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I can understand that category theory is alien to most developers, but lambda calculus? Isn't it similarly basic knowledge in CS as Turing machines, finite stat
by trenchgun 4y ago
I can understand that category theory is alien to most developers, but lambda calculus? Isn't it similarly basic knowledge in CS as Turing machines, finite state automata etc?
- donatzsky 4y agoWhy do you assume that all developers have studied CS?
- alltheworlds 4y agosigh Do you really think this or are you just projecting elitism?
- antonvs 4y agoMost developers have never even heard of lambda calculus.
- zabzonk 4y agoi wouldn't say that lambda calculus or turing machines have ever been part of my programming toolkit (i do know what they are), and i wouldn't expect say a new programming hire to know much at all about them. FSAs are a bit more useful, but you can get an awful lot of development work done without direct knowledge of them.
- Thorrez 4y agoI got a bachelor's in CS and never learned lambda calculus.
- TillE 4y agoSame. Turing machines and FSA yes, lambda calculus no.
- eddsh1994 4y agoNope, I'd say 90% of developers globally would not know lambda calculus. And in non-functional languages when was the last time you had to consider the differences between Beta and Eta conversions/reductions when writing a Django SaaS? Or a Java Swing GUI? Software engineering != Computer science
- qwertywert_ 4y agoLambda calculus is not a required class in my university in either CompEng or CompSci.. Formal theory of computation (finite state automata etc.) was also a higher level elective that depended on your concentration.