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My issue with this is that, quite aside from my lack of understanding of what's going on, the author is constantly professing their lack of understanding of the
by mattdw 13y ago
My issue with this is that, quite aside from my lack of understanding of what's going on, the author is constantly professing their lack of understanding of the underlying details.
> I still don't know a thing about what F or Coyoneda mean. But it isn't really slowing me down.
They're essentially cargo-culting signatures, and while sometimes that can be enough to stimulate proper understanding, I worry that the first time something goes wrong the author will be hard-pressed to solve it. It seems like a useful way to stumble around in unexplored areas; it doesn't seem like a good way to build software you're going to have to maintain and support.
- the_af 13y agoI couldn't maintain or understand the low-level code Java depends on without great effort (I know I could if I devoted enough time, which I usually don't have). Same for low-level libraries for C or any other language. I think the argument here is that -- given that there are no problems with the library; otherwise you're screwed in any language -- type information for Haskell libraries gives you more useful information than docs & tutorials for libraries in other languages. The author repeatedly asserts that he is not scared of math, and would probably be able to understand the libraries he uses if he spent the time. It's just that he doesn't need to.