6 ms·
A Brief, Incomplete, and Mostly Wrong History of Programming Languages (2009)
- gnufx 5y agoThis was posted several times recently without anyone noting that it was the origin of "A monad is a monoid in the category of endofunctors, what's the problem?", which often seems to be quoted as if it wasn't attributed to Wadler satirically.
- patrickthebold 5y agoWithout the 'what's the problem', It's in 'categories for the working mathematician' by Saunders Mac Lane. Of course, it's entirely seriously in that book.
- karatinversion 5y agoAnd a perfectly fine turn of phrase in that context, too.
- LambdaComplex 5y agoAnd burritos are just tacoids in the category of enchiladafunctors. https://twitter.com/rickasaurus/status/705134684427128833 https://twitter.com/rickasaurus/status/705134684427128833
- benrbray 5y agoFor anyone looking for an explanation, this StackOverflow question [1] is worth a read. [1] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3870088/a-monad-is-just-a-monoid-in-the-category-of-endofunctors-whats-the-problem https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3870088/a-monad-is-just-...
- siraben 5y agoThe funny part is that it's completely true, albeit not very useful if one doesn't know how monoid constructions work categorically (good explanation at [0]). Algebra: Chapter 0 has a similar overly technical definition for groups (which they elaborate of course). Also see[1] Joke 1.1. Definition: A group is a groupoid with a single object. [0] https://old.reddit.com/r/math/comments/ap25mr/a_monad_is_a_monoid_in_the_category_of/ https://old.reddit.com/r/math/comments/ap25mr/a_monad_is_a_m... [1] https://i.pinimg.com/originals/e3/b6/23/e3b62382a9eb1021ff3086184c7ca05a.png https://i.pinimg.com/originals/e3/b6/23/e3b62382a9eb1021ff30...
- AzzieElbab 5y agoIt means monad is a thing that sequentially combines computations on the same type. Of course there is more to it but i believe this definition is useful as a starting point
- gnufx 5y agoI don't think anyone doubts the technical fact, or it wouldn't be a decent joke. The problem is if people think Wadler (might have) said it as such, and that it reflects a community attitude. It's trotted out often enough in a disparaging way. As far as I remember, Milewski left it to the end as something he just felt obliged to show.
- kristopolous 5y agoThere's a lot of rules on comedy this breaks. It could be much better with half of it removed
- rightbyte 5y agoI kinda miss these amateur non-meme not very funny joke essays on programming. Think Murphy's law kind of joke lists. Has the genre died to memes or does Google search just not present them anymore?
- kristopolous 5y agoprobably the latter. It's the same low effort style. Here's the most succinct crash course in comedy I know of https://misterandyriley.com/2016/10/31/how-to-talk-comedy-writer-updated/ https://misterandyriley.com/2016/10/31/how-to-talk-comedy-wr... In this article the biggest sin is this one: "Bananas on Bananas – similar to Jazz Trumpetry. Trying to top a punchline with another punchline right after it, and another, and another. Sometimes this might be great – but when it’s not, and the result is just tiring to watch/read/listen to, then you’ve got Bananas on Bananas. [via James Bachman and Simon Blackwell]" and its relative: "Hat On A Hat – this is in very common use in the USA, and has a similar yet subtly different meaning to ‘Two Sock.’ A Hat On A Hat is an occasion where two funny things are happening at the same moment in the script, or immediately adjacent moments, and those two comic ideas are each distracting from the other. The solution is normally simple: remove one of them." People like to think that comedy is a matter of opinion. That's totally false - it's the originator of audience testing and a/b testing. Starting in vaudeville performers would carefully study slight modifications to their routine and the audience reaction to them. Every comedian with a repeatable act learns what works and what doesn't. They cut/add/tweak/rearrange. You can clearly see this in early versus later work of your favorite standup. The maturation of everyone's routine follow the same general comedy rules of what stays and goes. It's a describable teachable learnable repeatable skill. It's the reason that lots of successful comedians come out of the groundlings and ucb. It's not a matter of opinion, there's decades of quantified research on this stuff. The OP article if it just followed basic comedy rules and structure would become immensely better.
- IgorPartola 5y agoWhat is the Grace Hopper/Ruby quip referencing?
- ByteJockey 5y agoI believe the ruby side of that is a 2009 talk given by Matt Aimonetti that contained an image of a scantily clad woman's rear end with the text: "CouchDB: Perform Like A Pr0n Star."
- astura 5y agohttps://martinfowler.com/bliki/SmutOnRails.html https://martinfowler.com/bliki/SmutOnRails.html >...there was a Ruby conference in San Francisco called GoGaRuCo (Golden Gate Ruby Conference). This conference has grabbed attention due to a talk at which the presenter illustrated a discussion of CouchDB by using sexually suggestive pictures of women
- santiagobasulto 5y agoI haven’t read this for a while. I personally find it very funny, so thanks for posting it.
- weimerica 5y agoShame the history ends in 1965.
- bear8642 5y agoWhat you mean? It extends til 2003
- disgruntledphd2 5y agoI'm pretty sure that's a GOTO joke.
- leephillips 5y agoWay funnier than I expected. Only defect is failure to mention APL.