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any book list that starts with "first you should read TAPL and PFPL, then move on to SF and CPDT and read HOTT and of course these three category theory textboo
by munin 10y ago
any book list that starts with "first you should read TAPL and PFPL, then move on to SF and CPDT and read HOTT and of course these three category theory textbooks" is really out of touch IMO. mostly because i don't think there's anyone alive that has simultaneously read all of those works, not even the authors of each individual work!
- madgar 10y agoI'm 27 and while I'm only about halfway through HOTT - it's tough - I've read all the other named books. TAPL was tough too but invaluable to wrap my head around as an undergraduate.
- fmap 10y agoYou're seriously underestimating the amount of work that goes into a phd, or into writing a textbook...
- munin 10y agoI'm a current PhD student in programming languages, I don't think I am...
- fmap 10y agoLet's talk again in a few years. :) In all seriousness, though, I'm also just speaking from personal experience. That said, if you are working in type theory, chances are that you will end up skimming almost everything on this list...
- munin 10y agookay, I've skimmed everything in that list. I haven't read any of them cover to cover though. that's what I really question, mostly because, who has the time for that? there's especially a lot of shared material between PFPL and TAPL, so why are you reading about the material twice? the problem is that all of those textbooks are great for an introduction (that's why they're textbooks) and so what is usually more productive is: 1. ask your supervisor or a senior student or postdoc for a 10-30 minute explanation / intro to a topic 1a. skim the relevant chapter(s) from one of the textbooks to make sure you got what they said 2. go read research papers and frequently, you can just skip straight to 2.