4 ms·

on the flip side, I work with a bunch of math nerds (machine learning experts and what not) and they often write terrible abstractions and apis. There are a lot

by jshen 17y ago

on the flip side, I work with a bunch of math nerds (machine learning experts and what not) and they often write terrible abstractions and apis. There are a lot of skills that are important in software dev, but I feel we often act as if the math skills are more important than the rest, and I'm not sure that they are in general. Having them is definitely a plus. Also, math is a very broad field, and a lot of it is specific to certain problem domains. I'm just rambling, not sure if I have a real point ;)

eru 17y ago
> [math nerds] often write terrible abstractions [...] Category theory to the rescue!
- jshen 17y ago
  ha, I think this is how we got into this mess ;)
  - eru 17y ago
    Actually computer guys may write brilliant software--but most of them have historically been weak in coming up with good abstractions. In the last years mathematical abstractions have become more popular. Think of functional programming and other declarative languages. One early example of the same thing have been regular expressions and grammars.
    - jshen 17y ago
      functional only helps when you don't have to deal with things outside of your programs memory space. Functional starts looking the same once you start grabbing stuff from databases, calling rest services, pushing stuff to files, etc
      - eru 17y ago
        You can get a good (simplified) overview of XMonad at this site (http://cgi.cse.unsw.edu.au/~dons/blog/2007/05/01#xmonad_part1_model http://cgi.cse.unsw.edu.au/~dons/blog/2007/05/01#xmonad_part...). They show how to deal with lots a very side-effect happy domain, and still have a nice and clean design.
        jshen 17y ago
        this isn't an example of pure functional gluing together a bunch of external data sources and sinks.
        jshen 17y ago
        ah, I see the kool-aid drinkers use the down-vote instead of reasoned debate.
        eru 17y ago
        Why not? Especially the emphasis on data structures is quite exemplary in my opinion.
dagw 17y ago
As a math guy I know I'm guilty of looking at a problem and trying to map it to a general math problem, solving that problem, and then trying to map that solution back into code, when really I just should have gone for the brute force three line for loop. When you know enough math you tend to see everything as a potential math problem, and sometimes that can get you into trouble.

by jshen 17y ago

eru 17y ago

> [math nerds] often write terrible abstractions [...] Category theory to the rescue!

jshen 17y ago
ha, I think this is how we got into this mess ;)
- eru 17y ago
  Actually computer guys may write brilliant software--but most of them have historically been weak in coming up with good abstractions. In the last years mathematical abstractions have become more popular. Think of functional programming and other declarative languages. One early example of the same thing have been regular expressions and grammars.
  - jshen 17y ago
    functional only helps when you don't have to deal with things outside of your programs memory space. Functional starts looking the same once you start grabbing stuff from databases, calling rest services, pushing stuff to files, etc
    - eru 17y ago
      You can get a good (simplified) overview of XMonad at this site (http://cgi.cse.unsw.edu.au/~dons/blog/2007/05/01#xmonad_part1_model http://cgi.cse.unsw.edu.au/~dons/blog/2007/05/01#xmonad_part...). They show how to deal with lots a very side-effect happy domain, and still have a nice and clean design.
      - jshen 17y ago
        this isn't an example of pure functional gluing together a bunch of external data sources and sinks.
        jshen 17y ago
        ah, I see the kool-aid drinkers use the down-vote instead of reasoned debate.
        eru 17y ago
        Why not? Especially the emphasis on data structures is quite exemplary in my opinion.

dagw 17y ago

As a math guy I know I'm guilty of looking at a problem and trying to map it to a general math problem, solving that problem, and then trying to map that solution back into code, when really I just should have gone for the brute force three line for loop. When you know enough math you tend to see everything as a potential math problem, and sometimes that can get you into trouble.