3 ms·

There is a lot of repetition in programming. Could this more abstract reasoning about symmetries inspire language research?

• skybrian 3y ago
  Maybe, but not directly, and it could easily be done badly. Relying explicitly on abstract symmetries tends to make code more mathematical, harder to read, and harder to explain. (See the many attempts at explaining monads for a relatively accessible example.) A bit of repetition to avoid relying on a difficult-to-understand mathematical construct is often a good tradeoff when writing code for others to read. It's similar to how adding a dependency on a powerful library to do something trivial isn't a good move.