Re: "Misunderstanding of the lambda calculus"

[David Kastrup]

"Richard M. Stallman" <address@hidden> writes:

>     As you can see, practically all meanings involve surviving into the
>     present time.  So I stand by my point that "archaic" and "dead" are
>     not synonymous.
>
> Archaic does not imply "dead", but it does imply "not very much
> alive".  Anyway, the relevant point is "archaic" is a smear term.

"Archaic life forms" are those that have survived basically unchanged
for millions of years, that were so well-adapted to their ecological
niche that natural selection has not weeded them out or made them
undergo significant changes.  That's not really a "smear term".  It
does imply "strange to behold as holding its own in modern times where
lots of things have changed utterly in comparison".  But that is
indeed something that I don't consider an unfitting sentiment when
confronted with Emacs.  Though TeX fits the bill even better.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum