Hofstadter on Lisp (1983)

Regardless of your opinion on the utility of Lisp, this is an exemplary piece of writing. Crisp, engaging, informative.

God I miss old Scientific American. Today's SA isn't especially terrible, but old SA, like old BYTE, was reliably enlightening.

Agreed. It saddens me how I feel I completely slept through a golden age of magazines out there. With no real clue how I could help support that coming back.

I was happy with the section in Wireframe magazines that would show how to code some game mechanics every issue. Would love for more stuff like that.

The title of his column and book "Metamagical Themas" is an anagram of Martin Gardner's previous column "Mathematical Games". It's clever wordplay turtles all the way down.

The author of GEB is a phenomenal writer, an old-style researcher who knew his greek, and the book for me is more interesting in its commentary on literature, and psychology, approaching themes of say, Foucault.

I don't know about the work's true impact on AI or tech languages, but it's a masterpiece of criticism, analysis and penmanship.

Other Hofstadter book titles with wordplay:

- Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid (you have GEB/EGB, and I guarantee you he noticed those notes form a musical triad)

- Metamagical Themas (anagram of Mathematical Games)

- Le Ton beau de Marot (I don't have my copy at hand, but "ton beau" is surely a pun on "tombeau" meaning "tomb")

- The Mind's I (editor) (I = eye)

- That Mad Ache (translation of "La chamade" by Francoise Sagan; "mad ache" is an anagram of "chamade")

"tombeau" literally means "tomb", but the term also sometimes means "piece written as a memorial", like Ravel's piano suite "Le Tombeau de Couperin". And yes, Hofstadter explicitly links "ton beau" with "tombeau" (he doesn't explicitly mention the "memorial" meaning, though when he mentions the literal "tombeau de Marot" he is talking specifically about the epitaph on it) and also with "tome beau", the great book of Marot's life and work.

I'd find it a cleverer bit of wordplay if "le ton beau de ..." itself didn't feel clumsy. Surely it would always be "le beau ton de ..."?

Old school SA was written assuming a basic level of scientific and mathematical background. Many people reading it were professional scientists and engineers who read it to learn about developments in other fields than their own. Current SA seems to be written at a level similar to the science coverage in newspapers, written for the hypothetical "layman" who is supposedly frightened of mathematics and anything technical. I couldn't imagine someone like Martin Gardner or Hofstadter writing in SA today.

This was all somewhere in the back of my head but my copy of this book is in my parents' basement somewhere. I'll have to rescue it so I can keep it in my basement.

Same with the old National Geographic magazine, before it became slimmer and more ad-heavy, IIRC.

At least one of the covers of GEB specifically had artwork that shows GEB/EGB : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del,_Escher,_Bach

Exactly so. I bought the final issue, because it was the last one, and I read it, and that reminded me why I didn't read National Geographic. Because it's mental chewing gum: an enjoyable flavour, without nutrition; pretty pictures, but I learned little.

yes, but what I meant was that the much earlier issues were very good, with not just good pictures, but lots of interesting textual info as well, about the different geographical topics that they covered, e.g. countries, regions within countries, rivers, forests, peoples, etc.

I remember one particular issue about USA rivers which was really good, with great photos.

damn cool article.

the suwannee river was one that was covered.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suwannee_River

I looked up that river in Wikipedia for the first time today.

TIL it is a blackwater river. first time I heard the term.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackwater_river

the NG issues used to come with very good maps as supplements, too, in color.

also there used to be nice color ads about good cameras, IIRC, like canon, minolta, etc, and cars like the cadillac, lincoln, etc.

gas guzzlers, of course.

a different time.