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If it's something a sophomore with no background beyond calculus can handle, it is simple stuff. It's ridiculous that treating software engineers as though they

If it's something a sophomore with no background beyond calculus can handle, it is simple stuff. It's ridiculous that treating software engineers as though they have a bachelor's degree in STEM makes you a "LambdaBro."

jowiar 11y ago
It's disingenuous to say that this is included in a "bachelor's degree in STEM" -- it's part of a specific course of study. Part of the reason this issue pisses me off so much is that I have a degree from one of the top CS programs in the world. I was definitely more of a theory than a systems person. And yet it still feels like a pile of unnecessary ego-stroking gibberish. I feel comfortable saying most people who make software are less-experienced in this area than I am. When I run into this, I can at least say: "This is bullshit", and not feel the imposter syndrome of "It's just me -- I'm not smart enough for this" that I imagine most people feel. Beyond that, functional programming is, by and large, easier than imperative programming. I love writing Scala -- It's honest about side effects, honest about concurrency, and has one of the better type checkers around. And I'm sick of seeing people try to "fence off the riffraff" by raising the barrier of entry to the Scala community.
- eastWestMath 11y ago
  I didn't say it's included, I'm saying anyone capable of a bachelor's degree in STEM is capable of picking it up. And if you think you were a "theory" person, but don't know the basics of abstract algebra, then you have an incredibly naive idea of what theoretical computer science entails. Hint: there's a lot of abstract algebra.
- bgar 11y ago
  Beyond that, functional programming is, by and large, easier than imperative programming. You say this but dislike even a bit of abstract algebra? I see a conflict here; anyone that likes FP, moreso, typed FP, should be familiar with simple concepts like monoids, functors, and monads. Honestly, I don't understand how someone can write in a functional language and not know these concepts.... they're literally Haskell 101. That doesn't even scratch the surface of what FP can do...
  - rfrey 11y ago
    Nothing that jowiar wrote suggested to me that he or she dislikes abstract algebra. I think their point is orthogonal to personal preferences.
    - bgar 11y ago
      Hmmm in hindsight you're probably right. Though he does refer to libraries using abstract algebra as having "meaningless terms," which doesn't really sound like a positive opinion about the subject. It's important to have the correct terms, and watering them down just creates ambiguity. If software abstractions stem directly from math, there's no reason to hide the fact. But, like you said, it seems like his point is that using abstract math in libraries raises the barrier of entry for new developers and that they shouldn't need to learn abstract math to be able to be productive, not that he personally dislikes the topic. It's definitely is possible to go overboard with operators, making a codebase very confusing. Case in point: the lens library. Though those are optional, and the best practice is to just use the actual word functions.
      - eastWestMath 11y ago
        If they're just terms, then it doesn't matter that they're terms from abstract math. However, this way there's the benefit that it's super easy to find resources, since you have all of the mathematical literature.
  - jowiar 11y ago
    To me, functional programming's advantage comes from avoiding reasoning about state. Everything else is gravy. Beyond that, it's very easy to go down a rabbit hole of terminology. Javascript programmers write functors all the time, but I don't know if I've ever seen the word "functor" written in a JS context by anyone other than raganwald. They're just functions, and the fact that they return functions is damn useful.
    - bgar 11y ago
      Yup I've never seen functors mentioned in anything JS-related. I bet there's more Haskellers writing Scala than JavaScript though. Being pedantic: functors don't return functions, functors let you map over structures.

jowiar 11y ago

It's disingenuous to say that this is included in a "bachelor's degree in STEM" -- it's part of a specific course of study. Part of the reason this issue pisses me off so much is that I have a degree from one of the top CS programs in the world. I was definitely more of a theory than a systems person. And yet it still feels like a pile of unnecessary ego-stroking gibberish. I feel comfortable saying most people who make software are less-experienced in this area than I am. When I run into this, I can at least say: "This is bullshit", and not feel the imposter syndrome of "It's just me -- I'm not smart enough for this" that I imagine most people feel. Beyond that, functional programming is, by and large, easier than imperative programming. I love writing Scala -- It's honest about side effects, honest about concurrency, and has one of the better type checkers around. And I'm sick of seeing people try to "fence off the riffraff" by raising the barrier of entry to the Scala community.

eastWestMath 11y ago
I didn't say it's included, I'm saying anyone capable of a bachelor's degree in STEM is capable of picking it up. And if you think you were a "theory" person, but don't know the basics of abstract algebra, then you have an incredibly naive idea of what theoretical computer science entails. Hint: there's a lot of abstract algebra.
bgar 11y ago
Beyond that, functional programming is, by and large, easier than imperative programming. You say this but dislike even a bit of abstract algebra? I see a conflict here; anyone that likes FP, moreso, typed FP, should be familiar with simple concepts like monoids, functors, and monads. Honestly, I don't understand how someone can write in a functional language and not know these concepts.... they're literally Haskell 101. That doesn't even scratch the surface of what FP can do...
- rfrey 11y ago
  Nothing that jowiar wrote suggested to me that he or she dislikes abstract algebra. I think their point is orthogonal to personal preferences.
  - bgar 11y ago
    Hmmm in hindsight you're probably right. Though he does refer to libraries using abstract algebra as having "meaningless terms," which doesn't really sound like a positive opinion about the subject. It's important to have the correct terms, and watering them down just creates ambiguity. If software abstractions stem directly from math, there's no reason to hide the fact. But, like you said, it seems like his point is that using abstract math in libraries raises the barrier of entry for new developers and that they shouldn't need to learn abstract math to be able to be productive, not that he personally dislikes the topic. It's definitely is possible to go overboard with operators, making a codebase very confusing. Case in point: the lens library. Though those are optional, and the best practice is to just use the actual word functions.
    - eastWestMath 11y ago
      If they're just terms, then it doesn't matter that they're terms from abstract math. However, this way there's the benefit that it's super easy to find resources, since you have all of the mathematical literature.
- jowiar 11y ago
  To me, functional programming's advantage comes from avoiding reasoning about state. Everything else is gravy. Beyond that, it's very easy to go down a rabbit hole of terminology. Javascript programmers write functors all the time, but I don't know if I've ever seen the word "functor" written in a JS context by anyone other than raganwald. They're just functions, and the fact that they return functions is damn useful.
  - bgar 11y ago
    Yup I've never seen functors mentioned in anything JS-related. I bet there's more Haskellers writing Scala than JavaScript though. Being pedantic: functors don't return functions, functors let you map over structures.