The most powerful programming language is Lisp. If you don't know Lisp (or its variant, Scheme), you don't appreciate what a powerful language is. Once you learn Lisp you will see what is missing in most other languages.
When you start a Lisp system, it enters a read-eval-print loop. Most other languages have nothing comparable to read, nothing comparable to eval, and nothing comparable to print. What gaping deficiencies!
Lisp is no harder to understand than other languages. So if you have never learned to program, and you want to start, start with Lisp. If you learn to edit with Emacs, you can learn Lisp by writing editing commands for Emacs. You can use the Introduction to Programming in Emacs Lisp to learn with: it is free as in freedom, and you can order printed copies from the FSF.
To study Scheme, and programming through Scheme, I recommend Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs, by Abelson and Sussman.
Please don't buy books from Amazon!
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Anonymous2012-07-04 16:45
The programming languages I use are Lisp and C. They are also my favorite languages. However, since around 1992 I have worked mainly on free software activism, which means I am too busy to do much programming. As a result, I have not had time or occasion to learn newer languages such as Perl, Python, PHP or Ruby.
I read a book about Java, and found it an elegant further development from C. But I have never used it. I did write some code in Java once, but that was the island in Indonesia.
By contrast, I find C++ quite ugly.
I skimmed documentation of Python after people told me it was fundamentally similar to Lisp. My conclusion is that that is not so. When you start Lisp, it does `read', `eval', and `print', all of which are missing in Python.
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Anonymous2012-07-04 16:46
I firmly refuse to install non-free software or tolerate its installed presence on my computer or on computers set up for me.
However, if I am visiting somewhere and the machines available nearby happen to contain non-free software, through no doing of mine, I don't refuse to touch them. I will use them briefly for tasks such as browsing. This limited usage doesn't give my assent to the software's license, or make me responsible its being present in the computer, or make me the possessor of a copy of it, so I don't see an ethical obligation to refrain from this. Of course, I explain why they should migrate the machines to free software, but I don't push them hard, because that would be counterproductive.
Likewise, I don't need to worry about what software is in a kiosk, pay phone, or ATM that I am using. I hope their owners migrate them to free software, for their sake, but there's no need for me to refuse to touch them until then. (I do consider what those machines and their owners might do with my personal data, but that's a different issue. My response to that issue is to minimize those activities which give them any data about me.)
That reasoning is based on the fact that I was not responsible for setting up those machines, or for how that was done. By contrast, if I were to ask or lead someone to set up a computer for me to use, that would make me ethically responsible for its software load. In such a case I insist on free software, just as if the machine were mine.
Skype is another kind of exception. Using Skype to talk with someone else who is using Skype is encouraging the other to use nonfree software. So I won't use it under any circumstances.
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Anonymous2012-07-04 16:46
tl;dr faggot no one is going to read that fukken much faget
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Anonymous2012-07-04 16:46
I sometimes use Google's search engine, and I sometimes use DuckDuckGo. When I use a search engine, it is always from a machine that isn't mine and that other people also use. I never identify myself to the site, of course.
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Anonymous2012-07-04 16:47
I do not use social networking sites. They are inherently inconvenient for me. That doesn't mean I think they are all unethical. Some are, some are not. Social networking sites raise their own set of ethical issues, completely different from the ethical issues of distributing software (free vs proprietary).
I have a Twitter account called rmspostcomments, but I never post on Twitter. I use it to log in on other sites to post comments on articles. Any other Twitter account that claims to be mine is an impostor.
The rms account on identi.ca repeats the political notes from this site, but I do not post on it directly.
Aside from those two, any account on a social networking site that says it is mine is an impostor.
I do not post on 4chan. Occasionally I have answered questions for interviews for 4chan, but any account there that says it is me is an impostor.
As for Facebook and Google+, I reject them on principle because they require people to give their "real names". I am proud to identify myself when stating my views; I can afford to do that because I am in a fairly safe position. There are people who rationally fear reprisals (from employers, gangsters, bullies, or the state) if they state their views. For their sake, let's reject any social networking site which insists on being told a user's real name.
Google+ says it will offer to hide the user's real name, but demands people prove an "established identity" or provide ID. I am suspicious of this requirement, but not sure what it will mean in practice.
Of course, Facebook is bad for many other reasons as well.
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Anonymous2012-07-04 16:49
All governments should be pressured to correct their abuses of human rights.
Richard Stallman
Anything that prevents you from being friendly, a good neighbour, is a terror tactic.
Richard Stallman
Control over the use of one's ideas really constitutes control over other people's lives; and it is usually used to make their lives more difficult.
