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Math is a very broad field. The point of this article is that applied math is generally not done in functional programming, and is not typically part of compute

Math is a very broad field. The point of this article is that applied math is generally not done in functional programming, and is not typically part of computer science research (more often happens as dedicated applied math research). Types, logic, and category theory are the sort of things the author thinks that functional programming people concern themselves with, and he is raising the point that these mathematical concepts only help people create better languages and write safer code, not do "useful" things like weather/weapon simulations, solve optimization problems, or image/video processing.

discreteevent 14y ago
I agree - "Mathematics, in the end, does not help you understand computer programming. It is not about finding metaphors, or understanding “fundamentals” that will never be applied. Rather, mathematics is a tool for understanding phenomena in the world." - I couldn't agree more with this. I come from an Electrical Engineering background originally. We did a lot of applied mathematics (in the sense of the article). One year we had a lecturer from the mathematics department who didn't really have a clue about the kind of mathematics an engineer needs. He spent a lot of time proving the most basic/fundamental things, nearly down to the level of 1+1=2. My attitude at the time was "OK that's interesting but so what? I don't need it to get things done in the real world". Its the same thing with the lambda calculus or type theory for me. "OK I get the idea - so what". Its not really of any use to me. Its probably of very little use to anyone except programming language designers and there are very few of them. Its kind of disheartening to me then to see such a focus on these things, article after article. To me it seems that the field is very inward looking in this sense. For me code is just a tool for modeling/solving problems in the outside world. It is the outside world that is interesting. I think the emphasis in the article is the right one. If more people focused on applied mathematics rather than category theory then we probably would get more innovation. Eric Evans said something similar in Domain Driven Design "Instead, the technical talent goes to work on elaborate frame-works, trying to solve domain problems with technology. Learning about and modeling the domain is left to others. Complexity in the heart of software has to be tackled head-on. To do otherwise is to risk irrelevance." One problem though is that I do like lisp and its lineage (smalltalk etc). Had to take fortran years ago. Never really liked it.
p4bl0 14y ago
Okay thank you, I didn't really got that from the article, it makes a lot more sense now. As I see it now the author is saying using maths as an example that what the world needs is not programmers, but rather mathematicians, physicists, biologists, … who can make use of programming in addition to their field's knowledge to solve problems. This is true and I agree, but I'll add that to make programming advance as a tool for everyone to use, we also need computer scientists who can make use of programming in addition to their field's knowledge to solve problems, and that's what I was talking about in my previous comment.

discreteevent 14y ago

I agree - "Mathematics, in the end, does not help you understand computer programming. It is not about finding metaphors, or understanding “fundamentals” that will never be applied. Rather, mathematics is a tool for understanding phenomena in the world." - I couldn't agree more with this. I come from an Electrical Engineering background originally. We did a lot of applied mathematics (in the sense of the article). One year we had a lecturer from the mathematics department who didn't really have a clue about the kind of mathematics an engineer needs. He spent a lot of time proving the most basic/fundamental things, nearly down to the level of 1+1=2. My attitude at the time was "OK that's interesting but so what? I don't need it to get things done in the real world". Its the same thing with the lambda calculus or type theory for me. "OK I get the idea - so what". Its not really of any use to me. Its probably of very little use to anyone except programming language designers and there are very few of them. Its kind of disheartening to me then to see such a focus on these things, article after article. To me it seems that the field is very inward looking in this sense. For me code is just a tool for modeling/solving problems in the outside world. It is the outside world that is interesting. I think the emphasis in the article is the right one. If more people focused on applied mathematics rather than category theory then we probably would get more innovation. Eric Evans said something similar in Domain Driven Design "Instead, the technical talent goes to work on elaborate frame-works, trying to solve domain problems with technology. Learning about and modeling the domain is left to others. Complexity in the heart of software has to be tackled head-on. To do otherwise is to risk irrelevance." One problem though is that I do like lisp and its lineage (smalltalk etc). Had to take fortran years ago. Never really liked it.

p4bl0 14y ago

Okay thank you, I didn't really got that from the article, it makes a lot more sense now. As I see it now the author is saying using maths as an example that what the world needs is not programmers, but rather mathematicians, physicists, biologists, … who can make use of programming in addition to their field's knowledge to solve problems. This is true and I agree, but I'll add that to make programming advance as a tool for everyone to use, we also need computer scientists who can make use of programming in addition to their field's knowledge to solve problems, and that's what I was talking about in my previous comment.