RE: bytecode unification for scripting languages

[PJ Durai <duraip@extendsys.com>]

> 
> Jeffrey Stephens schrieb:
> > This comment is very interesting.  Years ago I remember 
> reading a book by Ayn
> > Rand titled 'Atlas Shrugged'.  The theme of this work is 
> that there are
> > a relatively few key 
> innovators/producers/movers-and-shakers in the world in
> > every discipline, and if these individuals were somehow 
> removed things would
> > fall apart.  
> 
> This must be a science fiction book: "removing people" :)

Ayn Rand got too polarised. She thought there were only two kinds of people,
the producers, and the people who unjustly live off them(moochers ? or
something).
She didnt take the 'consumers' into account.
In a real eco system the lines are never as clear as Rand would like the
draw them.

Anyway, even though I was very impressed with her books early on (in an
impressionable age), I came to see those as mostly supremacist nonsense
later on.

She seems to think that one man (the mythical Galt) can stop the motor of
the world. Not unless he has a H-Bomb and feeling particularly depressed..
if you ask me..

> 
> > This is precisely what happens in the book.  The hero, John Galt,
> > convinces a number of these people to "retire" early, and 
> the machinery of
> > production grinds to a halt.  It makes one wonder what 
> would happen to Scheme
> > or other projects if something similar happened.  Would 
> Scheme wither on the
> > vine?  Just a thought.
> 

Thats not a right comparison. The charecters in rand's books are in it for
totally selfish reasons(and proud of it). PLT people publish their work and
want to help/improve the programming community. May be one of the PLT people
can tell us what motivates people to do such extraodinary work, which doesnt
benefit them commercially.