Blog -- Page 2

The FSF's definition of free software, written above, is a useful broad principle which relates to how much control a human user has over a given computer program. In this article, I discuss some specific criteria which we can use to assess "Software Freedom".

I think the typical definition which people think of when they think "free software" is simply whether the software is open-source, or perhaps even if the software costs nothing to use. However, while these users are correct for some definition of "free software", I, like the FSF, think it can be useful to load the term "Free Software" with more implications in order to better capture the nature of the relationship of a human user to a piece of software. What is important is not really what the legal status of a piece of code is, but rather the practical level of control which a user has over that code. In this era of ever-increasing computer technology, I think it becomes more and more important that humans can control the computations which they use, and not the other way around.

There are a huge variety of programming languages out there, an infinite number of concepts, and numerous ways to think about any given problem. How can one logically discriminate among these choices to make wise programming decisions?

First off, there exist a number of software-design camps, each with their own design methodoligies and folk-loreish guidelines.

Some people claim that you should thoroughly document your code with comments, others claim that you should use comments sparsely lest they become out of date and misdirect future readers.

Most people think it's important that programmers "write understandable code." But how does one define what is understandable and what is not? Is it better for code to be concise and dense (ala APL) or verbose and wordy (ala COBOL)? Some people argue that verbose code is easier to understand, as it can sometimes be "self-documenting", while others claim that dense code is easier to read, as it is shorter.

Object Oriented designers love applying acronyms such as SOLID and GRASP to software. Functional designers love applying principles and techniques such as immutability, declarativity, currying, and higher-order functions.

Every programmer has a preference for a certain programming language – probably the one which she has spent the most time with. People get into passionate debates comparing languages and software ecosystems.

Underlying every experience in life is uncertainty. It is in general impossible to obtain complete confidence about anything.

When a human walks through a room, she can instantly filter out irrelevant details. The reason that she can filter out irrelevant details is that we as humans subconsciously accept certain truths and foundational beliefs. Without making these operational assumptions, we would have to consider an untold number of possibilities at any given point in time and we would not be able to function in the real world.

Examples of details which we safely disgard include:

1. The ceiling is not going to fall on me, I do not need to analyze its structural integrity.
2. The pattern of light on the wall is still, therefore it is unlikely that it is a threat to me but rather is just light shining through the window.
3. The laws of gravity, force, and momentum will continue to stay in effect.

Subconsciously accepting these beliefs and many others about how our world functions allows us to focus on important threats and goals, such as

1. My little sister just stuck out her leg to trip me.

The Official Common Lisp standard ANSI X3.226-1994 (now referred to as ANSI INCITS 226-1994) is available from ANSI for a cost of $60. However, besides the fact that this document is expensive, it is also known that this document is actually a low-quality scan of the original.

Many people apparently use the Common Lisp Hyperspec, but I personally find this document highly confusing and difficult to learn from in any meaningful way. It is from the early days of "hypertext" and employs so many links as to be basically unreadable in my opinion.

According to Franz Inc"free use, copying, distribution"Tex sourcesPostscript copies