding to make money. Top coders do fine, and then one gets to code.
I am consulting for a company where I gave up a top spot so I would have more time to work on my startup: http://tiltontec.com/
I am sixty-two, have been coding head down on hard problems since 1978, on the Apple II.
You sound like you know how to code. Can you talk a little more about how the algorithm you were confronting made the effort of getting a Scheme platform working worthwhile? Understood if the answer is "not that big an effort". :)
Part of my question is that a solid lisp (of any ilk) programmer can program non-lispy languages in a lispy way.
My first thought was that the question cannot be answered without knowing what we must fail at inevitably for life to be futile. I looked up futile to be sure:
"incapable of producing any useful result; pointless."
As I feared, it begs the question: what is considered useful?
If it is leaving the world a better (healthier, more peaceful, more ccmfrtable) place than when you found it, no, life is not futile.
If the goal is personal happiness or at least contentment, no, life is not futile, though it certainly feels that way during clinical depression. (Long, dark winters can do that -- look up S.A.D.)
Good gosh, no. For example, I am with Einstein: make everything as simple as possible, but no simpler. ie, There is a right amount of everything. I guess I am also with Goldilocks, then. I said, "More comfortable", but Americans have nicely demonstrated how in excess that leads to obesity and diabetes. So now we have learned that true comfort comes from a bit more exercise and a lot less garbage food, and now we have come full circle: life is not futile. People ridiculed in the 60s for espousing healthier diet finally got heard and made the world a better place. Did you see the recent news about Coke/Pepsi in decline? Kaching.
Nonsense. The standards process is a beast, so no one is going to kick it off for anything other than a good solid rethink. As others have noted, the language and spec are done, aka pretty much ideal. Go write some code, people.
ps. Love elsewhere a mention of "modern-style" language development. Sounds like "make it up as we go", what Lisp was doing in the sixties.
That's right: The spec will never be revised, not because it already defines the ideal programming language (is that really your argument?), but because the effort and expense is so great.
Maybe somewhere in between. The imperfections are so small that even a modest effort would never get undertaken. Something folks need to realize is that Lisp truly is a metalanguage: I think both Graham and Norvig knocked off quick and dirty OOP hacks when that (decent) fad came along. So it is hard to imagine what innovation might come along that would force us to get the Lisp hood up.
I think anyone who is a seat-filler has a problem. But if one codes for fun, if one sees new technology and just DLs a tutorial and starts using it, if one is always thinking about how ones code can be tighter, such that every time one looks at ones code one rewrites it, one will be OK.
No need to stop coding to make money. Top coders do fine, and then one gets to code.
I am consulting for a company where I gave up a top spot so I would have more time to work on my startup: http://tiltontec.com/
I am sixty-two, have been coding head down on hard problems since 1978, on the Apple II.
Good news, grasshopper: it never gets old.
Now if you'll excuse me, it's time for my nap.