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The desire of the HN community to pull a random person's uninformed opinion about a topic that they, justifiably, wrote for their own interests and amusement an

by voxl 1y ago

The desire of the HN community to pull a random person's uninformed opinion about a topic that they, justifiably, wrote for their own interests and amusement and then pontificate about how either stupid or amazing it is will never ceise to confuse me. Effects on their own are a very active area of research and I would laugh behind a PL researchers back if they claimed it was a solved issue. Between Monads, call-by-push-value, and algebraic effects there is really no clear "how do people actually use this" answer. But that's not the job of a PL researcher anyway, or a random software engineer for that matter. Sorry to say, the software engineer knows next to nothing about "the right way" to design language features that people want to use or enjoy using. If anything this should be an HCI person with a penchant for PL or vice versa.

eli_gottlieb 1y ago
>Effects on their own are a very active area of research and I would laugh behind a PL researchers back if they claimed it was a solved issue. Between Monads, call-by-push-value, and algebraic effects there is really no clear "how do people actually use this" answer. I can actually say that I used algebraic effects in my thesis for the section on semantics of a basic probabilistic programming language. It avoided talking about monads for my committee member who cared and honestly made for an easier implementation.
rednafi 1y ago
> Sorry to say, the software engineer knows next to nothing about "the right way" to design language features that people want to use or enjoy using. Sorry to say that many PL researchers live in their ivory tower and know next to nothing about things that people care about. One could say that it's not their job, their job is to write papers and get tenure. The number of FP enthusiasts versus the number of large, useful systems written in those languages is all the proof you need. My statement is a vast generalization and is equally incorrect as the original one.
- voxl 1y ago
  Anyone who uses words like "ivory tower" I know suffers more from jealousy and anti-intellectualiam than anything else. There is a reason Rust is the most loved programming language of modern times and it's not because they ignored the "ivory tower"
  - chownie 1y ago
    I had to stop and re-read this comment chain because I was sure this was satire

by voxl 1y ago

eli_gottlieb 1y ago

>Effects on their own are a very active area of research and I would laugh behind a PL researchers back if they claimed it was a solved issue. Between Monads, call-by-push-value, and algebraic effects there is really no clear "how do people actually use this" answer. I can actually say that I used algebraic effects in my thesis for the section on semantics of a basic probabilistic programming language. It avoided talking about monads for my committee member who cared and honestly made for an easier implementation.

rednafi 1y ago

> Sorry to say, the software engineer knows next to nothing about "the right way" to design language features that people want to use or enjoy using. Sorry to say that many PL researchers live in their ivory tower and know next to nothing about things that people care about. One could say that it's not their job, their job is to write papers and get tenure. The number of FP enthusiasts versus the number of large, useful systems written in those languages is all the proof you need. My statement is a vast generalization and is equally incorrect as the original one.

voxl 1y ago
Anyone who uses words like "ivory tower" I know suffers more from jealousy and anti-intellectualiam than anything else. There is a reason Rust is the most loved programming language of modern times and it's not because they ignored the "ivory tower"
- chownie 1y ago
  I had to stop and re-read this comment chain because I was sure this was satire