5 ms·

I don't understand this post. "With that said, brace yourself, and take a look at my contrived, deliberately-obtuse strawman implementation of Quick Sort:"

by nilved 10y ago

Noseshine 10y ago
> I don't understand this post. The point is, as the author states quite clearly, that it's not enough to say "I wrote it in FP".
- cwyers 10y ago
  Well, he really showed all those strawmen, didn't he.
  - AnimalMuppet 10y ago
    I don't think that "FP as religion" is a total strawman. I've seen people who seemed to have pretty much a religious fervor for FP. On this site, even. "Writing it in a functional language means it's FP" might be a bit more of a strawman, however.
    - KirinDave 10y ago
      It is a common conversational tactic to dismiss profession interest and enthusiasm as "religion." I doubt Degoes would appreciate the phrase "religion" used as a disparagement to defend his work by the way. He's shown he's willing to take a lot of flack to defend religious people's dignity and needs.
      - twblalock 10y ago
        Well then, it's a good thing that the author of the article did not simply dismiss it, but rather engaged with it and provided examples and argumentation.
      - AnimalMuppet 10y ago
        Um, Degoes actually raised the topic. From his article: > Some people have fallen so much in love with FP (it’s hard not to!) that their views are almost religious. Hence, what I refer to as the religion of FP. The problem with any religion is that dogmatism can be blinding. I suspect that you didn't read the article, or at least merely skimmed it.
        KirinDave 10y ago
        No. I was bring snide. Maybe it was too subtle to be a good joke. It was written a bit hastily, I guess. Degoes fought bitterly for Lambdaconf to support people who hold unpopular and racist views, often citing the social ostracism of the religious members of the community as his reasoning. But of course he casually dumps on them in this article and equates "religion" with a lack of logic. So really it was about supporting his DE chums and not his poor religious friends. But that's not really the topic of this discussion.
- KirinDave 10y ago
  Which is of course a straw man. Find me a credible FP proponent that would disagree with that point? Yes, bad code is possible in any language or paradigm. We don't judge languages by their worst examples. We never have expected FP to magically solve all problems. Heck, this disclaimer exists in a slightly different form even in the Backus paper! I don't understand the point of this article either.
  - twblalock 10y ago
    > Find me a credible FP proponent that would disagree with that point? What distinguishes a credible FP proponent from a non-credible one? This is getting close to the territory of the no true scotsman fallacy. If someone makes the argument, it's not a strawman. It doesn't matter if you consider them credible or not. The author of the article responded to a real argument made by real people.
    - KirinDave 10y ago
      Who? Who has made this argument? What actually is the argument? FP literature is full of this admonition. FP papers constantly cite the primary benefits of FP and it's not the functionality. Who specifically is he arguing against? You cite "no true Scotsman" but we lack even a false one to point to.
      - twblalock 10y ago
        You wrote: > Find me a credible FP proponent that would disagree with that point? By including the word "credible," you are pre-emptively excluding some FP proponents as not being "true" FP proponents. So you've already committed yourself to applying the fallacy to evidence that anyone might present to you.
        KirinDave 10y ago
        Let me actually commit a logical fallacy before I have to own up to one. Don't worry, I'm sure it won't take very long. But this pre-emptive strike thing is just a way to avoid providing any sort of example, I suspect.
mrob 10y ago
Functional programming is poorly suited to implementing Quicksort because a real Quicksort sorts in-place. It relies on mutable state. See: https://wiki.haskell.org/Introduction/Direct_Translation https://wiki.haskell.org/Introduction/Direct_Translation

I don't understand this post. "With that said, brace yourself, and take a look at my contrived, deliberately-obtuse strawman implementation of Quick Sort:"

by nilved 10y ago

I don't understand this post. "With that said, brace yourself, and take a look at my contrived, deliberately-obtuse strawman implementation of Quick Sort:"

Noseshine 10y ago

> I don't understand this post. The point is, as the author states quite clearly, that it's not enough to say "I wrote it in FP".

cwyers 10y ago
Well, he really showed all those strawmen, didn't he.
- AnimalMuppet 10y ago
  I don't think that "FP as religion" is a total strawman. I've seen people who seemed to have pretty much a religious fervor for FP. On this site, even. "Writing it in a functional language means it's FP" might be a bit more of a strawman, however.
  - KirinDave 10y ago
    It is a common conversational tactic to dismiss profession interest and enthusiasm as "religion." I doubt Degoes would appreciate the phrase "religion" used as a disparagement to defend his work by the way. He's shown he's willing to take a lot of flack to defend religious people's dignity and needs.
    - twblalock 10y ago
      Well then, it's a good thing that the author of the article did not simply dismiss it, but rather engaged with it and provided examples and argumentation.
    - AnimalMuppet 10y ago
      Um, Degoes actually raised the topic. From his article: > Some people have fallen so much in love with FP (it’s hard not to!) that their views are almost religious. Hence, what I refer to as the religion of FP. The problem with any religion is that dogmatism can be blinding. I suspect that you didn't read the article, or at least merely skimmed it.
      - KirinDave 10y ago
        No. I was bring snide. Maybe it was too subtle to be a good joke. It was written a bit hastily, I guess. Degoes fought bitterly for Lambdaconf to support people who hold unpopular and racist views, often citing the social ostracism of the religious members of the community as his reasoning. But of course he casually dumps on them in this article and equates "religion" with a lack of logic. So really it was about supporting his DE chums and not his poor religious friends. But that's not really the topic of this discussion.
KirinDave 10y ago
Which is of course a straw man. Find me a credible FP proponent that would disagree with that point? Yes, bad code is possible in any language or paradigm. We don't judge languages by their worst examples. We never have expected FP to magically solve all problems. Heck, this disclaimer exists in a slightly different form even in the Backus paper! I don't understand the point of this article either.
- twblalock 10y ago
  > Find me a credible FP proponent that would disagree with that point? What distinguishes a credible FP proponent from a non-credible one? This is getting close to the territory of the no true scotsman fallacy. If someone makes the argument, it's not a strawman. It doesn't matter if you consider them credible or not. The author of the article responded to a real argument made by real people.
  - KirinDave 10y ago
    Who? Who has made this argument? What actually is the argument? FP literature is full of this admonition. FP papers constantly cite the primary benefits of FP and it's not the functionality. Who specifically is he arguing against? You cite "no true Scotsman" but we lack even a false one to point to.
    - twblalock 10y ago
      You wrote: > Find me a credible FP proponent that would disagree with that point? By including the word "credible," you are pre-emptively excluding some FP proponents as not being "true" FP proponents. So you've already committed yourself to applying the fallacy to evidence that anyone might present to you.
      - KirinDave 10y ago
        Let me actually commit a logical fallacy before I have to own up to one. Don't worry, I'm sure it won't take very long. But this pre-emptive strike thing is just a way to avoid providing any sort of example, I suspect.

mrob 10y ago

Functional programming is poorly suited to implementing Quicksort because a real Quicksort sorts in-place. It relies on mutable state. See: https://wiki.haskell.org/Introduction/Direct_Translation https://wiki.haskell.org/Introduction/Direct_Translation