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From: john@amc.com (John Sambrook)
Subject: Re: The expense of call/cc (was R4RS)
Message-ID: <1994Oct18.222555.26673@amc.com>
Organization: Applied Microsystems, Redmond, WA
References: <hbakerCxEz5z.CEF@netcom.com> <mhamburg-101094094146@macb024.mv.us.adobe.com> <hbakerCxHErn.3u5@netcom.com>
Date: Tue, 18 Oct 1994 22:25:55 GMT
Lines: 58

In article <hbakerCxHErn.3u5@netcom.com> hbaker@netcom.com (Henry G. Baker) writes:
>In article <mhamburg-101094094146@macb024.mv.us.adobe.com> mhamburg@mv.us.adobe.com (Mark Hamburg) writes:
>>But remember that the OS
>>vendors are interested in selling software.  And if the performance of that
>>software on existing hardware is inadequate, it probably won't sell very
>>well.  It's one of those chicken-and-the-egg problems.
>
>The performance of M$ Windows has always been inadequate, and probably
>always will be, completely independent of the speed of call/cc.  It's
>been years since anyone _didn't_ buy Windoze (tm) based on its lack of
>alacrity.  Given the way that M$ hires programmers (see the infamous
>M$ Interview thread that won't die), this poor performance is unlikely
>to improve in this century.
>
>>This also assumes a fair amount of enlightenment in Seattle.  Microsoft
>>seems pretty convinced that Visual C++/Basic is the answer.
>
>M$ now has a PARC clone in which several schemers have managed to
>sneak in.  Perhaps M$ PARC will spawn a 'Rain Valley' in much the same
>way that Xerox PARC spawned Apple, Adobe, ... in Silicon Valley.
>
>Speaking of chickens & eggs: companies that are too chicken to fiddle
>with the golden egg, sometimes wake up to find that the golden egg has
>flown the coop.  (Apologies to turkeys everywhere.)
>
>      Henry Baker
>      Read ftp.netcom.com:/pub/hbaker/README for info on ftp-able papers.
>

I don't work for Microsoft, but I was surprised (to say the least) at
what I found inside one of their "Control Panel" components.

I was working on getting Beame and Whiteside NFS working on my NT 3.1 
system here at work.  I was having some problems (which were ultimately
fixed by Beame and Whiteside) and was prowling around in "Dr. Watson" 
logs, etc.

For some reason, I brought up GNU Emacs on the contents of the file
"c:\windows\system32\ncpa.cpl", which I believe is the network control
panel program.  At any rate, in browsing this file, I ran into some
embedded Lisp-like code that looked like it was a Prolog interpreter
written in Lisp.  Looked like it was doing some kind of unification.

I kid you not.  I don't want to include the code, but if you have an 
NT system nearby, you can check it out for yourself.

I don't remember where I heard it, but I'm reminded of the saying that
"Truth is stranger than fiction, because fiction has to make sense."





-- 
John Sambrook                        DNS: john@amc.com     UUCP: amc-gw!john
Applied Microsystems Corporation     Dial: (206) 882-5630  FAX: (206) 883-3049
Redmond, Washington  98073-9702
                                        
