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> That's reinventing a 25+ year old wheel the author is likely unaware of. These comments are not helpful. React is a UI library and this concept would be new

> That's reinventing a 25+ year old wheel the author is likely unaware of. These comments are not helpful. React is a UI library and this concept would be new in this world. Who cares if it's done by the Simpsons already? It's a nice trivia, but what should we do with this information?

phoe-krk 7y ago
The usual. Find out how the concept was successfully implemented before, learn from these implementations' mistakes, and leverage all of that knowledge in your current work.
- tiborsaas 7y ago
  That's a much nicer, forward pointing comment and it's good to know there's previous act. I've read some bitterness between the lines.
  - phoe-krk 7y ago
    Probably just bitterness from the general trend of reinventing everything in computer science, all the time. People who are unaware of former work on any given topic are forced to reinvent it, poorly. People who are aware of it are forced to watch everyone else reinvent them. Without any sarcasm, communication is a hard and unsolved problem in general.
    - codebje 7y ago
      The irony here is that you appear to be unaware of the former work on algebraic effects, to the point that this one lightweight blog post forms your entire understanding of it and you mistake it for a limited and ill-defined language construct...
coldtea 7y ago
React might be a UI library, but the post doesn't describe the concept in terms of application in a UI library, but as a general concept (examples given include logging and exception handling, and are not tied to UI needs). Second, React might be a UI library, but its need / uses / limits in using for something like "algebraic effects" could be similar to the ones encountered 30+ years ago in non-UI domains. Not to mention the biggest fault in this comment: the domains where Dan got the idea of Algebraic Effects from are already non UI -- he got it from functional programming research in non-UI specific domains and languages. Which means that he could just as well use the original, also non-UI, concepts, was he aware of them. A more valid response along your reasoning would be that of course not everybody can/knows every prior art. That's true, and valid. But the argument that prior art is not relevant in this case because we're talking about UI is not... >It's a nice trivia, but what should we do with this information? Evaluate it, enrich our understanding of it, find prior uses and limits (and not just the current re-implementation of the concept) and so on?

phoe-krk 7y ago

The usual. Find out how the concept was successfully implemented before, learn from these implementations' mistakes, and leverage all of that knowledge in your current work.

tiborsaas 7y ago
That's a much nicer, forward pointing comment and it's good to know there's previous act. I've read some bitterness between the lines.
- phoe-krk 7y ago
  Probably just bitterness from the general trend of reinventing everything in computer science, all the time. People who are unaware of former work on any given topic are forced to reinvent it, poorly. People who are aware of it are forced to watch everyone else reinvent them. Without any sarcasm, communication is a hard and unsolved problem in general.
  - codebje 7y ago
    The irony here is that you appear to be unaware of the former work on algebraic effects, to the point that this one lightweight blog post forms your entire understanding of it and you mistake it for a limited and ill-defined language construct...

coldtea 7y ago

React might be a UI library, but the post doesn't describe the concept in terms of application in a UI library, but as a general concept (examples given include logging and exception handling, and are not tied to UI needs). Second, React might be a UI library, but its need / uses / limits in using for something like "algebraic effects" could be similar to the ones encountered 30+ years ago in non-UI domains. Not to mention the biggest fault in this comment: the domains where Dan got the idea of Algebraic Effects from are already non UI -- he got it from functional programming research in non-UI specific domains and languages. Which means that he could just as well use the original, also non-UI, concepts, was he aware of them. A more valid response along your reasoning would be that of course not everybody can/knows every prior art. That's true, and valid. But the argument that prior art is not relevant in this case because we're talking about UI is not... >It's a nice trivia, but what should we do with this information? Evaluate it, enrich our understanding of it, find prior uses and limits (and not just the current re-implementation of the concept) and so on?