Not really. Inspiring awe is a property based on when you see it. If you could demo an iphone to someone in 1970 it would be awesome; if you demo it to someone in 2015 it would be an old iphone.
a Porsche from 1970 is still awesome. There are many things that have timeless qualities. Every time I hear 'The Man Machine' from Kraftwerk I think how awesome it is.
'The Grand Canyon is awesome' - how does that depend on WHEN I see it. As long as there is a Grand Canyon, it is awesome. It is of no concern if there are things less or more awesome. The Grand Canyon is just 'awesome'.
Lisp has for some people also timeless qualities. One of these people is Alan Kay (of Smalltalk, Dynabook, etc.) fame. Check some day what Alan thinks about Lisp: http://bc.tech.coop/blog/060224.html
"Most people who graduate with CS degrees don't understand the significance of Lisp. Lisp is the most important idea in computer science."
I can not think of a more clearly terrible example than Geology!
The Grand Canyon is in no way exempt from time -- millions of years ago it was just another unremarkable course of the Colorado River, and millions of years from now it will have eroded to nothingness. The Himalayas used to be an unremarkable coastline, and the Appalachians hills were once taller than Everest is now.
Awesome is an impression by a person that makes an observation. Millions ago the earth had no Grand Canyon (and thus could not be observed) and millions years ago there were no observers that could be impressed by something.
As long as there is a GRAND CANYON (a label for an observable geological feature given by man) the GRAND CANYON will be awesome. Your father found the Grand Canyon awesome and and your children will find it awesome, too. For us humans the Grand Canyon, as long it is there and as long we are there, is 'awesome'.
'Awesome' is an impression that humans have of something. It has nothing to do with geological timescales.
Unless there is an atomic spaceship war in a hundred years which scars the earth with canyons that size every few hundred miles. Then our grand children will not find "the Grand Canyon" awesome, they will find it "just another of those huge canyons that are everywhere and really boring".
Redwoods are awesome trees because of their size. If all other trees died out and Redwoods were the only tree, they wouldn't be awesome, they would be "normal tree size".
Unless you are high you don't go around being awe inspired by everyday things. Awesome is implicitly comparing with "everything else". Different things aren't awesome, but awesome things are different - but only while they are different.
> a Porsche from 1970 is still awesome
Not to me. A Veyron, now that's awesome. Spitfires are awesome, but only anachronistically - for their time and their reputation at the time - they don't hold a candle to a modern fighter.
I find a lot of cars awesome. Because they ALL have the SAME qualities that I like: excellent design, fantastic engineering, etc.
Sure, there might be cars with less fantastic engineering, those I might not find awesome. But it says nothing about that there is only a single thing of a certain type that I can find awesome or that other things are less or more awesome. 'Just awesome' stands for it alone.
No, I don't find the Veyron awesome. That's just butt ugly.
First time I went to New Mexico I saw some Kachini dolls. They looked, well, awesome.
After a few days or so, I saw many, many more Kachina dolls, such that I could start seeing differences in quality. Those first ones I saw? They really weren't all that awesome. They were actually sort of crappy, once I saw some truly awesome handiwork.
Whether or not something inspires awe really does depend on previous experience.
You are misunderstanding his point. Lisp used to be awesome because it implemented feature X. That is, show people feature X in Lisp, and they would be impressed because nothing else did X.
Now, everything does X. Showing someone Lisp doing X will get the response of 'So what?'. Therefore, Lisp is no longer awesome because of feature X.
Which is different (entirely) from what the article was saying. It listed off several things which current languages do.
What (someone) up the chain was saying was exactly that. Lisp is interesting because of those things that it alone does. Not because it is capable of things that other languages do.
Why should I do that? I'm a human. I find things I see awesome. I find all large 'falls' awesome. If the thing wasn't there a million years ago, who cares? I wasn't there also. But I'm here and some thing in the world can be observed by me as awesome. There are things that I might not find awesome after some years and there are other things that I find awesome for many years. Even if it is superseded by some newer stuff. The original iPod (I have one) is still awesome. It is a design classic. Timeless.
