[OT] [I mean totally OT] Re: What can you "new"

[Walter Bright]

Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
> Walter Bright wrote:
>> Nick Sabalausky wrote:
>>> Doesn't matter what you're making, OS or not, the choice of language 
>>> *certainly* carries repercussions throughout a project. Sure Linux is 
>>> doing fine with C. So what? It could probably be doing a lot better 
>>> with D.
>>
>> It's like if you gave the Spartan Leonidas a Henry repeating rifle - 
>> he still would have lost at Thermopylae. But there is little doubt 
>> that one Henry repeating rifle is worth a hundred spear-chucking 
>> wicker-armored immortals.
> 
> Sometimes I run these crazy calculations: how much modern firepower 
> would be just enough to turn the odds in a classic battle? At 
> Thermopilae, I think two Vickers with enough ammo would have been just 
> about enough. Also at the Lord of the Rings 2 night castle defense, one 
> machine gun would have sufficed (better protection and fewer assailants).
> 
> 
> Andrei

You don't have to look far back to see many examples of superior 
technology burying a far more powerful foe. For example, there are 
several cases where a handful of stringbag airplanes sank capital 
battleships.

Stirling's "Island in the Sea of Time" is about bringing modern weapons 
to bronze-age battlefields.