Re: member returns list

[Emanuel Berg]

Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> writes:

> FWIW, history usually shows that most inventions
> don't depend on one particular person inventing that
> thing, but rather on a particular context making
> that thing desirable/reachable/useful, at which
> point some (set of) people usually invent similar
> things around the same time.
>
> So while the world might look a bit different if
> Smalltalk/Lisp/younameit hadn't been invented, it
> probably wouldn't be all that different since
> someone else would have invented something
> similar anyway.

There is even a science fiction short story about
a guy with a time machine thinking he can go back in
time and make a fortune by inventing all sort of
things that he knows of from the future, only one day
or so before they were actually "invented". And he
fails miserably each time, just because he is so out
of context and his knowledge is only on-the-surface
scholasticism. Just think: everyone knows how a light
bulb works, but everyone doesn't feel as confident
going back to the 1870 to beat Edison to the punch!

Also, this word "invention" is misleading in many
cases. Often it is more about construction. They add
one bolt here and one screw here. With patience, luck,
and skills, in time, someone will stumble in the last
correct screw that will make the construction
something unique. Just like boiling water, the
quantitative difference between say 66 and 67 degrees
Celsius won't matter in isolation, but the same change
- only from 99 to 100 degrees - will make the water
boil - a qualitative difference, in state. Here, we
see that 67-66 = 100-99 = 1, but also that, to get
from 99 to 100 with water of say ~37 degrees, you must
first get up to, and past "66 to 67" before you are
even close to "99 to 100"...

-- 
underground experts united
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573