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what a refreshing reply - good point & I agree with you. For certain questions, it helps to think in this fashion, and to make non-obvious points that might be

by dkural 9y ago

what a refreshing reply - good point & I agree with you. For certain questions, it helps to think in this fashion, and to make non-obvious points that might be lost in details otherwise. I have nothing against formal systems in computing, programming language research, or other forms theoretical CS. In support of this, in mathematics, Grothendieck took an exceedingly abstract perspective, eventually leading to the solution of some outstanding conjectures of the time. While I haven't articulated this particularly well in my original comment, what I despair is the singular obsession with Monoids. It is popular because it is easy for people to wrap their minds around, they convince themselves that they've learned deep math and Something Very Important(tm), and it has a cool sounding name. It's like you've given someone a book about the origins of the French Revolution and because they've heard the word "french", keep repeating "but the Eiffel Tower though amirite?" and keep writing blog posts and articles about the Eiffel Tower and nothing else. In some ways I suppose my criticism is unfair and has an elitist / snobby vibe to it. It is common for people to find some 'sexy' hooks to initially get attracted to an area, and one shouldn't judge too much newbies. After all no one is forcing me to hang out at forums :)

coldtea 9y ago
>While I haven't articulated this particularly well in my original comment, what I despair is the singular obsession with Monoids. It is popular because it is easy for people to wrap their minds around, they convince themselves that they've learned deep math and Something Very Important(tm), and it has a cool sounding name. It's like you've given someone a book about the origins of the French Revolution and because they've heard the word "french", keep repeating "but the Eiffel Tower though amirite?" and keep writing blog posts and articles about the Eiffel Tower and nothing else. That's not the case (though it might be for some). The "singular obsession with Monoids"/monads is because we have a popular-ish language that has them as an abstraction. For many people that's a new abstraction they weren't aware of -- in the same way that in 2000 or so everybody talked about GoF Design Patterns. If linear types where used in some other popular(ish) language and enabled new things and abstractions people would talk about that concept all the time (which is even simpler as a notion than monoids).

by dkural 9y ago

coldtea 9y ago

>While I haven't articulated this particularly well in my original comment, what I despair is the singular obsession with Monoids. It is popular because it is easy for people to wrap their minds around, they convince themselves that they've learned deep math and Something Very Important(tm), and it has a cool sounding name. It's like you've given someone a book about the origins of the French Revolution and because they've heard the word "french", keep repeating "but the Eiffel Tower though amirite?" and keep writing blog posts and articles about the Eiffel Tower and nothing else. That's not the case (though it might be for some). The "singular obsession with Monoids"/monads is because we have a popular-ish language that has them as an abstraction. For many people that's a new abstraction they weren't aware of -- in the same way that in 2000 or so everybody talked about GoF Design Patterns. If linear types where used in some other popular(ish) language and enabled new things and abstractions people would talk about that concept all the time (which is even simpler as a notion than monoids).