4 ms·

Thanks, that makes sense to me. It's hard to find people who are knowledgeable enough about both static and dynamic systems and able to explain in layman's ter

by neolog 5y ago

Thanks, that makes sense to me. It's hard to find people who are knowledgeable enough about both static and dynamic systems and able to explain in layman's terms. Is there somewhere (online?) I can go to talk with people like you?

mananaysiempre 5y ago
Calling me “knowledgeable” on this stuff might be a bit of a stretch, but then my standard of “knowledgeable” here is probably somewhere around “did a thesis on it”. The people on #haskell at Freenode (nowadays Libera) were extremely friendly and helpful when I frequented it about five to ten years ago, although of course there are a subtle but important limits to initiating discussions that are interesting to people on the channel but not strictly on topic for it. My more general advice is (for a double combo of both trite and condescending) read a book. Specifically, read Pierce’s “Types and programming languages”. I usually cherry-pick paragraphs and sections from books rather than read them from start to finish, but this particular book I basically gulped down in two sittings on two-hour flights (being trapped in economy seating helps) and found extremely enlightening both in that it dissolved the mystery around some lofty-sounding words I was always afraid of (“corecursion” and “coinduction”, “terminating” vs “productive”) and in that it contained completely elementary mathematical insights that have previously passed me by (Tarski fixed point theorem and order theory in general). While I did have an advantage of having encountered, if not understood, basically all of the words inside it beforehand, I still believe it might be helpful even if you have absolutely no background in type systems. And don’t be put off by the use of Java in the case study, it is genuinely on point there. For a more practical and yet more advanced (dependent types!) view, you can try “Type-driven programming in Idris” and “The little typer”, but I haven’t studied the former as carefully and have only skimmed the latter, so can’t recommend either with the same degree of certainty. I guess just follow the general advice on difficult literature: look around, follow references, don’t hesitate to put down things that don’t work for you, and if all else fails, let it stew for a week before trying again.

by neolog 5y ago

mananaysiempre 5y ago

Calling me “knowledgeable” on this stuff might be a bit of a stretch, but then my standard of “knowledgeable” here is probably somewhere around “did a thesis on it”. The people on #haskell at Freenode (nowadays Libera) were extremely friendly and helpful when I frequented it about five to ten years ago, although of course there are a subtle but important limits to initiating discussions that are interesting to people on the channel but not strictly on topic for it. My more general advice is (for a double combo of both trite and condescending) read a book. Specifically, read Pierce’s “Types and programming languages”. I usually cherry-pick paragraphs and sections from books rather than read them from start to finish, but this particular book I basically gulped down in two sittings on two-hour flights (being trapped in economy seating helps) and found extremely enlightening both in that it dissolved the mystery around some lofty-sounding words I was always afraid of (“corecursion” and “coinduction”, “terminating” vs “productive”) and in that it contained completely elementary mathematical insights that have previously passed me by (Tarski fixed point theorem and order theory in general). While I did have an advantage of having encountered, if not understood, basically all of the words inside it beforehand, I still believe it might be helpful even if you have absolutely no background in type systems. And don’t be put off by the use of Java in the case study, it is genuinely on point there. For a more practical and yet more advanced (dependent types!) view, you can try “Type-driven programming in Idris” and “The little typer”, but I haven’t studied the former as carefully and have only skimmed the latter, so can’t recommend either with the same degree of certainty. I guess just follow the general advice on difficult literature: look around, follow references, don’t hesitate to put down things that don’t work for you, and if all else fails, let it stew for a week before trying again.