Erik Naggum (RIP) was particularly noted for having lots of bile if you got on the wrong side of him.
Xah Lee is noted for being especially abrasive and pretty much gets on the wrong side of everybody.
Putting the two together was always a spectacle worth a bucket or two of popcorn.
And, the real answer to "Why cons cells?" is the same reason as "What is up with the names car and cdr?". The only two data structures which are cheap enough (in both RAM and CPU) for the machines of the time (IBM 704 from 1954!) to deal with are arrays (via index registers) and pairs (via register sections which gives us car/cdr).
Xah Lee is noted for being especially abrasive and pretty much gets on the wrong side of everybody.
Putting the two together was always a spectacle worth a bucket or two of popcorn.
And, the real answer to "Why cons cells?" is the same reason as "What is up with the names car and cdr?". The only two data structures which are cheap enough (in both RAM and CPU) for the machines of the time (IBM 704 from 1954!) to deal with are arrays (via index registers) and pairs (via register sections which gives us car/cdr).