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> With respect, if you don't see any actual results, you haven't been looking. With respect, if you think any category-theoretic results were necessary to auth

by madgar 10y ago

> With respect, if you don't see any actual results, you haven't been looking. With respect, if you think any category-theoretic results were necessary to author even 0.01% of the code executed in computation globally, you're willfully deluding yourself.

naasking 10y ago
Good thing I never made that claim. I will however claim that, despite being unnecessary in principle, quite a bit more than 0.01% of code executed globally did make use of category theoretic abstractions because they are so useful (depending on how you measure this of course). Pretty much any program written for .NET and Scala makes use of monadic composition. I will also claim that their use is only going to grow with Rust adoption and Java adopting lambdas and functional APIs.
- madgar 10y ago
  > Good thing I never made that claim. You said "It has applications in physics and is widely used in computation". Category theory is not widely used by those who program computers and thus produce computation in them. > I will however claim that, despite being unnecessary in principle, quite a bit more than 0.01% of code executed globally did make use of category theoretic abstractions because they are so useful (depending on how you measure this of course). Pretty much any program written for .NET and Scala makes use of monadic composition. And like clockwork, you provide the bog-standard argument for why knowing category theory is important: you point out how many people productively write software without knowing anything about category theory (or even abstract algebra). Saying that people use category theory to write software without knowing it is like saying they use Maxwell's Laws to write software: so reductive it loses all relevance to productive conversation. That's bad, unless your goal is to make the conversation unproductive.
  - naasking 10y ago
    > Category theory is not widely used by those who program computers and thus produce computation in them. Computation is bigger than just programming in industry. "Computing" has always referred to the overall discipline of computer science. > you point out how many people productively write software without knowing anything about category theory (or even abstract algebra). That wasn't my point at all. Read again. They can have even more productivity if they used category theoretic abstractions. > Saying that people use category theory to write software without knowing it is like saying they use Maxwell's Laws to write software Good thing that's not what I said either. You're making a habit of this. People can understand a structure, in that they can grasp its semantics and its application, without knowing it's canonical name.

by madgar 10y ago

naasking 10y ago

Good thing I never made that claim. I will however claim that, despite being unnecessary in principle, quite a bit more than 0.01% of code executed globally did make use of category theoretic abstractions because they are so useful (depending on how you measure this of course). Pretty much any program written for .NET and Scala makes use of monadic composition. I will also claim that their use is only going to grow with Rust adoption and Java adopting lambdas and functional APIs.

madgar 10y ago
> Good thing I never made that claim. You said "It has applications in physics and is widely used in computation". Category theory is not widely used by those who program computers and thus produce computation in them. > I will however claim that, despite being unnecessary in principle, quite a bit more than 0.01% of code executed globally did make use of category theoretic abstractions because they are so useful (depending on how you measure this of course). Pretty much any program written for .NET and Scala makes use of monadic composition. And like clockwork, you provide the bog-standard argument for why knowing category theory is important: you point out how many people productively write software without knowing anything about category theory (or even abstract algebra). Saying that people use category theory to write software without knowing it is like saying they use Maxwell's Laws to write software: so reductive it loses all relevance to productive conversation. That's bad, unless your goal is to make the conversation unproductive.
- naasking 10y ago
  > Category theory is not widely used by those who program computers and thus produce computation in them. Computation is bigger than just programming in industry. "Computing" has always referred to the overall discipline of computer science. > you point out how many people productively write software without knowing anything about category theory (or even abstract algebra). That wasn't my point at all. Read again. They can have even more productivity if they used category theoretic abstractions. > Saying that people use category theory to write software without knowing it is like saying they use Maxwell's Laws to write software Good thing that's not what I said either. You're making a habit of this. People can understand a structure, in that they can grasp its semantics and its application, without knowing it's canonical name.