Richard Stallman
Fighting patents one by one will never eliminate the danger of software patents, any more than swatting mosquitoes will eliminate malaria.
Richard Stallman
I could have made money this way, and perhaps amused myself writing code. But I knew that at the end of my career, I would look back on years of building walls to divide people, and feel I had spent my life making the world a worse place.
Richard Stallman
If programmers deserve to be rewarded for creating innovative programs, by the same token they deserve to be punished if they restrict the use of these programs.
Richard Stallman
If you want to accomplish something in the world, idealism is not enough - you need to choose a method that works to achieve the goal.
Richard Stallman
People sometimes ask me if it is a sin in the Church of Emacs to use vi. Using a free version of vi is not a sin; it is a penance. So happy hacking.
Richard Stallman
The desire to be rewarded for one's creativity does not justify depriving the world in general of all or part of that creativity.
Richard Stallman
The idea of copyright did not exist in ancient times, when authors frequently copied other authors at length in works of non-fiction. This practice was useful, and is the only way many authors' works have survived even in part.
Richard Stallman
The paradigm of competition is a race: by rewarding the winner, we encourage everyone to run faster. When capitalism really works this way, it does a good job; but its defenders are wrong in assuming it always works this way.
Richard Stallman
The reason that a good citizen does not use such destructive means to become wealthier is that, if everyone did so, we would all become poorer from the mutual destructiveness.
Richard Stallman
There is nothing wrong with wanting pay for work, or seeking to maximize one's income, as long as one does not use means that are destructive.
Richard Stallman
Value your freedom or you will lose it, teaches history. 'Don't bother us with politics', respond those who don't want to learn.
Richard Stallman
Whether gods exist or not, there is no way to get absolute certainty about ethics. Without absolute certainty, what do we do? We do the best we can.
Richard Stallman
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Anonymous2012-07-04 16:53
Steve Jobs, the pioneer of the computer as a jail made cool, designed to sever fools from their freedom, has died.
As Chicago Mayor Harold Washington said of the corrupt former Mayor Daley, "I'm not glad he's dead, but I'm glad he's gone." Nobody deserves to have to die — not Jobs, not Mr. Bill, not even people guilty of bigger evils than theirs. But we all deserve the end of Jobs' malign influence on people's computing.
Unfortunately, that influence continues despite his absence. We can only hope his successors, as they attempt to carry on his legacy, will be less effective.
—Richard Stallman
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Anonymous2012-07-04 17:18
>>1 When you start a Lisp system, it enters a read-eval-print loop. Most other languages have nothing comparable to read, nothing comparable to eval, and nothing comparable to print. What gaping deficiencies!
ha ha ha, what a joke, most every interpreted language has a repl, Python, Perl, Ruby, etc, it cracks me up when people try to describe why Lisp is different/better than other languages, very few (only experts) can do it.
and now for something I wrote: There are people who call all languages except a certain language Blub. The funny thing is, only the person who coined the term Blub is able to articulate exactly what makes this certain non-Blub language better than Blub. Everyone else who talks about non-Blub are only able to ramble aimlessly not stop with metaphors and adjectives about how great non-Blub is. Well I think non-Blub needs its own name, so lets call it Bulb, Blub spelled backwards. Now when people rave on and on about their wonder language of choice, we can refer to any such languages as Bulb without getting dragged into any stupid conversation that only insults a persons intelligence by not talking about any actual facts or evidence. People who go on and on how their language is better because its more exquisite, eloquent, elegant, etc, are not worth talking to and their language should be referred to as Bulb.
I do not post on 4chan. Occasionally I have answered questions for interviews for 4chan, but any account there that says it is me is an impostor.
This is false.
4chan has no accounts
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LOOOOOOOOOOOOOL FINDER2012-07-04 19:18
I read a book about Java, and found it an elegant further development from C. But I have never used it. I did write some code in Java once, but that was the island in Indonesia.
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Anonymous2012-07-04 19:24
When you start a Lisp system, it enters a read-eval-print loop. Most other languages have nothing comparable to read, nothing comparable to eval, and nothing comparable to print. What gaping deficiencies!
Im sick of these shitty lisp threads. Lisp is shit
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Anonymous2012-07-04 19:55
STALLMAN THREADS
is that like pthreads but with more bloat
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Anonymous2012-07-04 20:09
HAHAHAHA OH WOW
YOU JUST WENT AND FUCKED WITH TE WRONG ANUS HAXEER KID
LET ME TELL YOU FAGGOT I HAVE HAXXED OVER 9000!!! ANII IN MY DAYS
DONT FUCK WITH MEE