The most ironic logical proposition on the internet
I generally don’t like to dabble in silliness that can be easily misconstrued as elitist (or some other negative label), but nevertheless, I feel compelled to record what I believe is the most ironic logical proposition that is available on the internet. I am not recording this so that we can all point and laugh or anything mindless like that, but instead, to reflect on just how easy it is to make a crucial mistake in judgment particularly when you least expect it. I believe that the irony of this statement supersedes that of any propositions that have exited from the mouth of President Bush or any other equally vulnerable world leader, etc. though many have come close.
If we pop on over to a document titled, Beating the Averages, we find a proposition (or assumption for the remainder of the section) that is somewhat striking. Here it is:
Lisp is so great not because of some magic quality visible only to devotees, but because it is simply the most powerful language available.
I have lost a little bit of the context in citing this statement, so I encourage anyone to read the full script. The irony lies in the fact that the author (Paul Graham) sets about describing what he calls the “Blub Paradox”, which is defined by how computer programmers can only look back at what they once knew about computer programming languages, but cannot make sense of what might be ahead - or might not even be aware that there is anything ahead! What the author probably does not know, is that in attempt to describe the “Blub Programmer” in the third person, he has inadvertently labelled himself a Blub Programmer by his very own definition.
I wonder if Mr. Graham has learned of this mistake, but I sure hope someone points it out to me if (when) I make it! 
December 22nd, 2006 at 4:32 pm
Well, from the context about the power continuum, what he’s saying is that the most weird programming language is the most powerful. This makes sense to some of us from the experiences of our lives: SNOBOL looked weirder than BASIC and was more powerful, Python weirder than that and was more powerful, and now learning OCaml, Haskell, Erlang, seeing that they seem weirder even than Lisp, which was pretty damn weird in its own right.
Of course it’s a logical fallacy though, because there are also languages like INTERCAL and J, which clearly aren’t more powerful but are definitely weird looking. And anyway, there are tens of thousands of programming languages out there; so many, it would be impossible to be abreast of all of them all the time. So you are right — the assertion would only hold if Graham knew something about every language. Which of course he doesn’t — he’s too happy with Lisp!
Thanks for taking PG to task on this.
December 23rd, 2006 at 11:56 am
Does Graham say Lisp is powerful, or Lisp is the most powerful? Anyway don’t read too deeply into Graham’s ramblings, they’re more entertainment than statements of fact. He regularly contradicts himself and says things which make no sense at all.
December 23rd, 2006 at 1:52 pm
Correct me if I am wrong, but I interpret that claim as Lisp being “simply the most powerful language available”.