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> This kind of stuff is built for a very different kind of brain than mine, that's for sure. No it isn't, and this attitude doesn't do you any good. This stuff

by 4ad 4y ago

> This kind of stuff is built for a very different kind of brain than mine, that's for sure. No it isn't, and this attitude doesn't do you any good. This stuff only seems difficult because it's unfamiliar, but I can assure you it's simpler than whatever "real life" technology you are proficient in. FP concepts are very simple (so very easy to understand!), the real power comes from their true compositionality, which is also why you don't need a "special brain" to understand what is happening -- concepts compose!

sriram_malhar 4y ago
At a 50000 foot level, I will accept your statement. Concepts composition is a delightful property. But at a lower level, it is a slog. I have tried somewhat hard (e.g understanding different monads, writing a tutorial --- doesn't everybody?) to plough through the language and the libraries, but after some point I got tired having to learn one more new concept, one more language extension, all for doing fairly routine things. Now, I'm reasonably confident that I _could_ master it if my life depended on it, but it feels so .... tedious. > it's simpler than whatever "real life" technology you are proficient in. That has certainly not been my experience, alas. I'm constantly unsure of whether a piece of code is idiomatic enough, abstract enough or whether it is a simple composition of some other concepts. I suppose there is a particular hump beyond which these things click into place, but I haven't come close to it. Secondly, producing any real life technology requires me to fit that tech and Haskell bindings (should they exist) together in one brain. That said, Haskell's been a wonderful fit for writing a compiler for a pet toy language. And monads changed the way I write code in mainstream languages.
- moralestapia 4y ago
  >And monads changed the way I write code in mainstream languages. This is my main takeaway from Haskell and other FP languages and it is what I always tell others. FP is the "paint the fence" of code. Learn FP and you will become much more proficient in every other language that you end up using.

by 4ad 4y ago

sriram_malhar 4y ago

At a 50000 foot level, I will accept your statement. Concepts composition is a delightful property. But at a lower level, it is a slog. I have tried somewhat hard (e.g understanding different monads, writing a tutorial --- doesn't everybody?) to plough through the language and the libraries, but after some point I got tired having to learn one more new concept, one more language extension, all for doing fairly routine things. Now, I'm reasonably confident that I _could_ master it if my life depended on it, but it feels so .... tedious. > it's simpler than whatever "real life" technology you are proficient in. That has certainly not been my experience, alas. I'm constantly unsure of whether a piece of code is idiomatic enough, abstract enough or whether it is a simple composition of some other concepts. I suppose there is a particular hump beyond which these things click into place, but I haven't come close to it. Secondly, producing any real life technology requires me to fit that tech and Haskell bindings (should they exist) together in one brain. That said, Haskell's been a wonderful fit for writing a compiler for a pet toy language. And monads changed the way I write code in mainstream languages.

moralestapia 4y ago
>And monads changed the way I write code in mainstream languages. This is my main takeaway from Haskell and other FP languages and it is what I always tell others. FP is the "paint the fence" of code. Learn FP and you will become much more proficient in every other language that you end up using.