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Let's burn some karma to point out the toxicity found in many individuals from the functional language crowd. > I was not being rude. Translation: the person

Let's burn some karma to point out the toxicity found in many individuals from the functional language crowd. > I was not being rude. Translation: the person asking needs to RTFM because they have a problem with something that is obvious or I don't understand and it doesn't matter which. This isn't being rude. > It’d be immensely more helpful and productive if coming into a language meant one would spend the time to read, learn, and understand that language’s conventions and standard library and read the source code for it! Translation: the person asking is wasting time, being unhelpful and unproductive asking questions > I still have enough of it learned because that is my job. It’s what we get paid well to do. Translation: the person asking must not be doing their job because they don't understand things the way I do (I'm a software perfectionist, ofc) I believe The Erlang (and through extension, Elixir) community seems to engender and defend this kind of back-handed approach to "helping". It doesn't just come off as elitist, it is often little more than taunting. Suggesting that someone pours over documentation (and laughably source code) to explain patterns (or a lack thereof) in a highly abstracted language is counter-productive. For the record, I'll just hide your posts from now on as you cannot seem to help yourself bob.

jitter_ 3y ago
I'm not here to pick a side. I'm sure all of us can be more friendly to each other. However, I'm a bit curious about when you say > Suggesting that someone pours over documentation (and laughably source code) to explain patterns (or a lack thereof) in a highly abstracted language is counter-productive. Isn't that what documentation is for? To learn about whatever's being documented. What would you suggest would be the better way to convey this information? For source code, I can see your point. Although in my experience source code has the benefit that you can be certain that it doesn't lie. It does exactly what it says. Sometimes this can be a really nice benefit when trying to figure out what's going on. Regardless of the language or environment you are in.
- Supermancho 3y ago
  > Isn't that what documentation is for? I would agree, if everything was documented. The issue at-hand is what is not explicitly documented. What constitutes a guard-worthy function? ie A pure javadoc without any notation about what the API does, is not sufficient.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - josevalim 3y ago
    > The issue at-hand is what is not explicitly documented. What constitutes a guard-worthy function? https://hexdocs.pm/elixir/1.15/patterns-and-guards.html#guards https://hexdocs.pm/elixir/1.15/patterns-and-guards.html#guar... Plus the docs lists on the sidebar which custom functions are guards. Examples: https://hexdocs.pm/elixir/1.15/Integer.html#guards https://hexdocs.pm/elixir/1.15/Integer.html#guards
    - Supermancho 3y ago
      The question was about why not what is allowed as a guard. Perhaps this was not clear amongst the noise.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
bobwaycott 3y ago
You are reading an incredible amount of hostility into my comments that is not there. > Translation: the person asking needs to RTFM because they have a problem with something that is obvious or I don't understand and it doesn't matter which. This isn't being rude. That’s an incredibly uncharitable translation and doesn’t accurately match my meaning or intent. At each point in this thread, other commenters and I have provided explanations and linked documentation. Each response has been of the form “sure thing / that’s true, but it’s not obvious to me”. Then a repetition of the core complaint. This has led to more attempts at explanation and linking documentation, just to get the same response. Saying RTFM is one thing, but it’s simply not rude to suggest reading docs would bring clarity (and suggesting reading docs would help is not the same as answering “RTFM”). > Translation: the person asking is wasting time, being unhelpful and unproductive asking questions Not at all. I haven’t once felt like the person asking was wasting time, being unhelpful, or being unproductive asking questions. My comment was simply saying that it is immensely more helpful and productive [to a person entering Elixir for the first time] to read Elixir docs and guides and, where accessible, the language/stdlib source (it’s all Elixir), because it pays serious and continuous dividends on the journey of mastering the language—compared to jumping in deep before you’ve built an intuitive understanding of how it works. It wasn’t a slight or an insult. It was the same advice I received early in my career in a completely different language that has proven itself true with every language I’ve learned since. > Translation: the person asking must not be doing their job because they don't understand things the way I do (I'm a software perfectionist, ofc) Amusing weaponization of my HN profile, but your translation is still unfair. Complaining about memorizing a handful of guard functions felt to me like complaining about doing the job. I don’t expect anyone to understand things the way I do. Nor was I trying to backhandedly insult or taunt. I spend nearly half my working hours each week reviewing thousands of lines of Elixir code from hundreds of engineers, pairing with 10s of them, helping people learn, explaining how things work, and learning new things myself alongside them every day. Every time anyone doesn’t understand something, it’s an opportunity for us to pair up, dig in, review docs, come up with new explanations, show off code to explain and cement concepts, etc. That’s not the same thing as complaining and labeling something as a language problem, have multiple people trying to help explain it, but keep saying “but it’s not obvious and doesn’t match my expectations, so that’s Language X’s fault.”

