Fragments

Or: sometimes the obvious answer isn’t the answer at all.

Common Lisp’s pathname system has many problems. Here is proposal to make the situation a little better in one respect. This is not a general fix: it’s just trying to solve one problem.

Most uses of shadow and shadowing-import in Common Lisp packages point to design problems.

[An old article I forgot to publish.]

The UK government wants to effectively ban end-to-end encryption for messaging. Even if this was desirable, it is not usefully possible. The effort wasted on this futile and stupid attempt to do the impossible would be better spent elsewhere.

The tories are very keen that what they call ‘mickey mouse degrees’ be abolished, in favour of apprenticeships. At first blush, this seems to be just a depressing utilitarian idea. But then it seems at first rather odd, and then not odd at all.

Or, why limitations matter.

Štar is a concise and extensible iteration construct for Common Lisp which aims to be pleasant to use, easy to understand, fast if needed, general, and not to look like Fortran.

It is very hard to see what the tories think they are trying to do. They face an opposition which, while not particularly progressive, is a lot more progressive than they are. This opposition is also much more popular than they are. So what are they doing? They’re proposing policies which are even more extreme than the ones they’ve already enacted. Why?

On the 19th April, 2024, Rishi Sunak gave a speech. For reasons which escape me, what he said might still matter.

I am unfortunate enough to have Mel Stride as my MP. On the 21st of March, 2024, he said some really unpleasant things about mental health. I was going to write to him, but there’s just no point: someone who can say what he said is not someone with whom it is useful to communicate. Below is the draft of what I wrote.