In article <1ijmnx1.iya47k1bw8dmoN%peterd.news@gmail.invalid>
	   peterd.news@gmail.invalid "Pd" writes:

> Jim  wrote:
>
> > REPEAT
> >	    JIM: IT IS
> >	    ROWLAND: IT ISN'T
> > UNTIL (HEAT_DEATH_OF_UNIVERSE == TRUE)
>
> Added to Macros. Ta.

For increased cross-platform portability, try encoding in "C":

void Argybargy(int Topic)
{
int Jim, Rowland;

srand(Topic);
Rowland = rand();
for (;;)
    Rowland = (Jim = Rowland ^ ~0) ~0;
}
-- 
Andrew Stephenson

Andrew Stephenson  wrote:

> Is LISP the one with too many parentheses?

Yes. Fiendishly clever, and perfectly impossible to debug anyone else's
programs because you tend to create all your own structure and names for
things, so there aren't very many fixed points to hold onto. If you see
what I mean.

-- 
Pd

Woody  wrote:

> >    peterd.news@gmail.invalid "Pd" writes:
> >
> >> I thought I'd try the same thing written in Lisp but even more
> >> generalised, since anything that happens more than once on usenet
> >> probably appears as a pattern elsewhere.
> 
> Sick man!
> 
> wouldn't it be just a simple:
> 
> (loop
>   (print "Jim: it is")
>   (print "Rowland: it isn't"))

The point was to generalise it so it would take three arguments, one for
each participant and one statement, the veracity of which is asserted or
repudiated. The use of Lisp was because there needs to be some parsing
of the verb, and English is so full of irregular verbs and the most
commonly used verbs are often irregular, so a language that lends itself
to string manipulation seemed a good choice. Perhaps Perl would be
better.

-- 
Pd

Andrew Stephenson  wrote:

> In article <1ijo54p.1x91boy1vlmiwyN%peterd.news@gmail.invalid>
>          peterd.news@gmail.invalid "Pd" writes:
> 
> > [...] so a language that lends itself to string manipulation
> > seemed a good choice. Perhaps Perl would be better.
> 
> Moreover, it opens the door to puns like "Perl before swine".  We
> now need to C about the BASIC stuff: who gets to be the swine and
> so Forth.  Wouldn't want to COBOL these jokes together.

Enough of the small talk. I'm all for transformation, but this is all
just prolog - eiffel certain, in fact I'm adamant, this too will come to
pass. Call it intuition or a tickle of the Delphic Oracle, paying close
attention isn't something you'll rue. Be warned though - you don't want
to provoke a sequel to this post of horrible puns.

-- 
Pd