jitter_ 3y ago

I'm not here to pick a side. I'm sure all of us can be more friendly to each other. However, I'm a bit curious about when you say > Suggesting that someone pours over documentation (and laughably source code) to explain patterns (or a lack thereof) in a highly abstracted language is counter-productive. Isn't that what documentation is for? To learn about whatever's being documented. What would you suggest would be the better way to convey this information? For source code, I can see your point. Although in my experience source code has the benefit that you can be certain that it doesn't lie. It does exactly what it says. Sometimes this can be a really nice benefit when trying to figure out what's going on. Regardless of the language or environment you are in.

Supermancho 3y ago
> Isn't that what documentation is for? I would agree, if everything was documented. The issue at-hand is what is not explicitly documented. What constitutes a guard-worthy function? ie A pure javadoc without any notation about what the API does, is not sufficient.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- josevalim 3y ago
  > The issue at-hand is what is not explicitly documented. What constitutes a guard-worthy function? https://hexdocs.pm/elixir/1.15/patterns-and-guards.html#guards https://hexdocs.pm/elixir/1.15/patterns-and-guards.html#guar... Plus the docs lists on the sidebar which custom functions are guards. Examples: https://hexdocs.pm/elixir/1.15/Integer.html#guards https://hexdocs.pm/elixir/1.15/Integer.html#guards
  - Supermancho 3y ago
    The question was about why not what is allowed as a guard. Perhaps this was not clear amongst the noise.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]

bobwaycott 3y ago

You are reading an incredible amount of hostility into my comments that is not there. > Translation: the person asking needs to RTFM because they have a problem with something that is obvious or I don't understand and it doesn't matter which. This isn't being rude. That’s an incredibly uncharitable translation and doesn’t accurately match my meaning or intent. At each point in this thread, other commenters and I have provided explanations and linked documentation. Each response has been of the form “sure thing / that’s true, but it’s not obvious to me”. Then a repetition of the core complaint. This has led to more attempts at explanation and linking documentation, just to get the same response. Saying RTFM is one thing, but it’s simply not rude to suggest reading docs would bring clarity (and suggesting reading docs would help is not the same as answering “RTFM”). > Translation: the person asking is wasting time, being unhelpful and unproductive asking questions Not at all. I haven’t once felt like the person asking was wasting time, being unhelpful, or being unproductive asking questions. My comment was simply saying that it is immensely more helpful and productive [to a person entering Elixir for the first time] to read Elixir docs and guides and, where accessible, the language/stdlib source (it’s all Elixir), because it pays serious and continuous dividends on the journey of mastering the language—compared to jumping in deep before you’ve built an intuitive understanding of how it works. It wasn’t a slight or an insult. It was the same advice I received early in my career in a completely different language that has proven itself true with every language I’ve learned since. > Translation: the person asking must not be doing their job because they don't understand things the way I do (I'm a software perfectionist, ofc) Amusing weaponization of my HN profile, but your translation is still unfair. Complaining about memorizing a handful of guard functions felt to me like complaining about doing the job. I don’t expect anyone to understand things the way I do. Nor was I trying to backhandedly insult or taunt. I spend nearly half my working hours each week reviewing thousands of lines of Elixir code from hundreds of engineers, pairing with 10s of them, helping people learn, explaining how things work, and learning new things myself alongside them every day. Every time anyone doesn’t understand something, it’s an opportunity for us to pair up, dig in, review docs, come up with new explanations, show off code to explain and cement concepts, etc. That’s not the same thing as complaining and labeling something as a language problem, have multiple people trying to help explain it, but keep saying “but it’s not obvious and doesn’t match my expectations, so that’s Language X’s fault.”