Cuckoo

[p2@porter.asl.dialnet.symbolics.com (Peter Paine)]

    Date: Wed, 23 Jan 91 15:27 PST
    From:     TYSON@ai.sri.com (Mabry Tyson)

	Date: Wed, 23 Jan 91 10:24-0000
	From: p2@porter.asl.dialnet.symbolics.com (Peter Paine)

	    ...
	Do the Unix/C people have to behave like cuckoos - eradicating
	everything else, suffering no alternatives? What in the Lispm threatens
	them - it is certainly not commercial pressure?

    Peter, this reference to cuckoos is probably misinterpreted by most people
    as name calling.   [...]

Mabry, thanks for pointing it out. Yes the cuckoo is a bird (Cuculus
canorus). I felt sure that despite it's being a migrant which commutes
between Africa and Europe, it's characteristic habits would be
illustrated somewhere in American literature.

The hen lays its eggs in other birds' nests. The characteristic of the
cuckoo to which I was refering is that the newly emerged fledgeling
systematically throws all other eggs and flegdelings out of the nest -
the better to monopolise the available food.

For me, in the endeavors of research and design using computers, the
vendors, fellow users and end customers all play a part and share the
same world. Not only is there room for all, but their diversity and
interdependence is the common strength.

I'm sure this means something, but in looking it up, I find that there
are three cuckoo species found in North American and five in Europe. It
is three of the Europeans that are parasitic. Maybe it suggests that
attempting to illustrate issues from the artificial world of computers
by reference to nature is a lost cause.