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The book of Quux from the Gospel of Lisp
This text, written by a Columbia freshman named Lindsey
Leighton, was mailed to every account on the system the night one of
their hackers lost his funding. We're talking every account --- HELP,
DOCUMENTATION, PASCAL, SYSTEM, ASSEMBLY-LANGUAGE -- as well as every
user who could log in!
Enjoy!
Lynn
The Gospel of Lisp
according to the Angel Of Death.
The Book of Quux.
I would like to thank Math.Eddy for his invaluable assistance in
writing this book, I couldn't have done it without him. He lent me the
pencil.
In the beginning there was space and in the space were computers.
The computers were used by hackers, who played with and took care of the
computers. The best place for hackers was a place called MIT. And at
this place lived three great beings, the Quuxes. The three were the
greater Quux, Larry Steele; the lesser Quux, David Littleboy; and the
mediocre Quux, Alan Swide. There was another great and powerful being at
MIT, the spirit of LISP.
It came to pass that the greater Quux was in the MIT computer
center, staring at a terminal, when the spirit of LISP (henceforth
referred to as LISP) appeared above him. And LISP spoke unto him, and
called his name. The greater Quux was then filled with awe, and he
spake "OH WOW!!! They got the computers to speak! Hot DAMN!!! Hey can
you understand everything I say?"
And LISP replied unto him, "No stupid, that's not the computer, it's
me, LISP. Ever think of looking up from the terminal once in a while?"
"Oh, sorry. Well what can I do for you?"
"I desireth that you create a computer language."
"Yeah, you and everyone else! Geez, if it ain't one damned thing,
it's three. Do you think all I have to do is create new computer
languages???"
And LISP grew angry and stretched forth his hands and the terminal
of the greater Quux was logged off for the rest of the week. And the
greater Quux was greatly troubled and left that place.
Later, the lesser Quux came into the computer center, and the
spirit of LISP appeared above him. And the lesser Quux was greatly
afeared so that he shat in his pants. And he spake. "Don't hurt me,
I'll give you all my money, just please don't kill me!"
And LISP replied "I'm not a mugger, you idiot, I'm the spirit of
LISP."
"Damn, you have any idea how much you scared me??"
"Yes, I can smell it. Now, I wish you to create a computer
language."
"Hey, who let you in here, anyways? You got any ID?"
"And I want you to call the language Lisp."
"I don't give a damn what you want. I'm going to go wipe myself
and when I come back you had better be the hell out of here or else I
will call security."
And the lesser Quux left and while he was gone LISP detached his
terminal so that when the lesser Quux returned he was greatly upset.
"That son-of-a-bitch. I'll teach him. I'll write a program that
logs him off every time he comes on the system!"
But he was unable to reattach his job for the rest of the week. So
he left that place, greatly troubled in spirit.
And later that day, Alan Swide, the mediocre Quux, was in the
computer center. And he sorrowed. And LISP appeared to him and spake
unto him. "Alan, why do you sorrow?"
And Alan replied. "Because I'm sick of being called the `mediocre'
Quux. Why the hell should I get the bad rap? Just because I'm not as
good as the other two, I get the lousy press."
"That can be changed Alan. I want you to create a computer
language and call it Lisp."
"Hey, that's a neat idea. But it's a lousy name. People will think
the language has a speech impediment and they will all think it's my
fault."
"No, you moron. Lisp stands for List Processor."
"You mean all it does is process lists?"
"Right, that way it's a lot more complex and confusing and you will
get a good reputation for it."
"Far fucking out! Hey, but what's in it for you?"
"Because it's my name that the language is named after."
"Egotistical bastard aren't ya? Ok well anyways I like the idea.
Any other suggestions?"
"Yes, it must be the greatest, most complex of all languages.
Everything must be done in nested parentheses. The more, the better.
And you must create a lot of strange functions, so that the average
layman won't be able to tell the difference between a mapcar, a
*rearray, and his asshole."
"Ok, great. By the way, what ARE those things?"
"Well, the first two are functions that you are going to create,
and if you don't know what the third one is, then you are in deep shit.
Literally."
So the mediocre Quux began to work.
And on the first day, he created cons. And he tore the cons
asunder into two separate elements. And he called the first one CAR and
the second one CDR. And he saw that cons was like life. The first
element is the function or action which you perform upon the second
element, your life. And if you do it properly you will achieve
holiness. But if you fuck up you will get an error message:
WRONG NUMBER OF ARGUMENTS TO FSUBR. CATCH - APPLY.
BKPT.
And he saw that it was good.
And on the second day he created mathematical functions so that
hackers could do math with lisp. He created plus and times etc. And he
saw that it was good.
And on the third day he created mapping functions so that a
function could be performed on several elements of a list. He created
Map and Mapcar etc. And he saw that it was good.
And on the fourth day he created flow of control so that the
hackers could move around in their programs. He created do and catch
and throw etc. And he also created cond and and etc. so the programs
could branch. And he saw that it was good.
And on the fifth day he created arrays. He created a whole bunch
of array functions. And he saw that it sucked shit.
So he had to cast forth the array functions and create new ones,
which involved working overtime. And he created Array and Rearray etc.
And he saw that it was good.
And on the sixth day he looked out and he beheld intelligent
hackers and dumb bastards. And so he created test functions like atomp
and listp for the dumb bastards and he created the defun function for
the hackers so that they could constantly improve lisp with new
functions. And he saw that it was good.
And on the seventh day, he went out and got completely plastered
out of his mind so that he was incapable of doing any more work on
Lisp.
And the spirit of LISP was greatly pleased and he gave the language
Lisp the fastest calculating speed of any language. And he spake unto
Alan. "Behold, I will make your name great among hackers and the number
of hackers who use Lisp will multiply like the stars of heaven. You
have greatly pleased me. I will make you the first prophet of LISP."
And Alan said "Thas great, I (blech) really apreshiate (urp) that.
Now if I could jush find the fucking door."
And so the word of LISP was spread throughout the land (even though
most people couldn't figure it out worth a damn.) and particularly at
MIT, where it became the most important language.
Thus ends the book of Quux. The Gospel of Lisp will be continued
with the book of Journeys.
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