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As a mathematician/(ex?-)computer scientist whose area of research is category theory, let me ask: What makes category theory not seem like very good CS?
by Chinjut 10y ago
As a mathematician/(ex?-)computer scientist whose area of research is category theory, let me ask: What makes category theory not seem like very good CS?
- mannykannot 10y agoApparently, the first thing is the difficulties it presents for typing. I think that is about all we need to know about this argument.
- Chinjut 10y agoFor what it's worth, it does bother me how much standard CS tooling and the mindset bred from it is stuck in the paradigm of exclusively textual user interfaces. Linear text has its advantages and value, of course, but, like, we know well by now that not everything is best thought of or manipulated this way; that diagrams and other modes of communication and interaction can be useful. (This has nothing to do with why I'm interested in category theory [it's not that my motivating goal in life was to draw commutative diagrams…], but it's a somewhat relevant thought to the discussion I've had all the same. We as computer scientists talk a lot about trees, and graphs, and this structure, and that structure, and also about human computer interaction, and the importance of design, and yet the only structure we allow ourselves expression via at the end of the day is text, text, text.)
- mannykannot 10y agoA lot of people draw informal sketches while thinking things through, and there have been waves of enthusiasm for formalizing such things, but except in a few specialized cases (e.g. state transition diagrams) nothing so far seems to have proved useful enough to really take off. I do wonder sometimes if we are too focused on computer languages, to the detriment of tools (see also Animat's comment.)
- TheOtherHobbes 10y agoGod yes. Text and lack of imagination are the two curses of CS.