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>they do not in any way inhibit the ability to analyse or prove correct a program, and all alternatives to callbacks amount to incredibly fancy syntax sugar for

>they do not in any way inhibit the ability to analyse or prove correct a program, and all alternatives to callbacks amount to incredibly fancy syntax sugar for hiding what is really happening behind the scenes anyway. 1) EVERYTHING is 'syntax sugar'. 2) There's nothing intrinsically wrong with gotos, they just aren't very well suited for human brains. Computers can execute goto statements very efficiently. Callback-hell smells very much like gotos to me. It's very easy to do the wrong thing and easy to create very hard to read, hard to understand, and hard to maintain code.

KirinDave 13y ago
> 1) EVERYTHING is 'syntax sugar'. The OPs counter argument argument is against treating some syntactic sugar as special and novel when it is in fact not. Even voice commands are syntactic sugar, but they're way better for the lay user. Although I dunno what he's talking about with "I can't talk to my computer." My phone is learning a lot of tricks, really fast. > Callback-hell smells very much like gotos to me. It's very easy to do the wrong thing and easy to create very hard to read, hard to understand, and hard to maintain code. This is mostly because people try to treat higher order functional code as in fact just a fancy syntax. Writing higher-order functional code (code that creates, consumes, and modifies functions) requires a set of alternative disciplines that most people in our industry not only don't learn, but actively despise and in many cases mock. Even otherwise brilliant, smarter-than-me people I look up to do this and then declare the entire functional concept bankrupt. It drives me nuts. Once upon a time, when people saw OO code then turned their nose and said, "You shouldn't need to define hierarchies and ontologies just to reason about your code! How stupid is that!" But then proven models came out and the industry half-assed adopting it (remember Taligent? No? Look it up). So many developers these days are whining and grousing about how static type systems inhibit their freedom and higher order functions are whacky propeller-head notions that only nerds take seriously. And yet they wonder why the bulk of the industry moves at a glacial pace. I'm happy that Erlang's nearly-30-year-old proposition and some of the implications Needham's duality are finally reaching mainstream computing.
- arh68 13y ago
  > This is mostly because people try to treat higher order functional code as in fact just a fancy syntax. Writing higher-order functional code (code that creates, consumes, and modifies functions) requires a set of alternative disciplines that most people in our industry not only don't learn, but actively despise and in many cases mock. Well it's a hell of a lot harder to write a good verb than it is to write a good noun. Similarly, writing good adverbs is nearly impossible (how many books on Lisp macros do you know of?). If I had to teach my Mom to code, I wouldn't teach her how to zip, fold, map & reduce lists-of-lists on the fly, I'd teach her the FullName noun. Callbacks are just gotos that return. They can also pass along non-global context, like error information. It's a subtle distinction, and to be up in arms about it is indeed strange. The industry moves slowly because they can afford to. A few million dollars can feed a hundred developers. The codebases get so large, the teams so big, that lowest-common-denominator kind of code will always prevail. Remember what I was going to teach my mom? Not lisp macros, no. Simple nouns, simple mechanisms.
  - KirinDave 13y ago
    Prepare for a solid fisking. > Well it's a hell of a lot harder to write a good verb than it is to write a good noun. See, that's your indoctrination talking. Really both are about equally hard. The actual definition of zip is pretty simple; assuming you have trained yourself to think about it the right way. This is no different from OO. The idea that imperative programming is "natural" is sort of a myth. > (how many books on Lisp macros do you know of?) Quite a few, actually! But I'm not sure why this matters;. Lips macros have 0 to do with not only this conversation, but this entire family of abstractions. Macros bear no resemblance to what we're talking about. > If I had to teach my Mom to code, I wouldn't teach her how to zip, fold, map & reduce lists-of-lists on the fly, I'd teach her the FullName noun. Why? People think verb-first all the time, describe things in verb-first ways, and act in verb first ways. They do it all the time, an it's not unnatural. > Callbacks are just gotos that return. Not really. > They can also pass along non-global context, like error information. If they are implemented with continuations, they do a lot more. But see also coroutines. > The industry moves slowly because they can afford to. I submit that the resurgence of the small software shop and the incredible successes that small software startups have been seeing is a counter-argument to this. As backwards as the average Node.js shop is, they're still light-years ahead of the befuddled, ossified monstrosities that they compete with. > A few million dollars can feed a hundred developers. You should be ashamed of this remark. > The codebases get so large, the teams so big, that lowest-common-denominator kind of code will always prevail. Bridges are not constructed this way. > Remember what I was going to teach my mom? Not lisp macros, no. Simple nouns, simple mechanisms. Stop patronizing people. You're pretty smug for someone who doesn't know lisp. I thought being smug was my job as a lisp hacker!
marcosdumay 13y ago
> There's nothing intrinsically wrong with gotos... Computers can execute goto statements very efficiently. That's because the problem is analyzing the goto statements, not executing them. And computers suck at it, less than humans, but still suck.
- i_s 13y ago
  You snipped out the part where he said exactly that.

