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I first learned Haskell so I could understand some of the papers I wanted to read that used Haskell for examples. Even when doing so, I realised that I would e

I first learned Haskell so I could understand some of the papers I wanted to read that used Haskell for examples. Even when doing so, I realised that I would eventually have to learn ML, but haven't gotten around to doing it. I think it's a bit like literary researchers who have to learn ancient Greek or ancient Chinese to get to the bottom of things. It's funny that when I grew up I was always praised for being clever, so I never once doubted it. However, when I chose to learn Japanese and moved to Japan, suddenly many people assumed I was stupid -- because I could never quite understand what was going on. It's been an interesting experience. Which is it? Am I clever or stupid? Eventually I've come to the point: clever or stupid makes no difference. The only important things to ask are, "Do I understand" and "What do I need to do to understand". It's also made me realise that relying on my supposed cleverness has actually been a source of problems in my life that I had not thought about before (because I'm clever and clever is good, right?)

bojo 9y ago
It's interesting to read this comment because I experienced nearly the same thing. Thought I was clever because everyone told me it was so, was admittedly quite arrogant about my technology skills, learned Japanese, moved to Japan, and could barely explain anything to my programming peers at the level of a five year old. It took several years of forced humbleness to erode the arrogance, stop thinking I was so clever, and simply apply myself to the task of learning the necessary Japanese to explain myself correctly. What I generally see with people new to learning Haskell (or similar) is that they approach it with their bag full of imperative language cleverness, and find the concepts and terminology hard to grasp because they refuse to become humble for a bit and examine it as a paradigm different from the one they know. To be fair I was no different until I finally started understanding it, but looking back, learning Haskell was similar to my Japan experience. It became much easier once I buckled down, learned the parts that didn't make sense, and most importantly began applying them.
equalunique 9y ago
Your thoughts on cleverness reminded me of this quote from David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest. Talent is sort of a dark gift ... talent is its own expectation: it is there from the start and either lived up to or lost.... Here is how to avoid thinking about any of this by practicing and playing until everything runs on autopilot and talent's unconscious exercise becomes a way to escape yourself, a long waking dream of pure play. The irony is that this makes you very good, and you start to become regarded as having a prodigious talent to live up to...
worldsayshi 9y ago
My belief about intelligence is that it's mostly about your motivational properties. "What makes you tick?" "What makes you scared?" If math makes you tick and doesn't scare you will eventually learn a lot of it. It's not the whole story but I believe it accounts for a lot of it.

bojo 9y ago

It's interesting to read this comment because I experienced nearly the same thing. Thought I was clever because everyone told me it was so, was admittedly quite arrogant about my technology skills, learned Japanese, moved to Japan, and could barely explain anything to my programming peers at the level of a five year old. It took several years of forced humbleness to erode the arrogance, stop thinking I was so clever, and simply apply myself to the task of learning the necessary Japanese to explain myself correctly. What I generally see with people new to learning Haskell (or similar) is that they approach it with their bag full of imperative language cleverness, and find the concepts and terminology hard to grasp because they refuse to become humble for a bit and examine it as a paradigm different from the one they know. To be fair I was no different until I finally started understanding it, but looking back, learning Haskell was similar to my Japan experience. It became much easier once I buckled down, learned the parts that didn't make sense, and most importantly began applying them.

equalunique 9y ago

Your thoughts on cleverness reminded me of this quote from David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest. Talent is sort of a dark gift ... talent is its own expectation: it is there from the start and either lived up to or lost.... Here is how to avoid thinking about any of this by practicing and playing until everything runs on autopilot and talent's unconscious exercise becomes a way to escape yourself, a long waking dream of pure play. The irony is that this makes you very good, and you start to become regarded as having a prodigious talent to live up to...

worldsayshi 9y ago

My belief about intelligence is that it's mostly about your motivational properties. "What makes you tick?" "What makes you scared?" If math makes you tick and doesn't scare you will eventually learn a lot of it. It's not the whole story but I believe it accounts for a lot of it.