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Note that this has been coming for a while -- the "announcement" cited is from Harper's blog, as is the bit about "anti-modular and anti-parallel". The quote ci
by jwatzman 16y ago
Note that this has been coming for a while -- the "announcement" cited is from Harper's blog, as is the bit about "anti-modular and anti-parallel". The quote cited is Harper's opinion, and was not necessarily the opinion of everyone involved in the curriculum changes (though Harper himself was very instrumental in said changes).
Harper is well known among his former students for being a brilliant guy who makes many interesting arguments... and who then takes those arguments so far to the extreme that it's laughably silly.
- Peaker 16y ago> and who then takes those arguments so far to the extreme that it's laughably silly. That sounds like another opinion. I don't find what he said to be laughably silly. Do you have examples of such things he said?
- jwatzman 16y agoHe once discussed NULL pointers. He made a well-reasoned argument about how a proper language should use some other method to properly distinguish between NULL and "I really do have a pointer here", such as ML's option types or Haskell's Maybe types or something. Basically the "million dollar mistake" argument. He then went on to say something basically like, "Thus, there is no such thing as a NULL pointer. It is a myth. It simply doesn't exist." Which is patently false, and I find rather funny. Languages do have NULL pointers whether they should or not. I can assign a value of NULL to my pointer in C -- they exist. They are not a myth. A friend of mine, who is a TA for our operating systems class, whispered to me, "Hm, NULL pointers don't exist?! I guess I'll go tell my students that."