KirinDave 13y ago

> 1) EVERYTHING is 'syntax sugar'. The OPs counter argument argument is against treating some syntactic sugar as special and novel when it is in fact not. Even voice commands are syntactic sugar, but they're way better for the lay user. Although I dunno what he's talking about with "I can't talk to my computer." My phone is learning a lot of tricks, really fast. > Callback-hell smells very much like gotos to me. It's very easy to do the wrong thing and easy to create very hard to read, hard to understand, and hard to maintain code. This is mostly because people try to treat higher order functional code as in fact just a fancy syntax. Writing higher-order functional code (code that creates, consumes, and modifies functions) requires a set of alternative disciplines that most people in our industry not only don't learn, but actively despise and in many cases mock. Even otherwise brilliant, smarter-than-me people I look up to do this and then declare the entire functional concept bankrupt. It drives me nuts. Once upon a time, when people saw OO code then turned their nose and said, "You shouldn't need to define hierarchies and ontologies just to reason about your code! How stupid is that!" But then proven models came out and the industry half-assed adopting it (remember Taligent? No? Look it up). So many developers these days are whining and grousing about how static type systems inhibit their freedom and higher order functions are whacky propeller-head notions that only nerds take seriously. And yet they wonder why the bulk of the industry moves at a glacial pace. I'm happy that Erlang's nearly-30-year-old proposition and some of the implications Needham's duality are finally reaching mainstream computing.

arh68 13y ago
> This is mostly because people try to treat higher order functional code as in fact just a fancy syntax. Writing higher-order functional code (code that creates, consumes, and modifies functions) requires a set of alternative disciplines that most people in our industry not only don't learn, but actively despise and in many cases mock. Well it's a hell of a lot harder to write a good verb than it is to write a good noun. Similarly, writing good adverbs is nearly impossible (how many books on Lisp macros do you know of?). If I had to teach my Mom to code, I wouldn't teach her how to zip, fold, map & reduce lists-of-lists on the fly, I'd teach her the FullName noun. Callbacks are just gotos that return. They can also pass along non-global context, like error information. It's a subtle distinction, and to be up in arms about it is indeed strange. The industry moves slowly because they can afford to. A few million dollars can feed a hundred developers. The codebases get so large, the teams so big, that lowest-common-denominator kind of code will always prevail. Remember what I was going to teach my mom? Not lisp macros, no. Simple nouns, simple mechanisms.
- KirinDave 13y ago
  Prepare for a solid fisking. > Well it's a hell of a lot harder to write a good verb than it is to write a good noun. See, that's your indoctrination talking. Really both are about equally hard. The actual definition of zip is pretty simple; assuming you have trained yourself to think about it the right way. This is no different from OO. The idea that imperative programming is "natural" is sort of a myth. > (how many books on Lisp macros do you know of?) Quite a few, actually! But I'm not sure why this matters;. Lips macros have 0 to do with not only this conversation, but this entire family of abstractions. Macros bear no resemblance to what we're talking about. > If I had to teach my Mom to code, I wouldn't teach her how to zip, fold, map & reduce lists-of-lists on the fly, I'd teach her the FullName noun. Why? People think verb-first all the time, describe things in verb-first ways, and act in verb first ways. They do it all the time, an it's not unnatural. > Callbacks are just gotos that return. Not really. > They can also pass along non-global context, like error information. If they are implemented with continuations, they do a lot more. But see also coroutines. > The industry moves slowly because they can afford to. I submit that the resurgence of the small software shop and the incredible successes that small software startups have been seeing is a counter-argument to this. As backwards as the average Node.js shop is, they're still light-years ahead of the befuddled, ossified monstrosities that they compete with. > A few million dollars can feed a hundred developers. You should be ashamed of this remark. > The codebases get so large, the teams so big, that lowest-common-denominator kind of code will always prevail. Bridges are not constructed this way. > Remember what I was going to teach my mom? Not lisp macros, no. Simple nouns, simple mechanisms. Stop patronizing people. You're pretty smug for someone who doesn't know lisp. I thought being smug was my job as a lisp hacker!

marcosdumay 13y ago

> There's nothing intrinsically wrong with gotos... Computers can execute goto statements very efficiently. That's because the problem is analyzing the goto statements, not executing them. And computers suck at it, less than humans, but still suck.

i_s 13y ago
You snipped out the part where he said exactly that.